Fetus Freaks React to Sex-Selective Abortion Study

Fetus freaks reacted predictably to the news of a large study confirming that sex-selective abortion probably accounts for a significant male/female birth ratio imbalance in Ontario's Indo-Canadian community. (Note that freaks call it "gendercide.")

There are three categories of reactions.
1. Generalized hand-wringing, tut-tutting, and slamming of abortion.
2. "Where are the feminists?"
3. Calls to action.

1. Generalized hand-wringing. Two in this category: Focus on the Family's astroturf site and LieShite, which manages to pack in a bunch of buzzwords, including "cultural profiling" (whatever that is, but sounds bad, doesn't it?), "political incorrectness" (I think they mean "political correctness" but hey, they're just buzzwords, right?) and of course "gendercide." This one goes on for quite a bit but this is its only point:

Gendercide, or sex-selective abortion, shows everything that is wrong with abortion – all abortion.

2. Where are the feminists? The freaks clearly think they have a gotcha here that runs something like this: "If feminists really cared about women, they'd be up in arms about female fetuses being aborted."

Why they think this is a gotcha is a mystery to me. Duh, the reason we are feminists is because we are excruciatingly well aware of the bias against girls and women in society. And we're working to do something -- a bunch of things, actually, ranging from pay equity to universal day care to expanded reproductive care, etc etc etc -- about it. That's what makes us feminists.

Two in this category: Amateur Statistician and Robyn Urback in the NatPo, a truly loathsome, hypocritical piece (q.v.).

Aside: I left comments at both the Focus on the Family and Amateur Statistician blogs, asking politely what they would suggest be done about this. Focus on the Family declined to publish my question (though now there's an odd fragment of a tweet of mine in the comments) and AS said she wouldn't answer because I'm rude. OK then.

3. Calls to action. Here we have the Dominionist who is rather vague about what's to be done, because he doesn't actually have to say that his goal -- banning all abortion -- would fix the problem. But government should do something!!!!!!!

The other call to action is a media release from CampaignLie under the title "Campaign Life Coalition calls for legislation to ban sex-selective abortions."

The media release starts:

The barbaric practice of sex-selective abortions has resurfaced in Canada after further evidence has been published proving that gendercide does indeed occur in Canadian hospitals and abortion facilities.

("Barbaric," we all know, means "done by non-white people.")

But unlike the Dominionist, Campaign Lie has a plan. There's a quote from president Jim Hughes, referring to Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins' bone-headed knee-jerk, which I will address in another post.

“If he's truly disturbed by the killing of baby girls - just because they’re girls – then Hoskins shouldn’t hesitate to delist this type of abortion from provincial health insurance plans. Furthermore, every province’s Minister of Health should do the same.”

The title calls for a ban -- without of course getting into any of the messy details of how discriminatory, unethical, and futile such a ban would be, but the text calls for defunding the procedure.

Because that will help.

We know anecdotally that coercion -- general cultural pressure and/or specific pressure, threats, and worse -- is involved in at least some of these abortions. Here's an example from Jen Gunter, a practising OB/GYN (whose blogpost is essential reading on this topic).

"He beat me very badly after I had my last girl, I can’t go through that again,” a woman once told me. What exactly were this woman’s options who spoke limited English, had no job and depended on her husband for money. She took a bus to her abortion because she didn’t drive and would have to explain the money for a cab. Do I judge her? Do I with my upper middle class upbringing and the earning potential of a physician say, “Sorry honey, not tragic enough?” And what if she doesn’t get that abortion and is then beaten to death in her third trimester or after she delivers? I’ve seen that, but no one writing about the “evils” or “moral ambiguity” of sex selective abortion mentions maternal abuse or murder.

So, these kindly Christians ignore the circumstances of women in these situations and instead seek to punish them further and drive the practice underground.

Because, if they were "good" (even if non-white) women, they would instead undergo multiple pregnancies in the quest for a boy.

Jen Gunter again:

What about eight pregnancies in search of a boy, is that not harmful? Why does no one ever mention that when they discuss harm? I have delivered many women who sobbed and looked away in disgust when they saw they had delivered their fifth or sixth or eighth girl, because they knew they would be back year after year until they delivered that coveted boy or died trying. How is that not violence against women?

If women have to justify their abortion why shouldn’t they have to justify their eighth pregnancy? The latter is far more dangerous than the former.

And yes, six additional deliveries is a lot more harmful than six abortions.

How many pregnancies must a woman endure in search of a boy before the patriarchy decides she is allowed to have an abortion? Three? Five? Eight? Fifteen?

