M408: Sheer Cynical Posturing

At Rabble today, Joyce Arthur has a terrific article on the newest fetus fetishist gambit, Motion 408, to condemn sex selective abortion.

She makes a bunch of excellent points, including this unintentional revelation of what they really think of those murderous sluts poor coerced women.

Warawa wants Parliament to "condemn this worst form of discrimination against females," which he calls "gender violence -- gendercide."

But women are the ones having sex-selection abortions, which means Warawa is accusing women of violence and gendercide -- and courtesy of MP Stella Ambler -- "atrocities." Ending discrimination against women does not start with making nasty accusations against them. Yes, sex selection can be a sexist act, but it's nonsensical to protect women from discrimination by restricting their rights. In India, laws against sex-selection abortion cause women to resort to unsafe and illegal abortion to avoid having a girl, and some may even face abuse and violence from their families if they bear a girl.

Arthur included this dandy link to facts on gender preference in the US.

Highlights:
• In adoption, parents request girls far more often than boys.

• There is no evidence that females are aborted at a higher rate. In fact, the birth ratio of girls has increased since the legalization of abortion.

• Parents using currently available sex selection techniques prefer girls by quite a margin.

I doubt Canadians and Americans are much different in this regard, but I went looking for Canadian studies or polls.

A study published in January this year asked a slightly different question in skewed way. Researchers wanted to find out if men preferred boys and women girls. The dodgy part is that answers had to be 'male' or 'female'. No option for 'doesn't matter' was offered.

Surprise! Men wanted boys, women wanted girls.

The question is why do men and women have these preferences? The researchers hypothesize that men favour boys for much the same reason that women favour girls—because human beings often project their own dreams on their children and those dreams often come with stereotypical ideas of what it means to be male or female.

 
The piece ends with:


Moreover, the study suggests that affluent democratic societies encourage women to favour daughters more than those societies where opportunities for women are circumscribed by discrimination and inequality.  Seen in that light, women preferring daughters over sons is a sign of progress.

Makes total sense, eh? When girls have the same opportunities as boys, there's little downside to letting nature take its course.

Another recent study on sex-selection in Canada in 'certain' communities indicates that *if* it is happening, it is on a very small scale.

The calculations show the total number of “missing” girls is 245, which equals about 35 births per year, or less than one per cent of the total births to Indian-born women.

Dr. [Prabhat Jha, chair in disease control at the University of Toronto and director of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael’s Hospital] said in an e-mail if sex-selective abortion is at play, it is a very small problem and other “important but subtle biases,” such as migration of Indian women about to give birth to a son, could help explain the trend.

Note that the study was conducted with data only from Indian-born women living in Canada.

A reasonable conclusion would be that as newcomers to Canada come to believe that their daughters have (most of) the benefits that sons do, the preference will die out.

In the meantime, other Canadians' desire for girls will balance things out.

Sex selection is not a societal issue in Canada. It is a problem in 'certain' communities that are well aware of it and are working to eliminate it.

Kindly put, Warawa's motion is a solution in search of a problem. More realistically, it's another attack on women's rights masquerading cynically as a concern for gender discrimination.

BONUS: If you can tolerate nearly 8 minutes of StunNews, have a look at the spin we're up against.

Sex Selective Abortion: Latest SHRIEEEEK!

People are all up in arms because Rona Ambrose, Cabinet Moron Responsible for the Status of Women, voted in favour of Woodworth's Wank, aka The Motion to Determine When the State Gets Up Into Our Hoo-haws.

This should be no surprise. She has voted for fetal rights before.

But here her 'worry' is simply ridiculous.

The federal cabinet minister responsible for the status of women has offered at least a partial explanation for why she voted in support of a pro-life motion in the House of Commons.

Rona Ambrose says on Twitter that she's long been worried about discrimination against girls through "sex selection abortion."

One would need way more than 140 characters to get from Woodworth's Wank to sex selection abortion as it requires some spectacularly twisty gymnastics.

Then, right on cue, today CON MP Mark Warawa tabled a motion to condemn sex selection abortion.

We've been down this path at DJ! several times.

Is gender selection happening in Canada? Seems so, but the numbers are dodgy and the methodology controversial. (See above link for specific studies and reports.)

There is NO evidence that the at-birth gender ratio is skewed in Canada generally as a result, unlike in India and China where it is widely practiced.

There is some (questioned) evidence that there may be a slight gender ratio difference in 'some communities'.

But, as we've argued here before, so what? We've got lots of people in Canada. The few 'extra' boys in 'some communities' may be forced to look outside those communities for partners.

And that's a good thing. *evilsmiley*

Running with the sensational story though, back in June, CBC did an undercover gotcha on private ultrasound clinics to see whether any were willing to test for gender before the usual 20 weeks' gestation mark.

The notion is that if information is withheld until after 20 weeks, women and families inclined to select for males will not be able to. Abortion after 20 weeks is not done in Canada unless for pressing reasons.

The CBC did find clinics willing to perform ultrasounds earlier. Most of the cases seemed to me a result of sloppy training or an over-eagerness to please. One of the cases is indeed disgustingly venal and exploitive.

So, is that the whole story?

Seems not. In the US, where the same 'communities' are under scrutiny, the practice is getting coverage too. Like this recent story in Slate: How to Buy a Daughter.

Much of the evidence that Americans preferentially choose girls is anecdotal, as no larger body tracks gender selection procedures. But data from Google show that “how to have a girl” is searched three times as often in the United States as “how to have a boy.” Many fertility doctors say that girls are the goal for 80 percent of gender selection patients. A study published in 2009 by the online journal Reproductive Biomedicine Online found Caucasian-Americans preferentially select females through PGD [preimplantation genetic diagnosis] 70 percent of the time. Those of Indian or Chinese descent largely chose boys.

Some want boys, some want girls. Things even out.

But, of course there's more.

In this article, the author argues that sex selection is a parental right.

And why not? If we stand for reproduction by choice, why would we eliminate one category of choice? Me, I don't see a problem.

But there is.

Perhaps ironically, sex selection has caused some consternation among some feminists, a group usually known for their vocal support of reproductive freedom. Their objections to gender selection center around the possibility that the practice will encourage gender stereotypes. Girls made to be girls, they say, will face an undue burden to behave a certain way, to take up an interest in fashion instead of basketball, for example. That's certainly a possibility, but the complaint overlooks the fact that males and females are actually different in some important ways, as a lot of research has shown. Given those differences between the sexes, is it really such a bad thing that parents may prefer to raise a girl instead of a boy? 

Back in the Slate article, there is indeed some glurgey anecdotal crap about women wanting girls to shop, dress, and cook with.

Yuck.

But choice is choice.

You're for it or against it.

