Sex selective abortions

[midgetastic]

It seems the Scottish government have been advised to allow abortion on the grounds of sex - will they really go through with such a dreadful policy ? What am I missing?

Agree with you. Most abortions are not late term, and if there is danger to life, I accept.. but I can't get behind post-viability otherwise.

This isn't the US, we have safe abortion available for earlier on.

There IS a middle ground between personhood from conception and personhood after birth.

These proposed Scottish changes would not change the rules for post 24 week abortions. They would still be only for medical reasons and there’s no reason they’d increase from the less than 1% of abortions that they are now.

Over 80% of abortions are before 10 weeks, and I don’t think anything that is proposed to change in Scotland would change that.

So it's basically a case of, this is where we are with the law as it stands? Women effectively already have the option, if you want to put it that way.

In the late 90s you were not told the sex of your baby by our local hospital, the nurse explained that it’s because some cultures terminate girls. Due to this no one could be told the sex during a hospital scan. (UK hospital)

Currently the law is that abortion is illegal unless two doctors agree that a woman can have one for a set of specified reasons - almost all abortions are carried out under reason C, that the pregnancy will be detrimental to the woman’s physical or mental health. Later abortions are often under reason E which is substantial health issues with the baby, although they can also be carried out to save the mother’s life.

In practice, women do not speak to two drs. They do not justify why the abortion would be detrimental to their mental health. So a change in the law would be bringing it in line with what is already happening, which is essentially abortion on demand.

I’ve just doubled checked the stats I mentioned earlier and I was slightly off. 89% of abortions in England and Wales are before 10 weeks, and 0.1% are after 24 weeks. Changing the law to formalise what is already happening would have no reason to change those numbers. But it would mean abortion isn’t actually illegal.

Thanks.

I bet neither the abortion doctors, nor the policy writers, will refer to the baby girl foetuses as being ‘assigned’ female either.

While sex selection is certainly immoral so is the alternative these women face if they can't sex select & that's endless forced child birth until they 'strike it lucky'.

And in terms of numbers it's not as if it's a massive concern in Western countries given their offspring will likely be assimilated & therefore not continue this 'tradition' that's a product of financial insecurity in third world countries.

https://unherd.com/2025/11/what-progressives-wont-say-about-abortion/

Kathleen Stock has written this about these changes.

I agree with the big ethical issues that we remain silent over around abortion and this ‘any reason’ just makes the whole thing so casual, and potentially callous, and definitely opens the door to sex selection

What are thoughts generally on that now?

It seems unnecessary because Drs are not agreeing to carry out post-20 week abortions without a solid reason (health of mother or baby). Hardly any abortions (less than 1%) occur after 20 weeks so even though the same rules are in place for an abortion at 20 weeks as at 6 weeks, they aren’t treated even close to the same by women or by medical professionals.

ETA - it also seems unnecessary because it’s now so easy to find out the sex of your baby in other ways - a private scan from 16 weeks, or an at home blood test from 6 weeks.

Sex-specific abortions are generally abhorrent but if a parent is so sexist as to want one, then any child of the "wrong" sex born to that parent will have a miserable life in any case so the abortion is a compassionate act to prevent the child's suffering. Of course the subsequent child eventually conceived of the "right" sex will also have a miserable life too, but in some cases will never be conceived.

I share a lot of the concerns of Dr Stock in the upthread.

But I also get a weird creepy feeling when she links to that man's blog Percuity which is avowedly about 'abortion and falling birth rates'.

Rather than just leave it there, attributing rising abortion rates to at-home pills (true) why doesn't she go into the OTHER reasons the rates are rising?

Cost of living crisis is the reason 6 in 10 women cite for why they are having an abortion. Maybe with the support, many would want another child.

Covid cut into access to birth control, and do have funding cuts.

Austerity curs

It's notable that UK has improved a lot but STILL has a higher teen pregnancy rate than most of Europe. A lot of this is tied to austerity cuts and the most deprived regions of the UK, like Blackpool

Our government claims to be Labour, they need to tackle these issues!

I wish Dr Stock would have dug into them in the article.

Almost all abortions are carried out under reason C, that the pregnancy will be detrimental to the woman’s physical or mental health because continuation of pregnancy is always riskier than an early termination.

Quite an elegant way to reveal the cost of pregnancy and birth, and emphasise that having a child should be a choice.

Is there an explanation of why anyone wants to change the current set up?

I'm getting Chesterton's Fence vibes.

Especially as the Scotgov's favourite lark is to bulldoze existing legislation in the name of progress and bettering Westminster, often only to find in hindsight that laws were built a certain way for a reason.

They do backwards learning, it seems. At a phenomenal cost to the tax payer every time.

OP, basically you are not pro choice.

You believe that society / you / doctors / gvt / god / other (tick all that apply) should be able to decide whether a woman continues with a pregnancy growing within he’s own body, and on what terms.

Like many things abortion is complex and nuanced. There are a range of views and factors. Its not all Xtian forced-birthers v eugenicists.

I think there has always been a push from some people (and I agree with them) to change it so it’s not actually illegal, it’s just a medical procedure like any other.

Like the change that happened in England & Wales earlier this year in the crime and policing bill - it decriminalised abortion for women, but still kept the two dr sign off requirement and the requirement for it to be done under one of the specific reasons. Personally I think that should have gone as well but decriminalising it for the women is a start.

I think probably two reasons.

1. Some people feel ideologically, as we see in the thread, that there should be no limits related to ethics, the reasons for abortion should be totally up to the mother. Presumably these people would accept abortions for things like eye colour, intelligence, athletic ability, or anything else it might be possible to one day test for.

2. Others I think are less ideologically motivated, but think that effectivly, #1 is already the case, and that it is a bad idea to have the law say one thing and yet subvert that in practice. It's open to a kind of arbitrary element or even abuse.

Are there figures for the number of males v females in each age group? Females in the 18 to 30 age group must be outnumbered 2 men for each woman at present.

@NamechangeraginIt was the same at Bradford Royal Infirmary in the late 90s. Unfortunately a friend at the same hospital was witness to the consequences of this when a woman in the same room as her after giving birth was physically attacked by her mother in law after giving birth to a girl. My friend said it was truly shocking, and the mother refused to engage with the baby at all. God knows what sort of life that poor girl had.

Cost of living crisis is the reason 6 in 10 women cite for why they are having an abortion. Maybe with the support, many would want another child.

That is beyond sad, emotionally and physically there is an impact.

That’s an example of why simply banning sex selective abortion is not going to solve the underlying issue.

Force the woman to give birth and then just wash your hands of the issues for the child and the family is what anti choice campaigners in America are like.

If you want to reduce abortion (whether the abortion is requested for financial reasons, sex selective, disability etc) the most beneficial way to do it isn’t to ban it (I’d include Sally Phillips’ campaign against testing for Down’s syndrome in pregnancy in this as well), it’s to look at the root causes of why the abortion is wanted. Would more women feel able to continue a pregnancy with a child with Down’s syndrome if they felt that the necessary systems and support (medical, financial, education system, societal views, lifelong assistance) were in place and working and it wasn’t going to be a continuous battle with various agencies, for example.
Who have you really helped by banning a sex selective abortion if the child is then born, her grandmother physically attacks her mother and her mother doesn’t engage with her at all? I wouldn’t exactly call that a win. Poor child. That’s a heartbreaking story.