Whatever you call it, we need to look hard at this practice. To rewrite LieShite's line:

Gendercide, or sex-selective abortion, shows everything that is wrong with society in all its loathsome sexism, misogyny, classism, and racism.

All of which the fetus freaks are delighted to enable.

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?

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.

Anti-Choice Tag Team

Thar's gold in them thar uteri.

Keeping the abortion debate alive is very lucrative for a number of anti-choice entrepreneurs. Churches and 'right to life' groups are only the most obvious.

There are the born-again anti-choicers like Abby Johnson, who once were blind but now they see.

There are the 'Conceived in Rape' mongers, like Rebecca Kiessling.

And now, a new-to-me brand of huckster -- the faux women's rights defenders.

Via Kady O'Malley, we learn that sex-selective abortion promoter opponent Mark Warawa had a bunfest planned for Thursday, aka The Day Senator Brawler Brazeau Blew up the Internet.

Meanwhile, outside the Chamber, Conservative MP Mark Warawa will kick off his campaign to build support for his bid to condemn sex-selective terminations -- which, it's worth noting, is due to be added to the private members' priority list in early March -- by arranging a press conference for Reggie Littlejohn, who is, according to the advisory, a "leading expert" on China's One Child Policy.

According to the notice, Littlejohn will 'call on Canadian leaders to condemn ... gendercide," which is, of course, precisely what the Warawa motion would do.

Tonda MacCharles tweeted a bit about it, so it did occur, but it got no other coverage.

Reggie Littlejohn hath an organization called Women's Rights Without Frontiers, which claims to be a coalition dedicated to SHRIEEKING about forced abortion in China.

Under 'Team', Littlejohn herself is listed along with a board of directors, including couple of organizations like this one, concerned with 'Serving persecuted Christians worldwide'.

OK then, forced abortion and persecuted Christians go together well, I guess.

But is Littlejohn anti-choice? You betcha. She was recently awarded the 'National Pro-Life Recognition Award at the National Prayer Service preceding the Annual March for Life'.

From her acceptance speech:

My question is, where is the pro-choice movement on this?  Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, no one supports forced abortion because it is not a choice.  Why isn’t the pro-choice movement condemning forced abortion in China? Why aren’t they standing against forced sterilization? Why aren’t they crying out against the selective abortion of baby girls? Right now, as I am speaking to you, women are being dragged out of their homes, strapped down to tables, and forcibly aborted and sterilized. I challenge these organizations to take a stand.

Woo. That glurge oughta open some wallets, eh?

Wait. There's more.

Also on Thursday, I ran across a press release announcing that someone named Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute would address some Kansas (where else?) legislators on sex-selective abortion.

PRI describes itself as: 'an international non-profit which works to end coercive population control, and fight the myth of overpopulation which fuels it.'

Mosher seems to do quite nicely out of the venture.

The President of PRI, Steven W. Mosher, received in 2005 the equivalent of ~13% of the entire expenses budget for the organization and roughly equivalent to the entire administrative expenses budget for 2005.

And he's 'controversial'.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Mosher successfully lobbied the George W. Bush administration to withhold $34 to $40 million per year for seven years from the U.N. Population Fund, the largest international donor to family planning programs.

So, Mosher works to withhold contraception while Littlejohn squeals about the results. Works good.

I'm betting the next time Warawa organizes a bunfest on M408, Mosher will be the guest.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Brave Mark Warawa ^NOT

Been away from the fray for a bit, so to catch up.

Warawa's Wank is toast.

Conservative MP Mark Warawa is dropping his bid for a vote on his motion to condemn sex-selective abortion, an issue that caused several MPs to split with the rest of the party's caucus in recent weeks.

Warawa told reporters on his way into the House of Commons that he is tabling a bill tomorrow that deals with sex offenders who serve house arrest in the same neighbourhoods as their victims, revictimizing them when they encounter each other in the community.

Another brave stand. Warawa demands: Do you stand with the sex offenders or with chastised MPs?

Fetus fetishists are not amused.

In a press release Wednesday, Campaign Life Coalition said they were “very disappointed” that the political pressure used against Warawa’s motion left him where it did.

“We thank Mark Warawa for raising the issue of lethal discrimination against women and girls through sex-selective abortion in Canada,” said Mary Ellen Douglas, CLC’s National Organizer. “It is a shame that this motion was killed.”

We Need a Law (Like a Hole in the Head) puts on a virtuoso display of wooing support (emphasis mine).

“The completely unfounded fear that somehow an expression of Parliament condemning this practice might in some way send women to the back alleys of Canadian cities with coat hangers speaks to the low level of intellect of most Canadian politicians. By their actions, they are avoiding, and in fact tacitly accepting, the very serious global problem of gendercide,” continued Schouten."