This issue is obviously the focus of the fetus fetishists' next gambit. It polls well for them.

From a January Angus-Reid poll:

Three-in-five respondents—including two thirds of women—believe there should be laws to outline whether a woman can have an abortion based solely on the gender of the fetus.

There oughta be a law!

I think Ambrose's idiotic justification and Warawa's Wank are just ploys to keep the fetus fetishists revved up and going for their chequebooks.

It may develop into something more serious and I'll woman the barricades again.

But I need a rest first.

On Those 'Missing Girls'

Joe Biden has stepped in it. Again. (What a dork that guy is.)

Under fire from angry Republicans, US Vice President Joe Biden's office has said that he firmly opposes "repugnant" Chinese population control practices like "forced abortion and sterilization."

"The Obama administration strongly opposes all aspects of China's coercive birth limitation policies, including forced abortion and sterilization," Biden spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff told AFP by email.

"The vice president believes such practices are repugnant," she said after Republican White House candidates blasted Biden for recent comments he made about Beijing's "one-child" population control policy during a visit to China.

Biden told an audience at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, Sunday that "your policy has been one which I fully understand -- I'm not second-guessing -- of one child per family."

(Go to the link to read the hyperventilations of the ReThugs.)

Fetus fetishists were already stoked about one of their perennial faves because a couple of months ago a book by Mara Hvistendahl called 'Unnatural Selection' was published. Which got further ramped up by the release of census stats from India.

In the world's largest democracy a massive crisis of missing girls is unfolding, according to India's 2011 census. The latest census shows that the gap between the number of girls per 1,000 boys up to the age of six has widened to 914, a decrease from 927 a decade ago, at the 2001 census.

With the SHRIEEEEKfest came, of course, the mandatory 'Where are the feminists?!!?' jab lament. Because, you see, we feminists should be outraged because half of all abortions are done on 'pre-born women' (that's their phrase), and with sex-selective abortion, 'pre-born women' are actively targeted. Their (idiotic) question is: 'If you claim to be about women's rights, what about pre-born women's rights?'

Sigh. So I thought about writing about it. We at DJ! have taken on the subject at least twice. Once when wingnuts in BC proposed that if the gender of a fetus is known through an ultrasound, the results should not be revealed. (You know, to put an end to that rampant Canadian practice of sex-selective abortion.) And once when Ujjal Dosanjh stepped in it from the reverse direction as Biden. First, he was against sex-selective abortion, then he hadda walk it back by adding: 'But I am totally absolutely pro-choice'.

DJ! argued and argues that this is not a problem in Canada. The communities that prefer boys to girls are small, and besides, they'll get their comeuppance when their sons can't find partners of the 'right' sort and maybe bring home sweeties of the 'wrong' sort. Or 'wrong' gender. Or both. *evilgrin*

But, yes. Sex-selective abortion has created a ginormous problem in the benighted countries where it is practised.

I was going to argue this time that back in the 1960s overpopulation was the big bugaboo. We hadn't yet realized that that was too simplistic. It's not sheer overpopulation, we now know, it's overconsumption plus growing population that's going to kill the planet.

But that's when China and India began to try to grapple with their poverty problems by trying to slow population growth. China, because it could, instituted the infamous One Child Policy. India, being a democracy, couldn't be quite so draconian and tried kinder, more innovative policies.

Besides, both countries were fucking sick of being poor.

And I was going to argue that the best way to lower population growth is to promote women's rights and in particular to educate women.

Ultimately, though, this shouldn't be seen as a medical dilemma, but as a social one. The way to prevent sex-selective abortion isn't to legislate against it or attack the women who seek it – it's to create cultural changes that transform the place of women. By offering girls education, training and opportunities for employment, femicidal traditions can be uprooted, and a world that values women and fully recognises their right to exist created instead. To get there, though, we must first accept that women have the right to make decisions about their own bodies, on their own terms. Because if no one gives them autonomy in their own skin, why should they believe that their potential daughters deserve it either?

Aside: I really liked one of the comments there by hillbillyzombie:

Q: In what language is religion an anagram of misogyny?
A: All of them.

What Joe Biden stepped in is the relatively new contention that the developed West promoted the practice in China and India.

Much of the literature on sex selection has suggested that cultural patterns explain the phenomenon. But Hvistendahl lays the blame squarely on western governments and businesses that have exported technology and pro-abortion practices without considering the consequences. Amniocentesis and ultrasound scans have had largely positive applications in the west, where they have been used to detect foetal abnormalities. But exported to Asia and eastern Europe they have been intricately linked to an explosion of sex selection and a mushrooming of female abortions.

Hvistendahl claims western governments actively promoted abortion and sex selection in the developing world, encouraging the liberalisation of abortion laws and subsidising sales of ultrasounds as a form of population control.

"It took millions of dollars in funding from US organisations for sex determination and abortion to catch on in the developing world," she writes."

Roll out that whole 'feminist secularist Culture of Death' meme thingy!!!!!!

But again, it's a bit more subtle than your average fetus fetishist can cope with.

While it's true that the West did promote contraception and abortion, the purpose was ^NOT women's rights but population control. If they'd promoted women's rights with the same enthusiasm and money way back then, perhaps the problem of devalued and now missing women wouldn't have happened.

No one combating sex selection in China or India now argues that the appropriate reaction to decades of violating women's rights is to swing in the other direction and violate them further. Just as a woman should not be forced to abort a wanted pregnancy, she should not be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.

Yet more subtlety. Yes, it's a cultural thing, but more than that it's a 'rising expectations' thing.

In the mid-1970s, amniocentesis, which reveals the sex of a baby in utero, became available in developing countries. Originally meant to test for fetal abnormalities, by the 1980s it was known as the "sex test" in India and other places where parents put a premium on sons. When amnio was replaced by the cheaper and less invasive ultrasound, it meant that most couples who wanted a baby boy could know ahead of time if they were going to have one and, if they were not, do something about it. "Better 500 rupees now than 5,000 later," reads one ad put out by an Indian clinic, a reference to the price of a sex test versus the cost of a dowry.

But oddly enough, Ms. Hvistendahl notes, it is usually a country's rich, not its poor, who lead the way in choosing against girls. "Sex selection typically starts with the urban, well-educated stratum of society," she writes. "Elites are the first to gain access to a new technology, whether MRI scanners, smart phones—or ultrasound machines." The behavior of elites then filters down until it becomes part of the broader culture. Even more unexpectedly, the decision to abort baby girls is usually made by women—either by the mother or, sometimes, the mother-in-law.

They don't want girls, yes. But more than that they want to live like us in the West. Simply put: girls cost money, boys make money. (And just as importantly, operating an ultrasound clinic is a nice little earner too.)

