House Debates Banning Sex-Selective Abortions

[Frodo]

A pro-choicer being against sex selective abortions is a hell of an oxymoron

Not if women's rights is more important to you than cultural relativism. 

The whole idea behind people being "pro-choice" is that no one should be able to influence what a women decides to do with own her own body. It doesn't matter if what her motivation is convince, rape or incest so why is sex selective different? Or is it only a Women's choice when it's not inconvenient for the pro choice argument?

It's hardly a woman's free choice to abort her baby for whatever reason when she's been effectively brainwashed by her culture into believing that sons are far more valuable than daughters, and that therefore the latter should be aborted if at all possible.  That is where I draw the line in the sand. 

[Yelnoc]

A pro-choicer being against sex selective abortions is a hell of an oxymoron

Not if women's rights is more important to you than cultural relativism. 

The whole idea behind people being "pro-choice" is that no one should be able to influence what a women decides to do with own her own body. It doesn't matter if what her motivation is convince, rape or incest so why is sex selective different? Or is it only a Women's choice when it's not inconvenient for the pro choice argument?

She is the fetus?

[I Can't Get That Sound You Make, Out Of My Head]

No. It's not a problem in the US and it infringes on human rights.

[Purch]

A pro-choicer being against sex selective abortions is a hell of an oxymoron

Not if women's rights is more important to you than cultural relativism.  

The whole idea behind people being "pro-choice" is that no one should be able to influence what a women decides to do with own her own body. It doesn't matter if what her motivation is convince, rape or incest so why is sex selective different? Or is it only a Women's choice when it's not inconvenient for the pro choice argument?

It's hardly a woman's free choice to abort her baby for whatever reason when she's been effectively brainwashed by her culture into believing that sons are far more valuable than daughters, and that therefore the latter should be aborted if at all possible.  That is where I draw the line in the sand.  

You draw the line in the sand because if a women finds it more convenient for HER Situation to have a son than a daughter she's being brainwashed and it's not her choice?


Brainwashed? Please. Is it not brainwashing when there's hundreds of sites on the internet that "persuade you" that it's better to abort a baby than raise them in a low income situation? But it's brainwashing if people feel that having a boy is more benifical to their situation?

So it's a women's choice until her motivations for having an abortion doesn't benefit the female population?

So the line in the sand is basiclly if a Women wants an abortion because it's her body fine, If a women wants an abortion because she was raped fine, If a women wants an abortion because it hurts her health fine, If a women wants an abortion because it's convenient for her fine, BUT GOD FORBID If a women wants an abortion because she doesn't favor the sex of the child the LINE HAS BEEN CROSSED.


Every part of a pro-choicer being against Sex-selective abortions goes against the very concept of Women having the choice because what you're basiclly advocating for is limiting the motivations women can have for their abortions. If women have to justify to you guys why they're having an abortion than it's not their choice.


As a Pro-life advocate(Who's an atheist) it seems weird to see pro-choicers argue against legal abortions when they don't agree with the motivation Or more specifically when the motivation doesn't benifit the pro-female argue feminist try to make.

Why should the sex "of a blob of cells" even matter to pro-choicers?

I don't usally argue about social issues but something about this obvious contradiction infuriates me.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Even though I'm pro-life, I wouldn't favor this bill.

(1) In this country, a woman can have an abortion for any reason she wants (or for no reason at all). I absolutely don't approve of that, but who says "I don't want a boy"/"I don't want a girl" is any different from "I don't want a baby" (regardless of gender)? Other than life-of-mother, all of the "reasons" for abortion are equally unacceptable to me, and I don't want to send a message that (a) reason X is "better" than reason Y or (b) "it's OK as long as you don't abort a little girl!"

(2) It's not like a woman seeking an abortion actually has to provide a reason to the abortionist (although one could argue that that ought to be changed). If someone is aborting her child because of the child's sex, they aren't going to mention it anyway.

(3) I don't like the rhetoric (on both sides used here). Those individuals who favor a woman's right to abort also condemn countries like China, where girls are being aborted. (Note Mr. Franks' remark about little girls being aborted, as opposed to the fact that sex-selective abortion is happening at all.) Although the reverse situation is rare, something tells me fewer people would care if the situation were indeed reversed.

It won't cause any de facto change in the legality of abortion (again, women can always make up, or for that matter not reveal, a reason).

[TJ in Wisco]

Even though I'm pro-life, I wouldn't favor this bill.

(1) In this country, a woman can have an abortion for any reason she wants (or for no reason at all). I absolutely don't approve of that, but who says "I don't want a boy"/"I don't want a girl" is any different from "I don't want a baby" (regardless of gender)? Other than life-of-mother, all of the "reasons" for abortion are equally unacceptable to me, and I don't want to send a message that (a) reason X is "better" than reason Y or (b) "it's OK as long as you don't abort a little girl!"

(2) It's not like a woman seeking an abortion actually has to provide a reason to the abortionist (although one could argue that that ought to be changed). If someone is aborting her child because of the child's sex, they aren't going to mention it anyway.

(3) I don't like the rhetoric (on both sides used here). Those individuals who favor a woman's right to abort also condemn countries like China, where girls are being aborted. (Note Mr. Franks' remark about little girls being aborted, as opposed to the fact that sex-selective abortion is happening at all.) Although the reverse situation is rare, something tells me fewer people would care if the situation were indeed reversed.

It won't cause any de facto change in the legality of abortion (again, women can always make up, or for that matter not reveal, a reason).

Sure I agree with everything you just posted, but if you're pro-life, shouldn't you support pretty much any abortion restriction you can come up with? Sure this might only stop like one or two women a year but isn't that better than nothing?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Far from cultural relativism, it's utilitarianism for most of us.