Meanwhile, at SUZYALLCAPS' Magisterium of Fetal Gore Porn, not one word about M408. All Gosnell-wanking, all the time.

http://www.bigbluewave.ca/search?q=gosnell

Meanwhile, some are still desperately trying to spin this petulant foot-stomping revolt as some kinda democratic reawakening, even dubbing it The Backbench Spring.

After Question Period today, Conservative MPs Michael Chong and Pierre Lemieux stood in the House and expressed their support for Mark Warawa’s question of privilege. Their statements are below.

This makes eight Conservative backbenchers who have spoke up in this regard: Warawa, Chong, Lemieux, Leon Benoit, Brent Rathgeber, Kyle Seeback, Stephen Woodworth and John Williamson. Rod Bruinooge, as well, seemed at least open to the idea of change.

The involvement of Mr. Chong, who has pushed for QP reform, would seem to undermine the idea that this is merely a pro-life cause masquerading as a push for parliamentary reform—he voted for Motion 312, but said at the time that he was not in favour of banning abortion and Campaign Life Coalition considers him “not supportable.”

While clear-eyed Alison calls any Backbenchers' Spring officially over.

Mosey over to her place for a fun singalong.

The CON game continues. They'd rather be re-elected than stand up for what they supposedly believe in.

We hope so-cons are taking note.

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.

M408 Blowed Up Real Good

The Iron Fist of PMSHithead comes crashing down on Warawa's Wank.

Conservative MP Mark Warawa has lost his appeal to bring a motion condemning sex-selective abortion to the House of Commons for debate.

The procedure and House affairs committee upheld a decision by its subcommittee that Warawa's motion, M-408, isn't eligible to be debated by MPs, despite the advice of a non-partisan Library of Parliament analyst that the motion was in order.

Warawa has five days to appeal to the House of Commons. He said Monday that he has the backing he needs to bring the appeal, with the support of five MPs from two recognized parties. That appeal will lead to a secret ballot over whether the motion can be brought for debate.

Warawa said he's "very disappointed" but was going to take a few days before deciding whether to appeal. He can also introduce another private member's bill or motion instead of appealing the decision.

I never doubted that it was voteable. It was just a non-binding motion, after all, a shiny thing for the fetus fetishists in the CONtempt Party to amuse themselves with when they weren't being called upon to smear the Opposition.

A sop to the base, in short.

Who could have foreseen that the rigid control of the PMO would cause such a delightful ruckus?

And it appears that other zygote zealots were gobsmacked too.

Under the heading Parliament complicit with sex-selective abortions, Campaign Lie SHRIEEEKS.

"The decision to crush M-408 is proof that Harper will go to any extreme to distance himself from any reference to abortion, even if that means compromising on democracy," said Jim Hughes, President of Campaign Life Coalition.

And what do we have here?

Yesterday CPC phoned for donation. Me: "Fuck off." Caller: So you don't want to support the CPC right now? Me: "Fuck off."

— Paul Tuns (@ptuns) March 28, 2013

Ooh. Very bad language from Paul Tuns, editor in chief of The Interim, 'Canada's Life and Family Newspaper'.

I'm calling it: SPECTACULAR FAIL.

Polls, Schmolls

You knew this was coming. Angus-Reid poll on the recent SHRIEEEEK-fest over sex-selective abortion.

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.
. . .
In the online survey of a representative sample of 1,001 Canadian adults, 51 per cent of respondents believe there should be laws which outline when a woman can have an abortion in Canada. Conversely, 37 per cent of Canadians think there should be no laws on this matter and want women to have the unrestricted right to have an abortion at any time up to the moment of birth.

(Note spin there at the end. 'Any time up to the moment of birth'!!!! Two SHRIEEEKS for the price of one!!!1! Ah well, I suppose polling companies would lose a ton of dough if abortion were uncontroversial.)

In reply to Chris Selley's posting of the above info (with typical NatPo spin, emphasizing that a [slim] majority of Liberal voters think there should be laws on 'when a woman can have an abortion in Canada'), SadieMae said:

This is why we don't write laws based on polling data.

That wedge-issue debate still won't open.

To recap: Yes, sex-selective abortion IS a problem where it is widely practised. It is NOT widely practised in Canada and likely to grow even less so. A gender imbalance in some communities would affect only those communities and would perhaps get them rethinking their antediluvian treatment of women.

A law would be useless -- women will use at-home prenatal gender tests or go to the US.

And yet, there will be much caterwauling about this for months to come.