Yes, the developed West deserves some blame for the missing girls. But it is the capitalist West and its values that provided the technology and the profit for its operators that deserves the much bigger blame.

Feminism is not to blame for this. If feminists had been in charge of the Club of Rome, I daresay the outcome would have been quite different.

Commenter Ngoho at the MoJo link sums it up nicely.

It's possible that, since men steered culture into valuing their sex above females, perhaps a generation of lonely men will change that culture into one which values women.

Payback is a bitch, isn't she?

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Preggers Version

Again, the NattyPo is all twisty-knickery over sex-selective abortion. Swallow anything you've got in your mouth NOW.

Two Canadian medical experts are calling for new guidelines that would bar doctors from telling parents the sex of their fetus until late in a pregnancy, calling it a subtle way to curb the practice of sex selection.

That 'subtle' imperilled my keyboard yesterday when I read it.

So, how would that ultrasound session go?

PATIENT: Is it a girl or a boy?

DOC: Um, I'm not going to tell you.

PATIENT: Is there something wrong?

DOC: No, no, everything's fine.

PATIENT: Well, is it a girl or a boy?

DOC: I'll tell you at your next checkup.

PATIENT: Tell me now.

DOC: No.

PATIENT: What the hell do you mean, 'no'? This is my pregnancy, my fetus, my body. You have information that I want and you won't tell me? Why not?

DOC: Um, it's policy.

And so on. Until the woman reaches up and grabs the doc by her or his collar and, later, if charges are laid, she claims that hormones made her do it.

Here's the reason:

Writing in a major obstetrics journal recently, the bio-ethicist and doctor say physicians should delay imparting information on baby sex until it is too late for the woman to have an abortion with no questions asked.

'No questions asked' is the money line. Because here in Canada, we don't -- yet -- have slut-shaming hoops for women to jump through, like an interrogation as to why they want an abortion.

Incredibly, that little scenario is already routine in British Columbia.

In fact, doctors in British Columbia have for several years employed that approach, refusing to divulge sex information until 20 weeks into the pregnancy, said Dr. Alain Gagnon, an administrator at the B.C. Children and Women's Hospital. It seems to work, even if the policy strikes patients as strange, he said.

"Many of them find it a little silly that they have to wait to get the information," Dr. Gagnon said. "[But] the vast majority of people seem to be happy with it."

Strange? Silly?

How about unethical, paternalistic, and authoritarian?

Oh. Wait.

One critic, however, questions the measure's effectiveness, given that parents can mail order DNA tests that accurately predict fetal sex, and abortion clinics generally do not ask the reason for the procedure. The way to tackle sex selection is by combating the social mores that lead people to want sons and not daughters, rather than by limiting abortion, said Joyce Arthur, co-ordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.

"To restrict people's freedoms, withholding information in that way, I think is unethical and unnecessary and is not going to prevent anything," Ms. Arthur said. "It's a little bit paternalistic and authoritarian."

Today, part-time agony aunt Kelly McParland thinks he's found a gotcha:

Why, then, would abortion proponents object to women having abortions because they don't like the sex of the fetus? If a fetus is not human, a woman has the right to abort it for whatever reason she chooses: because she doesn't feel like going through the process; because it might interfere with her career plans; because she doesn't like children in general; or because she loves Starbucks and someone told her she'd have to give up caffeine during the pregnancy. What, no latte?

Ooooh, the smarmy gratuitousness. . . No Timmie's customers have abortions. Right. Because they're good Canadians. Or something.

We've opined on this subject before, when it was Ujjal Dosanjh getting twisty-knickery about home gender tests being using by members of 'certain communities'.

We don't keep stats on the gender of aborted fetuses, so there's no way to tell if it's a issue in Canada outside the tiny minds of the tut-tutters. It certainly is a big problem in China and India and, as Joyce Arthur pointed out, it is a complex one. Governments there are just beginning to try to tackle it.

DJ! believes members of certain communities here in Canada should be free to do whatever the hell they think is right. If enough of them do it, they'll soon figure out it's not such a hot-shit idea. Like, when their precious sons start bringing home girlfriends and wives-to-be of different ethnic backgrounds.

Any Fix for Sex-Selective Abortion Would Be Discriminatory, Unethical, and Futile

Well, now at least we seem to have some decent research on sex selective abortion in Canada.

Previous studies indicated that it might be happening in "some communities," but there were quibbles about methodology.

This seems solid.

It’s the clearest evidence yet that abortion is being used to help parents have a son. A study has found that some Indian-born immigrants to Canada are selectively aborting female fetuses if they have already had two daughters. The researchers say, however, that action may not be necessary as the incidence is low, and the practice is likely to go away on its own as immigrants become settled.

Link to full study.

Yes, it's happening in Canada, but as we've said many times before: So what?

There is still zero evidence that the practice is skewing the sex ratio in general.

And if it is skewing the ratio in "some communities," we say again: So what? Parents who prefer boys may get a comeuppance when their precious sons bring home girlfriends (or boyfriends [!]) from other ethnic backgrounds.

But look at the hand-wringing going on. The normally sane Toronto Star has an unusually sensational piece about it.

Even my fave Matt Galloway of CBC's MetroMorning got into the "abortion is terrible" meme, trying really hard to get one of the study's authors to call the results "troubling."

@metromorning Well, that was disappointing. Matt tried twice to get author of #SexSelection study to say he was "troubled" by findings.

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) April 12, 2016

@metromorning Why "troubled"? Why not "what are implications?" Guy is a researcher. You want community reaction, ask them.

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) April 12, 2016

@metromorning Good. It's a complicated issue and I find it "troubling" you fall so easily into stereotypical tropes.

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) April 12, 2016

And while We Need a Law Like a Hole in the Head was ready with his SHRIEK!!!! (Title: Government needs to end pre-natal discrimination against women) and because somebody had to do it, Amateur Statistician asks WHERE ARE THE FEMINISTS????, it is very disappointing that mainstream media would prefer to point fingers and tsk-tsk.

(Other fetus freak sites are no doubt still working up their dudgeon.)

Also, this issue conjures up a disgusting stew of misogyny and racism. DO NOT read comments.

As an antidote, read this piece from the eminently sensible André Picard (from 2012) about the complexities of the issue.

Here's the thing: any attempted "fix" will be discriminatory, unethical, and futile.

Refuse to reveal sex of fetus until it's too late to abort? How exactly? Refuse to disclose all pregnant patients' own information? Or just "some" patients?

What about sex-related genetic disorders? Will we force people to carry blighted pregnancies to term because we're up in arms over possible sex-selection?

And it will all be futile because there are home sex-test kits, highways and airplanes, and unethical ultrasound technicians.

The only way to "fix" this is to value girls and women as we do boys and men.

