Here's example number umpty-trillion.
Sun News tries a moronic gotcha on Justin Trudeau. Publishes story with this headline: "Justin Trudeau Would Not Stop Sex-Selective Abortion."
The anti-choice stenographers pick it up. Here's LifeShite with the headline: "Justin Trudeau: sex-selective abortion a 'right'; Liberals won't consider ban."
SUZY ALL CAPS does her obeisance under "Justin Trudeau Supports Sex-Selection Being Legal." (Plain text url for the usual reason: http://www.bigbluewave.ca/2014/05/video-justin-trudeau-supports-sex.html)
And the Focus on the Family gals at ProWomanProLies: "When gendercide become [sic] a Charter Right in Canada."
Here's the question (full transcript at the Sun link):
MARISSA SEMKIW: A woman comes to you. She says she's pregnant with a girl and she wants to terminate the life of the child because it's a girl. What would you say to her?We all know that Justin Trudeau is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Someone with a bit more on the ball might have replied: "Hello? I am the leader of a political party, not a counsellor or an advice columnist. What the hell kind of BS question is that?"
He didn't. He waffled around, finally -- after persistent badgering -- settling on: “I will leave discussions like that between a woman and the health professionals that she encounters.”
This is just like the idiotic harassment pro-choice demonstrators endured at the hands of another SunLife light-weight, who asked if rape should be legalized to "make it safe".
I ask the well-meaning pundits who think pro-choice advocates should welcome the "renewed debate": what do you suggest we do when we run into such intellectual dishonesty and duplicity?
Seriously: What the fuck should we do?
5 comments:
Before opening this door, the first question I have is, is there evidence sex selection abortions are taking place in Canada? Quantitative data would be preferable, but I doubt it exists, thus it's more than likely accepting anecdotal evidence would be necessary.
If there is evidence of either type that this is a problem, I would like to see a law against it. While, as a man I fully support a woman's right to choose, I am not okay with sex-selective abortions.
Obviously there would need to be input from lawyers, women's groups, and medical professionals to ensure any draft legislation addresses only sex-selective abortions, but doesn't otherwise infringe on a woman's right to choose.
There was a dumb typo in what I posted.
Here it is fixed.
Here at DJ! we've blogged on sex-selective abortion a lot. It is a very complicated issue. Not a simple matter of "there oughta be a law against it."
To answer your question, the research on its occurrence in Canada is scant and dodgy.
The "best" study found that it may be occurring in "some" communities. But to very little demographic effect.
There is no doubt that it is a huge problem where it is widely practiced as in India and China.
But the solution is NOT a law.
And how would that work, anyway? Are members of "some" communities to be denied gender-determining ultrasounds? All women?
You can see the problems here.
The real problem is not sex-selective abortion -- because in fact all abortion is selective (not now, not this man, etc.) -- but misogyny.
Until female children are valued as highly as male, there will be pressure on women -- sometimes violently expressed pressure -- to produce male children. Which brings up another problem: if the State forces women to bear unwanted female children, would the State then be exposing them to violence and shunning from their families?
Where sex-selective abortion is having major demographic effects, in India for example, people (women in fact) are taking measures to raise the value -- or at least lessen the burden -- of female offspring.
In Canada, we have lots of people. If members of some benighted communities prefer boys over girls, they'll soon get their comeuppance as their precious sons bring home girlfriends from different ethnic backgrounds.
To sum up: In Canada we're not sure that it is happening; any law would be onerous and/or impossible to implement; and there are better ways to address such preference.
Also, in Canada, we do not demand a reason for abortion. The fact that a woman does not want to continue a pregnancy is enough. And that's as it should be. To demand that it NOT be this reason opens the door to other intrusive meddling.
And to address your very good point about the quality of data: really? You want to base a law on anecdotes?
That would be a terrible -- though with this government, not unprecedented -- divergence from rational jurisprudence.
Completely agree law is not the way to go on this. Not even sure how one outlaws a "motivation". Can't see why anyone would say she does not want a female baby if that was illegal but it was legal to simply say she does not want any baby, male or female, now.
The debate never closed. You can't get abortions in P.E.I. They send you to another province. Like what the fuck. sounds like one of those American states which has been restricting the right to control your body.
What do these people think, that they have the right to tell a woman what to do with her body. If she wants an abortion, that is her right. No reason needs to be given. That is the start of a debate, which we should not be having. No one asks a guy why he wants surgery, why ask a woman.
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