Anti-abortion Incrementalism and Death Threats

Why have I not heard of Prairie Dog before? I was alerted to it by a tweet from the astroturf gang Focus on the Family (Canada branch plant). (But more on that in a minute.)

Kelly Malone attended a LifeTour event in Regina and reported on it under the title "Slippery Slopes."

This tour is the work of the Dominionist "We Need a Law" gang -- they of the underground gas line marker displays -- fronted by our old pal Mike Schouten.

Malone outlines the gang's "sneaky" strategy, aka incrementalism.

Rather than fighting for a “perfect law” that would ban all abortions, Schouten outlines three laws he thinks could realistically be passed: first, a ban on late-term abortions (which the presentation didn’t mention are uncommon and only performed when the woman’s life is at risk). Second: a law against sex-selective abortions.

And last but not least? A law for the so-called “pre-born” victims of crime that, conveniently, would enshrine fetal “rights” in law.

Here at DJ! we've written tons on the last two -- not much on the first, because as noted, it doesn't float Canadian boats as it does USian ones. For example, on sex-selective abortion and on "pre-born" victims of crime, aka the failed Bill C-484, and its newer incarnation, Molly's Law.

But back to Focus on the Family. In a blogpost titled "Smart", Mrozek links to the Prairie Dog post and calls it "a fair pro-choice look at a pro-life event." Then she quotes and lauds the first comment.

Hi Prairie Dog! Thanks for a well written article. I’m wondering what were the questionable scientific facts presented at this particular talk? Were you able to either confirm or deny them?

She neglects to remark on the other five (well, four if you discount the repeat) usual hectoring comments from fetus fetishists.

I too linked to Prairie Dog this morning and The Shocker focussed on one of the other more usual comments.

@fernhilldammit "there isn't a pro lifer who wants to see women die" um, there are a lot, the deaths are celebrated on creepy websites

— The Shocker (@fortyfs) October 16, 2015

We who watch the zygote zealots -- precisely because they are sneaky -- know this.

LieShite has many many articles about "heroic" women who declined abortion even in the face of life-threatening illness in order to serve Gawd and produce another orphan. Because, you see, in the fetus fetishist universe, abortion is NEVER necessary to save the life of the incubator woman.

Also, at LieShite, and no doubt other even creepier sites, there are regular celebrations -- really, there is no other word for it -- when ambulances are called to abortion clinics. This is from a search on the site for "ambulance."

The recent #ShoutYourAbortion campaign on Twitter proved it again. Women who participated were variously vilified and frequently threatened with death.

Here's a funny take on those "pro-life" reactions.

"Pro-lifers" frequently wish death on women who abort and people who support their right to do so. That they really think they don't is just another example of their quite terrifying delusion.

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.

Fun with Fetus Fetishists

Me, I'm bored with SUZY CAPSLOCK. http://www.bigbluewave.ca/ And not just because of HER juvenile habit of redirecting any links to HER blog to fetal pr0n sites (hence, plain text url). Sure, SHE is occasionally hilarious, but mostly just boring, not to mention ponderously Catlick.

Now we haven't exactly ignored the 'new wave' of anti-choice/anti-feminist sites like Signal Hill, aka ProLife BC, and ProWoman ProLife, but I intend to pay more attention to them, starting a little while ago with PWPL's endorsement of the abusive, violent, father's rights guy Greg Fultz, aka The Billboard Guy.

These new wave efforts (mostly) eschew the old blame the sluts women, they-should-keep-their-legs-together, religious/legal approach. Instead, they adopt a treacly concern for women, maintaining that abortion 'harms' women.

PWPL is more interesting than Signal Hill/ProLife BC because it tries a lot harder to pretend that it is a real blog and not an astroturfed initiative by a fundy religious group.

It claims that its goal is not legal recriminalization of abortion but moral and logical suasion. Its motto is 'Canada without abortion. By choice.' (Note co-option of our language; there's a lot of that.)

From the site's The Story page:

…Pro-woman because we are pro-life…

The idea that abortion is a woman’s right was always just an opinion. There’s no basis in law, in logic or in our constitution. And there’s certainly no basis in early feminist thought.

The early feminist thought bit is true. Early feminists were, sensibly, more concerned with voting and property rights than reproductive rights. First things first, after all. Margaret Sanger was herself anti-abortion, a fact antichoicers omit when they are excoriating her for her (quite progressive at the time) views on eugenics.

More from The Story:

The idea for ProWomanProLife was developed by founding director Andrea Mrozek. “It’s not a woman’s right to have an abortion,” says Mrozek. “There’s no such thing as a right to an abortion, not for women, not for men. It doesn’t contribute to women’s rights and freedoms at all, because having an abortion is, put simply, not a right.”