That's a helluva long-term project, but it's the only way.

From New Scientist again:

In India, male preference has led to a shortfall of millions of female children, so strict legislation was necessary. But in North America, the problem is small and likely to resolve itself as immigrant communities become more integrated. “My suspicion is that in the second generation you would not notice this phenomenon at all,” [Anil Deolalikar, economist at the University of California] says.

Past DJ! posts on sex selection.


ADDED: Dr Brian Goldman weighs in and comes to the attention of Dr Jen Gunter, newly dubbed "Twitter's OB/GYN."

Get ready for a response big time https://t.co/ts1TyM6qie

— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) April 12, 2016

This won't be pretty. :)


UPDATE April 13/16: Here is Dr Jen Gunter's response to Dr Goldman. Ouch!

Something Dr Gunter mentions that I -- and most other commenters on this subject -- have not is: multiple pregnancies in the quest for a male child. Since we know that pregnancy is 14 times more dangerous than abortion, why does no one consider the risk of multiple pregnancies for the "good" women who do not seek abortion?


UPDATE April 14/16: Yesterday, CBC's The Current ran an informative and hopeful segment on this issue, demonstrating how complex it is.

What's up with this?

This is odd.

The doctors who treat pregnant women are warning mothers-to-be against using “entertainment” ultrasounds solely to determine the sex of their fetuses.

The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, along with the Canadian Association of Radiologists, put out a new joint policy statement this week calling for an end to ultrasounds offered by non-medical clinics.

Here's the joint statement.

An excerpt:

Fetal ultrasound is a valuable tool in modern obstetrical care. This imaging technique is useful in assessing a fetus for anomalies, ensuring fetal health, and assessing fetal growth and development if performed by properly trained individuals in a carefully monitored and medically supervised environment. It is also an important technology in education and research. This imaging technology uses high-frequency, low-energy sound waves; it does not use ionizing radiation. The availability of ultrasound machines for purchase and use for non-clinical purposes has led to a proliferation of “entertainment” ultrasound units throughout Canada. With recent media coverage of nonmedical clinics performing gender determination in the first trimester, the SOGC and CAR find it necessary to update their previous policy statements on this issue and to issue a new joint policy statement.

The key phrases here are "for non-clinical purposes" and "entertainment." Health Canada and US FDA have warned against them for years -- in the FDA's case, since 2004. And at least one US state, Connecticut, has banned them.

But the issue has been safety concerns posed by multiple, longer-exposure ultrasounds.

What's odd here is the insertion of the sex-selection canard.

Here is the National Post offering a a piece with a totally misleading headline yet not a scrap of evidence that "sex-based abortions" are occurring in Canada, let alone that there's a "rise" in them. Here's the headline:

Rise in sex-based abortions prompts doctors to call for end to ultrasounds that only determine gender of fetus

It refers to an editorial in the Canadian Medical Journal from 2012. That editorial was occasioned by a study of gender ratios downloadable here free without subscription.

Researchers looked at Ontario birth records for the period 2002 to 2007, correlated to the woman's country of birth.

It includes a table with the actual numbers of male/female births to women of various origins and for each birth (first, second and third) in turn. An abortion provider I know took a good look at these numbers and found that there were only two statistically significant differences in gender ratios.

One involved third births to women of Indian origin, and the other second births to women of Korean origin; in both groups there was a small disproportion of males.

Then, calculations were done to determine how many "extra" males were born.

There were 48,362 third births of females. If the usual ratio of 1.05 had applied, one would have expected 50,780 male births, when in fact there were 51,520.  It was as though 360 births that “should” have been female were male instead.  But this amounts to only 60 extra male births per year in Ontario, 360 out of the 6-year total of 766,688 births – at .05% not much of a demographic threat!

(These quotes come from private correspondence, but you can download the study and do the math yourself.)

As we have argued here many times, sex selection is a serious problem in societies where it is widely practiced. That one study shows only that it might have happened in Ontario with very little effect on the larger population.

In fact, there's good evidence that when the overall population is questioned on gender preference, girls win.

That's why we call sex-selective abortion a canard. Or in Mark Warawa's recent anti-abortion gambit, sheer, cynical posturing, aka Warawa's Wank.

And speaking of Warawa, NatPo's resident sob-sister Kelly McParland produces his usual disingenuous froth to claim that the joint statement vindicates Warawa's thwarted motion.

Which of course it doesn't. Warawa's Wank was simply yet another back-door attempt to reopen the abortion debate. And all sensible people recognized it as such immediately.

But the question remains. Why would the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada and Canadian Association of Radiologist link multiple, non-medical ultrasounds -- long frowned on by reputable experts -- to very sketchy evidence that sex-selective abortion is actually occurring in Canada?

Why now? What's going on?

We ever-vigilant proponents and protectors of women's rights in Canada should keep our eyes peeled for future moves and spin by fetus fetishists.

UPDATE: Dominionist-run website, We Need a Law, is revved in anticipation of a new bill.

Eeeek! Sex-Selective Abortion

OK, there is no question that sex-selective abortion is a problem in traditionally patriarchal/misogynist countries. We've all heard the stories about the 'missing women' in China and India because parents choose to abort female fetuses. And we've heard about the present and future issues such a gender gap poses. Both China and India have acknowledged the problem and are undertaking (probably futile) efforts to address it.

But is it a problem here?

Well, in Canada we don't keep ethnicity-based stats, but a March 2008 study reports that sex-selective abortion may be on the rise in some British and American communities.

Sherry Colb, prominent US reproduction law expert, admittedly writing in 2005, doesn't think it poses a threat to the US overall.

But here in Canada, recently Ujjal Dosanjh, federal Liberal health critic, clutched his pearls and shrieked raised an alarm:

Speaking to CBC 's The Current, Dosanjh said the {gender ID} tests need to be regulated and a debate launched about whether it's acceptable to have an abortion because of the gender of a fetus.

Today, there's an op-ed piece by Dosanjh and Raminder Dosanjh in the Ottawa Citizen.

It starts:

Sex selection for the purpose of committing female feticide is one of the most heinous acts of violence and hatred inflicted on women. It is a practice rooted in misogyny, and it is a practice that we have spoken out against both in Canada and during travels in India.

Female feticide. Uh-oh. You see where this is going?

Next sentence:

While we firmly support a woman's right to choose as paramount, there is a clear distinction to be drawn between supporting access to safe abortions, which we vigorously defend, and the abortion of fetuses solely to prevent the births of female babies due to biased socio-cultural norms, which we abhor.

That's kind of a sticky wicket, isn't it? Support a woman's right to choose. Unless she chooses to abort a fetus on the basis of its gender.