That would be an infinitely worse reason to support something than cultural relativism.

Of course that's not actually the reason, is it? It's part of the uniform: an extreme position supported by people who are absolutely not extreme because said position is the one that they are supposed to have. The less actual thought involved the better.

Obviously this is a generic comment about abortion as an issue in American politics and so applies equally to both sides...

False, I see no reason why parents shouldn't be allowed to determine what child they'd like to raise. If they don't want to have a daughter, they shouldn't be forced to come up with a different justification from the government as to why they want to have an abortion. Explain to me how this position comes from thoughtless behavior.

Surely you know that I don't mean a pure form of utilitarianism. It's a form of utilitarianism that reaches a certain ends that is amenable to progressive principles.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Even though I'm pro-life, I wouldn't favor this bill.

(1) In this country, a woman can have an abortion for any reason she wants (or for no reason at all). I absolutely don't approve of that, but who says "I don't want a boy"/"I don't want a girl" is any different from "I don't want a baby" (regardless of gender)? Other than life-of-mother, all of the "reasons" for abortion are equally unacceptable to me, and I don't want to send a message that (a) reason X is "better" than reason Y or (b) "it's OK as long as you don't abort a little girl!"

(2) It's not like a woman seeking an abortion actually has to provide a reason to the abortionist (although one could argue that that ought to be changed). If someone is aborting her child because of the child's sex, they aren't going to mention it anyway.

(3) I don't like the rhetoric (on both sides used here). Those individuals who favor a woman's right to abort also condemn countries like China, where girls are being aborted. (Note Mr. Franks' remark about little girls being aborted, as opposed to the fact that sex-selective abortion is happening at all.) Although the reverse situation is rare, something tells me fewer people would care if the situation were indeed reversed.

It won't cause any de facto change in the legality of abortion (again, women can always make up, or for that matter not reveal, a reason).

Sure I agree with everything you just posted, but if you're pro-life, shouldn't you support pretty much any abortion restriction you can come up with? Sure this might only stop like one or two women a year but isn't that better than nothing?

No, it wouldn't. If a woman is really going to have her baby aborted (for any reason), she won't be asked ("Are you here for an illegal reason?"), and if she is asked, she'll just come up with some other reason, like, say, "I didn't want my parents to know I got knocked up", or, if the child has Down syndrome, "I don't want the burden of an abnormal child."

It would also send the wrong message from a pro-life perspective. If you are genuinely pro-life, you can't support the legality of abortion for any reason, except perhaps for life-of-mother. Again, I think this law would effectively say "as long as you aren't aborting a little girl, it's okay" and "reason X is better than reason Y" (when in fact I reject both reasons, and I don't want to endorse either one, even in a relative sense). Finally, these reasons are effectively the same from a moral perspective. In all of these cases, a child is being aborted because it is inconvenient to its mother (and, in the case of sex selection and Down syndrome, because it has an inconvenient set of chromosomes).

[Sibboleth]

False, I see no reason why parents shouldn't be allowed to determine what child they'd like to raise. If they don't want to have a daughter, they shouldn't be forced to come up with a different justification from the government as to why they want to have an abortion. Explain to me how this position comes from thoughtless behavior.

That wasn't exactly what I was getting at, but whatever.

Bleating about 'choice' as though that's an end to itself and magically eliminates all potential ethical problems (and this goes for every other issue that this sort of dribbly liberal idiocy is wheeled out for; which is almost everything) is thoughtless by definition. Although I don't agree with them, strong arguments for lax abortion laws do exist, but they tend not to be so utterly dependent on such a fundamentally juvenile attitude.

Surely you know that I don't mean a pure form of utilitarianism.

Then why even use the word?

It's a form of utilitarianism that reaches a certain ends that is amenable to progressive principles.

Sorry, but that's just dross. Read it out loud to yourself.

[Insula Dei]

Of course that's not actually the reason, is it? It's part of the uniform: an extreme position supported by people who are absolutely not extreme because said position is the one that they are supposed to have. The less actual thought involved the better.

What's that nice Peguy quote again: 'We shall never know how many acts of cowardice have been commited for fear of not appearing sufficiently progressive.'?

[The Mikado]

As I said before, I'm pro-choice, period, regardless of if it's a bad choice.  In the case of sex-selective abortion, it might very well be, but "abortion should be legal for X bad reason" is a subset of "Abortion should be legal."

[Torie]

Not if the Bill would preclude, or potentially preclude, "choosing" to abort a fetus in the first trimester for any reason or no reason.

Btw, I agree with Al that there is more to the puzzle than the right to make a "choice." For some, a fetus at some point just seems - well - a bit too human. And therein lies almost everything really come to think of it. When or when is a fetus just a bit too much like us for our own comfort in our own little sense of what being a human means? On that one, it really is all about subjective "choice."

Of course, if you are a misanthrope ...

[DreamTheater]

I would support it for the symbolism, but it is obviously unenforceable.

[InsaneTrollLogic]

Not if the Bill would preclude, or potentially preclude, "choosing" to abort a fetus in the first trimester for any reason or no reason.

Btw, I agree with Al that there is more to the puzzle than the right to make a "choice." For some, a fetus at some point just seems - well - a bit too human. And therein lies almost everything really come to think of it. When or when is a fetus just a bit too much like us for our own comfort in our own little sense of what being a human means? On that one, it really is all about subjective "choice."

Of course, if you are a misanthrope ...

Then that goes towards the timing and not the reasoning but may go towards the method.

[DC Al Fine]

I would support it for the symbolism, but it is obviously unenforceable.

[asexual trans victimologist]

I would support it for the symbolism, but it is obviously unenforceable.

[I Can't Get That Sound You Make, Out Of My Head]

I would support it for the symbolism, but it is obviously unenforceable.