M408: Totally Bogus

In previous blogposts here on private member's bill M408, the condemnation of sex selection, aka The Latest Backdoor Attempt to Legislate on Abortion, we've noted that it is sheer, cynical posturing coming from a member of the CONtempt Party.

The CONs have nothing but contempt for women. For starters, just look at the list of women's organizations whose funding has been cut or ended by them.

Today, I decided to have a look at Mark Warawa's history on matters relating to his new hobby, 'protecting girls'.

I mean, there are tons of fetus fetishizing Cons, why pick him as the front man for this little ploy?

At Campaign Lie, he gets a Double Plus Good rating.

At Rate Parliament, he's got two comments presumably from constituents, neither complimentary.

At Open Parliament, we learn that his favourite word is 'environment', which makes sense. He's chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

Searching Open Parliament for his recorded actions and statements, we find 306 pages going back to the beginning of his MP life in 2004. The record consists of petitions (back in the day, lots of them on 'traditional marriage', now on sex selection) and acres of time-keeping at environment committee.

A search of those 306 pages with the keyword 'women' turns up a measly two pages.

Most of those references are in the stock phrase, 'men and women', or its more enlightened variant, 'women and men'.

Only two pertained to women specifically.

Here he is on REAL Women on September 28, 2006.

Mr. Speaker, hearing the comments like meanspirited, if the Liberals were in government they would raise the GST back up because they voted against that. They voted against providing parents the choice in child care. They want to take back that $100 a month for children. That would be meanspirited.

I have a question that relates to the comments that have been made about REAL Women. REAL Women is going to be coming to the committee. I am looking for some wisdom from the member who just spoke. I have been on committees for many years. My understanding is that when a delegation is coming to a committee that the committee is open-minded and the committee is prepared to listen to delegates that come and dialogue in order to learn.

However, when we have the chairperson of a committee publicly ridiculing a delegation that is about to come, like REAL Women, I have real concerns that democracy may be under attack. We hear rhetoric now and heckling. Is that a good approach for a delegation coming? I would like to hear an answer.

And here's a snippet from his glurgey support for Woodworth's Wank on September 21, 2012.

We need to protect women's rights but we also must protect everyone's rights, the rights of women, children, adults and all human rights.

Awww, isn't that sweet? 'We need to protect women's rights. BUT'.

BUT. Maybe he was one of the renegade seven Cons who supported the truly 'pro-life' private member's bill that sought to provide cheaper life-saving drugs for poor countries. After all, our pal Maurice Vellacott voted in favour of it.

Nope.

This is precisely how bankrupt the CONtempt Party is on gender-related issues.

This guy is the best they could come up with to front M408.

This is how totally bogus M408 is.

Fuck the Debate: Part Eleventy-One

Fetus fetishists wonder why we won't debate them.

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?

*sigh* 'Female Feticide' Again

All right, all right. Here we go. The most recent outbreak of shock and appallment over 'female feticide' wearies, worries, and disgusts me in about equal measures.

Wearies because I've been on this particular beat literally for
fucking years.

Worries because of the oh-so convenieeent timing of it.

Disgusts because of the putrid stew of misogyny and racism generated by it. Here's a sample of the comments at the Toronto Sun.

They should just sterilize them all and start deporting all Muslims and Canada would be a safer place to live and we would get our Merry Christmas back and our Canadian traditions back . Trudeau ruin this Country with his imigration policy

Read the comments on any media story and there will be gems like that.

And the normally sensible Toronto Star is not helping with tidbits of info like this:

Female feticide — the widely-condemned practice of aborting female fetuses due to a preference for sons — happens by the millions in China and India, where the practice has been deemed a “crime against humanity” by the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India.

Both the Star and the Globe at least consulted another expert in the field -- the same one, Dr Jha -- to critique the research.

But the study’s greatest weakness is failing to determine the genders of the women’s previous children, said Prabhat Jha, chair of Disease Control at the University of Toronto. He also works at St. Michael’s Hospital as director of the Centre for Global Health Research.

“To really understand what these stats are, you have to understand what was the gender of the previous children in the family,” said Jha, who has done extensive research on female feticide in India.

“Selection happens at higher birth orders, which means you let nature decide the first child and if you have a girl, then a small number of homes say, ‘Well, we want a boy.’ That’s when they turn to sex-selective abortion.”

Even if this latest study proves that female feticide is happening in Ontario, it would reveal that it is occurring in very small numbers, Jha said.

Using the study’s findings, Jha calculated that there were about 245 “missing girls” for Indian-born mothers with at least two prior children — that’s less than one per cent of the 31,963 babies born to Indian women between 2002 and 2007.

“Important but subtle biases, such as higher migration of women who are about to give birth to a son might well explain this finding and suggest that selective abortion is not the explanation,” Jha said.

Typical, right? Media leading a SHRIEEEK-fest over a small, flawed study.

Here's the Star revealing that GTA hospitals are breaking the law in concealing patients' medical information. (Well, actually, the Star does NOT point out that law is being broken, just that information is being withheld at hospitals catering to large populations from 'certain' communities.)

And here's CTV with the SHOCKING fact that US clinics are advertising sex-selection services in ethnic media in Canada.

(Wanna bet the next cycle will bring the HORRIFYING news that one can order gender tests online? Since 2006?)

To recap: if it is happening, the numbers are small and restricted to 'certain' communities. The practice will NOT affect Canadian society.

And if it is happening, there is exactly ZERO than can be done about it by regulation or current law.

Abortion is legal. No woman has to give a reason.

On the other hand, concealing medical information is illegal.

It is pointless -- and insulting -- to restrict access to products or services that are available online or a short car journey away.

The problem, as we sane people have to keep pointing out, is patriarchy.

And, as we keep repeating, 'female feticide' is NOT a big gotcha for feminists. We're cool with all choices. Of course, we'd prefer that all choices be accurately informed and freely made.

We're working on that.

A very CON-veeenient shock and outrage.

The advance team for CPC MP Woodworth's M312 also known as "The kinder, küche, kirche Motion" has started tactically framing the discussion for the CONservatives.

Last year, the CPC sent out Rona Ambrose to cluck about "Sex selection feticide denies millions of girls the right to be born merely because they are girls."

The specific language used is chosen ^NOT to denounce the fundamentalist religions and patriarchal societies that support many, many, many forms of violence against women, but to attack women's rights to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. That was in December.

Now, this.

There's a name for a pathologically threatening mental disturbance whereby an individual exercises his need for attention and control by appropriating another person's reality. It's called Münchausen syndrome by proxy and this is how it manifests itself when men tell women what's good for them.

A paternalistic columnist for a national newspaper - viz. Jonathan Kay - deliberately exaggerates facts and fabricates outrage by declaring himself to be a de facto defender of vulnerable females; whether impregnated or fetus. With deception at its core, this tactic proposes to decide on behalf of the victims what the outcome should be, without addressing the religious, social and political forces that have produced the alleged victimization.

Got it? The use of inflammatory terms like "missing women", "snuffed out" and "exterminate" is sex-selective manipulation and rhetoric.

When Kay and other rightwing gynophobes start crying genuine tears over Aboriginal "missing women" and girls who have been "exterminated" and "snuffed out" (as they are now doing metaphorically to curtail women's right to choose) on that day I might consider the authenticity of their outrage.

Until then, I will correctly assume that anything they say is a CONtemptible stratagem used to justify their misogynist imperative to control women's procreative choices.

Illustration source.

NatPo: We declare this debate OPEN!

Today, we have entries 12 and 13 in NatPo's ongoing campaign to 'Open the Abortion Debate' since Chief Fetus Lobbyist Stephen Woodworth's opening salvo on Dec. 21 last year.

First up, a straight report on yesterday's poll on sex-selective abortion.

Next, Chris Selley on Canada's abortion hypocrisy. He compares 'sex selection' (very very bad) with 'family balancing' (good) and points out that they are the same fucking thing. Except that we get to wag fingers at Deepak and Sanjana as culturally backward, as opposed to applaud Dick and Jane as technologically advanced.

Read the comments. The racists, sexists, prudes, and misogynists are STOKED.

And this is why we say again: Fuck the Debate. Nothing good can come of it.

Oh, the compassion

You may have missed this story, but the fetus fetishists (see usual suspects) are aalllll over it.

In fact, a mutual hand-wringing session with Brian Lilley and Andrea Mrozek (she of ProWoman ProLife *gag*) on Fox News North, is prefaced with a clip from Bill 'Tiller is a baby-killer' O'Reilly. Some broad tells O'Reilly that the measly five-year penalty for infanticide means that 'in Canada, it is open-season on babies'. (Note, however, the penalty in the in the US is two years.)

Speaking over a banner that reads: 'Baby Killer set free: Lack of outrage is mind-boggling', Mzozek cites the judge's reasoning and adds that infanticide is 'anachronistic', that we no longer believe that women who have just given birth have mental disturbances. (We'll get back to this stupidity.) She also drags out Peter Singer, the radical animal liberationist and utilitarian philosopher who is oft-quoted for his justification for killing newborns.

Let's have a look at what the judge said (CBC link above):

The fact that Canada has no abortion laws reflects that "while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support," she writes.

The judge noted that infanticide laws and sentencing guidelines were not altered when the government made many changes to the Criminal Code in 2005, which she says shows that Canadians view the law as a "fair compromise of all the interests involved."

"Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant's death, especially at the hands of the infant's mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother."

So here's the story as told by Susan Martinuk:

Six years ago, a 19-year-old Wetaskiwin teenager named Katrina Effert secretly gave birth in her parents’ downstairs bathroom, then strangled her newborn son with her thong underwear and tossed his body over the fence into a neighbour’s yard.

You know — just an average evening for a hormonal, out-of-sorts teenager.

Yet what seems like a straightforward case of “girl murders baby” has since turned into anything but, and Effert has been wandering in and out of Alberta courtrooms for the past six years. She was twice found guilty of second-degree murder by jury trials (in 2006 and 2009), but each judgment was subsequently overturned by a provincial appeals court. In May of this year, the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned her 2009 murder conviction, ruling that the jury’s verdict was “unreasonable.” It then replaced the murder conviction with the lesser charge of infanticide.

Since 2005, Effert has served the equivalent of almost eight months in legal custody, encompassing time spent in a remand centre, prison and psychiatric hospital. While judges and juries obviously have very different opinions on Effert’s actions and what is an appropriate punishment for baby killing, a conviction for the improper disposal of a body did stick and she was sentenced to serve 90 days for that transgression.

Last Friday, Effert faced Justice Joanne Veit of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench in Edmonton for sentencing. Veit called it a “classic infanticide case” and sentenced her to a three-year suspended sentence with probation.

Martinuk cherry-picks polls on public opinion on abortion, including the SHRIEEEEK- worthy fact that a majority of Canadians don't know that there is no legal time limit on abortion.

From there, Martinuk goes here:

In fact, if Effert had gone to a willing doctor just before giving birth, she could have avoided her legal problems altogether. She could have had a late-term abortion under Canada’s non-existent abortion laws.

Which, as regular readers of DJ! know, is complete bullshit.

This young woman has been dragged through the court system for six fucking years, served eight months, and now has a conviction for infanticide.

What is infanticide?
This is an offence of lessened capacity that is limited to a female person who, not fully recovered from the disturbing effects on her of a birth of her child or subsequent lactation, by a wilful act or omission, causes the death of her newly-born child. The maximum penalty is five years imprisonment.

Here is a history of infanticide, including explanations, such as economic, sex-selection, customs and taboos, psychological and psychiatric reasons.

The psychiatric reasons are postpartum psychosis and severe postpartum depression.

Let's review: a 19-year-old woman living with parents gives birth in secret. Why in secret? Parents don't know, will throw her out? Strangles newborn, throws body over fence (she thinks she's getting away with this?), then lies. Tells investigators she's a virgin, then switches stories and says she gave newborn to its father.

Sounds like a cold-blooded baby-killer to you?

Sounds like a very distraught young woman to me.

Who finally had some compassion shown to her after six fucking years. The judge is female and while I haven't read the entire judgement, she did open the door to all this nonsense with the reference to abortion. She could have stopped with 'classic case of infanticide', as far as I'm concerned.

Well, water under the bridge now. The fetus fetishists are gleefully spinning this sad story as a symptom of our 'culture of death'.

For the record, here is the Canadian Medical Association's policy on abortion (PDF):

Induced abortion, as interpreted by the CMA, is the active termination of a pregnancy before fetal viability. In this context viability is the ability of the fetus to survive independently of the maternal environment. According to current medical knowledge viability is dependent on fetal weight, degree of development and length of gestation; extrauterine viability may be possible if the fetus weighs over 500 g or is past 20 weeks’ gestation, or both (Gestation begins at conception).

Listen up, Ms Martinuk and other fetus fetishists: A doctor 'willing' to perform an abortion right before birth would face serious sanctions and probably lose his or her licence. For that reason, late-term abortions do NOT occur in Canada unless for the direst of reasons.

Of course, it is too much to hope that the 'pro-lifers' would leave this young woman alone now. No way. They're all 'pro-woman' until there's a hapless woman involved they can demonize to further their cause.

What would be the point of an abortion debate?

About that debate that nobody wants and yet seems to be raging all the fucking time nonetheless...

I will have more to say about this (biiiig surprise, regular DJ! readers are thinking), but for now (I'm really busy) I just want to put a couple of points out there.

Here's a question no one seems to be asking: What would be the purpose of an abortion debate?

Rabid political partisans are obviously betting that it can score them some votes or at least some points.

Rabid anti-choicers want to roll history backwards and if not recriminalize abortion altogether (which even they admit is not on), then create some kinda law -- any kinda law -- on it.

The sneakier of those two groups take another tack. They want to debate the funding of abortion. This gang has an ally in Prime Minister ShitHead who said yesterday that abortion funding can't be part of the Maternal Health Initiative because it's extremely divisive. (Bulletin, Mr Harper: So is vaccination.)

Media outfits want an abortion debate because it's sure-fire click-bait -- have a look at any story about it and check the comment count. Some pundits want to sell books or freelance pieces. A few boyos want to exercise their middle-school debating skills and they'll do it purely for fun.

I call this aim the #AbortionDebateClub -- debating the fundamental human right to autonomy for FUN and PROFIT!!!!

Am I missing anything? Political points, legislation, funding, FUN. What other end could an abortion debate serve?

Here's my question for now. If legislation is the purpose, under what aegis?

Criminal Code of Canada? All recent Conservative private member's bills have been framed as amendments to the Criminal Code. Effectively this means criminalizing some types of abortion (medical bad, surgical OK?), some aspects of abortion (early OK, late [howlate?] bad?), some reasons (sex-selection VERY BAD) for abortion.

We need only look southward to see where partial criminalization leads. Once there is a law, people will inevitably try to screw around with it. The more forthright of the fetus fetishists admit that they will not stop until abortion is so ringed around with restrictions and regulations and paperwork that it becomes practically unobtainable.

How about the Constitution then? Section 2 of the Charter could have a few words added, no biggie.

2. Everyone (including the zygotal, embryonic, and fetal) has the following fundamental freedoms:

Easy peasy, yes?

Or maybe the Canada Health Act? Again, we could insert a couple of words.

An Act relating to cash contributions by Canada and relating to criteria and conditions in respect of insured health services and extended health care services, except abortion

My serious question again: What is the desired concrete outcome of an abortion debate?

Because if we can't agree on a purpose for a debate, it does seem to me to be simply "extremely divisive."

And totally pointless in a country where a lawless abortion regime has worked very well for more than a quarter of a century.


ADDED: Joyce Arthur offers a distinction between "backwards" and "forwards" abortion debates. What we should be talking about she says is access, funding for women in developing countries, and international advocacy for our successful #LawlessAbortion regime.

All abortion is selective

From The New Yorker:

The abortion laws passed last week in North Dakota are troubling first and foremost because they restrict women’s freedom to control their own bodies. More insidiously, they criminalize selective abortion, which means that a woman cannot choose to terminate a pregnancy because she knows the fetus has a genetic abnormality, or to select for other characteristics, such as gender. The very use of the world “selective” here indicates how right the pro-choice movement has been to emphasize “choice.” All abortion is selective, and whether a woman has selected not to have a baby at all or has selected not to have a particular baby is not a matter the state should parse. No one should be forced to have a child she doesn’t wish to have.

Excellent point.

All abortion is selective. Women have their own reasons. Not now. Not this man. Not this fetal defect. Not these circumstances. Not at all.

They select to abort a particular pregnancy. Their reasons are personal and private.

None of anyone else's business.

The fetus fetishists are being over-clever again with Warawa's Wank.

'We're not trying to ban abortion,' they say. 'We're just condemning one reason for it. Sex selection.'

Condemn one reason, and you're your way to condemning them all.

Remember Ken Epp's 'Unborn Victims of Crime' bill, C484, that sought extra charges against attackers of pregnant women by counting the fetus as a 'person'? In opposition to that, the rallying cry was 'One body. One person. One count.'

It's time to go on the offensive on M408 too.

No to M408. All abortion is selective.

Fully Funded, Any Time, Any Reason

Well, this isn't working very well.

Virulent anti-choice Jeff Watson, MP for Essex, Ontario, had an notion for a poll at his website.

Recently, as parliament debated M-312 to establish a committee to re-examine Canada's 400 year-old law defining a human being, the founder and Executive Director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada called fully taxpayer-funded abortion, at any time, for any reason - including for sex-selection or as birth control - a basic woman's right.

Which best describes your position:

3464 total votes

I support fully taxpayer-funded abortion, at any time in the pregnancy, for any reason at all: 76%

I support some legal restrictions on access to abortion, for example restricting full access to abortion to the first trimester of pregnancy: 9%

I support abortion for any reason but it shouldn't be taxpayer-funded: 1%

I support creative policy options and supports that help women with unexpected pregnancies keep the baby: 2%

I support a complete ban on abortion: 10%

When our pal Alison at Creekside alerted us to this about 12 hours ago, there were just over 2716 votes, but the proportions were essentially the same: one point less then for some restrictions and one point more for total ban.

Let's repeat that, shall we?

Over three-quarters of Canadians support fully taxpayer-funded abortion, at any time in the pregnancy, for any reason at all.


UPDATE: The poll is still open and the fetus fetishists must be freeping. Total ban is up a point and totally lawless is down a point. Votey-vote-vote.

FURTHER UPDATE: Aha. PZ Myers linked to the poll. Alison says: 'It's PZ Myers vs the foeterz! My money's on PZ.' Mine too.

And here's the proof of the freeping.

UPDATE at 7:00 p.m.: Now 5148 votes. Fully funded, any time, any reason down to 58%. Total ban up to 29%. Proof that fetus fetishists are better freepers. Sane people get bored.

That Damned Stubborn Debate Won't Open!

Agenda? What agenda? Nah, the NatPo has no abortion agenda.

Well, somebody really wants to reopen the so-called debate.

Two pieces today, one on Saturday, gasbag de Souza last Thursday, two last Wednesday, one Tuesday, all spurred by the sex-selection story. (That link is to André Picard, sensible on this as he is on so many issues.)

Going further back, but still in January, NatPo ran more stories about abortion in Canada:
Jan. 13, news about the human rights complaint in New Brunswick, but dig the heading: 'New Brunswick abortion debate could reopen as province seeks to block doctor’s human rights complaint'.
Jan 11, Gunter's Grunts
Jan 7, 'Attempts to fire up abortion debate in Canada fizzle'.

And December 12, 'Tory MP boldly calls for abortion debate with statement that avoids using the word "abortion"'. That would be Chief Fetus Lobbyist (at the moment) Con backbencher-in-search-of-an-issue-any-issue Stephen Woodworth.

Plus all the letters to the editor that fit in print.

In just over a month, eleven stories humping that really really uninterested leg.

Today, Margaret Sommerville witters as usual, but Kelly McParland really belts one outta the park.

Taken to its logical extreme, abortion would ultimately prove its own undoing. If enough women abort female festuses [sic and snerk], eventually the world would be depopulated of women, ending the need to worry about whether abortion is moral or not.

Such spectacular stupidity can not be out-done, yes?

Wrong. The best-rated comment is by known dunderhead 'Sassylassie'.

Or the new progressive gay utopia sans females? Sick thing is the solution to the shortage of females in China is to force women to marry more than one man. The sickos are always one step ahead of the rest of us, abort us enmasse and then victimize the survivors sans enforced polygamy.

The evul plan hatched by homos and feminazis is working nicely, isn't it?

And they wonder why we sane people don't want to debate them.

Taking on Sex-Selective Abortion

Indian women take on the sex-selective abortion issue.

Mumbai (AsiaNews/Agencies) - About 225 women, members of the first all-female village council (gram sabha) of Haryana, have decided to set up vigilance committees to stop selective abortions and female feoticides. According to their proposal, each of the 14 districts of the village of Bibipur (Jind district) will have its own committee, made up of three women and one man with the task of monitoring and controlling pregnant women. The move is significant because Haryana is one of the Indian states in which the practice of gender selection is most widespread.

The women made their proposal in the presence of the sarpanch (village head), Sunil Jaglan, who gave full approval to the project. "From this moment", he explained, "the anganwadi (a sort of health worker, ed.) must record every woman in the second month of pregnancy. Up to now, the state, by law, already records pregnant women from the fourth month. Our hope is that lowering the limit will serve as a deterrent, and that other villages will follow our example."

A woman named Birmati explains that the gender test costs 5,000 rupees (70 euros) and the same again for an abortion. She suggests:

If the same money were instead deposited into a fixed deposit at the birth of the baby, the family would not need to worry about her future. When she grows up, the bank can provide them with sufficient financial support for her studies and for a good marriage.

In Canada, an editorial in the Calgary Herald is calling for an end to 'entertainment' ultrasounds.

An ultrasound is a medical procedure, not a party trick. Its long-term effects remain unknown and Health Canada warns about possible risk for a woman and her baby. Health Canada recommends "diagnostic fetal ultrasounds should be done only when the expected medical benefits out-weigh any foreseeable risk." That's a sensible rule for any pregnant woman.

Here at DJ! we've covered the weird fascination fetus fetishists have with ultrasound several times. They believe that forcing women to look at pulsing images of their innards will dissuade them from abortion.

To that end, the Knights of Columbus have a program to raise funds to buy equipment specifically for fake clinics.

Multiple ultrasounds are a relatively recent phenomenon. Back in the day, there were few machines and they were reserved for high-risk pregnancies. Even now, current guidelines recommend two ultrasounds per uncomplicated pregnancy.

So, while prochoice people are generally not in favour of pregnancy regulation, I personally wouldn't have a problem with outlawing non-medically necessary ultrasounds. Especially if that included non-medically necessary but coercive and manipulative ultrasounds offered by the fake clinics.

Of course, regulating non-medical ultrasounds -- it's done in several Excited States -- is not the whole answer to sex-selective abortion. Women, whether on their own or pressured by family and cultural expectations, will seek and no doubt find ultrasound operators willing to risk whatever sanctions for a few bucks.

More important is elevating the value of women in the benighted communities where this goes on. Maybe the community teams and a very practical idea like Birmati's could go some way towards altering people's perceptions of women.

CPC fetus lobby breaking out all over.

First it was Trost.

Then Woodworth.

Now Ambrose. Pay attention to the words used in this superficially supportive message, framed in accordance with reformaTory ideology: "Sex selection feticide denies millions of girls the right to be born merely because they are girls."

Yes, Stevie Spiteful's Contempt Party MPs have received their talking points from his Politburo. They're breaking out all over the Canadian political landscape like boils on the Teflon-dipped butt of their *strong stable majority*.

The spin varies, but the underlying message is the same: the Cons are planning to criminalize a medical intervention.

My co-blogger fern hill, spin spotter extraordinaire.

Death by Childbirth

Northern Ireland is struggling towards ensuring that women have choice with respect to their reproductive potential. However it does have something to offer pregnant women that is enviable and admirable.

According to the United Nations, a woman’s chance of dying in childbirth in the United States is 1 in 4,800. In Ireland, which has the best rate in the world, it is 1 in 48,000. In Sierra Leone, it is 1 in 8.

One in eight. Think of eight women you know that are pregnant or who have recently given birth. Name each one out loud. Imagine one of them dying while giving birth. Perhaps a friend, a relative, a neighbour or someone very close to you almost died, but with the intervention of prompt, efficient professional health care workers, she survived and so did her infant.

Fatmata Jalloh’s body lay on a rusting metal gurney in a damp hospital ward, a scrap of paper with her name and “R.I.P.” taped to her stomach. In the soft light of a single candle — the power was out again in one of Africa’s poorest cities — Jalloh looked like a sleeping teenager. Dead just 15 minutes, the 18-year-old’s face was round and serene, with freckles around her closed eyes and her full lips frozen in a sad pucker. …

More than 500,000 women a year — about one every minute — die in childbirth across the globe, almost exclusively in the developing world, and almost always from causes preventable with basic medical care. The planet’s worst rates are in this startlingly poor nation on West Africa’s Atlantic coast, where a decade of civil war that ended in 2002 deepened chronic deprivation.

The women die from bleeding, infection, obstructed labor and preeclampsia or pregnancy-induced high blood pressure. But often the underlying cause is simply life in poor countries: Governments don’t provide enough decent hospitals or doctors; families can’t afford medications.

The above was first posted at Birth Pangs in 2008.

More recent figures on maternal mortality are available in the World Economic Forum's recently released Global Gender Gap Report which measures the size of the gender inequality gap in four critical areas:

1) Economic participation and opportunity – outcomes on salaries, participation levels and access to high-skilled employment

2) Educational attainment – outcomes on access to basic and higher level education

3) Political empowerment – outcomes on representation in decision-making structures

4) Health and survival – outcomes on life expectancy and sex ratio.

Antonia Zerbisias scrutinizes the Catholic Family and Fetal Rights Institute's distortion of the World Economic Forum report and exposes C-FAM's twisted logic and fallacious premise here. She does an excellent job of deconstructing the Institute's partial fact selection about medical care provided to women of child-bearing age, its use of false equivalency and its MASSIVE obfuscations and lies.

She demonstrates how The Fetus©™ fetishists do not value the lives of those they view only as Gestational Support Units, better known to non-zealots as women who are mothers, daughters, wives, sisters, friends and lovers.