That's a bit twisty, innit? Doesn't contribute to rights and freedoms because it's not a right? Well, if one considers bodily integrity and autonomy a right -- as sane people do -- then it bloody well is a right.

More:

* ProWomanProLife is a home for all women who believe that being pro-life is compatible with women’s rights and freedoms.

Trans: PWPL is for women with the ability to hold diametrically opposed opinions at the same time.

* ProWomanProLife celebrates women’s legitimate choices, freedoms and rights.

Trans: 'Legitimate' as our lords and masters decide.

* ProWomanProLife believes abortion is bad for women and that women will be integral in removing abortion from our cultural landscape.

Trans: For 'bad', see 'legitimate' above.
DJ!: Fine, remove it from 'cultural landscape', whatever that may be, as long as it is left in the medical landscape.

* ProWomanProLife desires to bring an end to abortion, not by coercion, but by choice.

Trans: See? We worked the magic word 'choice' in again.

* ProWomanProLife believes abortion is a human, social issue, not a religious or faith matter, whereby women and men of any faith or no faith at all can stand up in support of women’s rights and life, at the same time.

DJ!: That's just a great big porky pie. See below.

* ProWomanProLife understands the fetus is a new and unique human being from conception, separate from, though dependent on, the woman.
* ProWomanProLife believes that the fetus is deserving of protection.

Trans: We reserve the right to display gory fetal pr0n anytime we get backed into a corner.

Here's the porky: From The Women section:

Andrea [Mrozek] currently works at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada as Manager of Research and Communications.

That Institute is the wholly owned subsidiary of the evangelical, Xian Focus on the Family.

Focus on the Family Canada is "committed to helping families thrive." Its mission is to "encourage and strengthen the Canadian family through education and resources based on Christian principles"; its purpose is to "love God and our neighbours by serving Canadian families and encouraging them to pursue a growing relationship with Jesus Christ"; and its guiding principles include the preeminence of evangelism, permanence of marriage, the value of children, the sanctity of human life, the relationship of church, family and government.

The other Women are painted as young, dynamic career women, who just care so darn much about (benighted) other women that they devote their spare time to propagandizing against promoting women's rights. Short of the right to bodily integrity and autonomy, natch.

Since they're all about respectful dialogue, yadayada, they are not so quick with the 'delete comment' button. I've posted comments, usually with pertinent links and usually ignored, over there. Viz, their Billboard Guy post. And Mrozek's belated and evasive response.

More recently, I chimed in on their latest attempt to appear relevant, in this case on the Saudi women's campaign to drive.

Commenting on true infringements of women’s rights is something PWPL likes to do.

'True' infringements like a ban on driving. In a Muslim country, note. Many more 'true infringements', in their view, seem to occur in Muslim places than Western places, but no matter about that.

Another new post over there (sorta) takes on the gender imbalance caused by sex-selective abortion in some parts of the world. Just to show you how serious they are, they quote Kathy Shaidle who SHRIEEEKS about how such an imbalance is imminent in Toronto because of all the -- you guessed it -- Muslim immigrants.

Anti-feminists/fetus fetishists love sex-selective abortion. They consider it the ultimate Gotcha! If feminists defend it, Gotcha! The evul feminazis are condoning killing 'unborn women' (no shit, that's how they refer to female embryos). If feminists don't condone it, Gotcha! Evul feminazis believe there should be some restrictions on abortion. If feminists don't address it, Gotcha! Haul out the 'where are the feminists?' refrain. (There is a new book about this generating some comment. I'm working on a response.)

So. An invitation from DJ! to like-minded readers: pop over there occasionally. Leave a (respectful) comment, with irritating links to facty-sciency stuff.

Let's show them some love.

Maybe a coupla iterations of the 'you know, you DON'T speak for me' refrain that anti-feminists love to throw at feminists wouldn't be outta line either.

(It's gonna be a loooong four years of The Harper Regime. I'm trying to find some fun where I can.)

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.

*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.

Pro smack-down of M408

One of the MASSIVE irritants that swims in the eddy churned up by CON MP Mark Warawa's misogynistic M408 is the twitter spamming campaign in which the antiChoice lobby engages.

The shrieeeking, the lack of finesse, the crude lies, the pitiful attempts at logical thinking.

My co-blogger fern hill has done a brilliant job of addressing, challenging and smacking down the most odious of those tweets.  And she has blogged frequently at DJ! in response to the obfuscation and sheer stoopidity of M408.

And yet, some in the media appear content to parrot Warawa's and Woodworth's twisty prevarications about women's right to choose —with the support of Canadian healthcare professionals— whether to continue carrying a pregnancy to term or not.

It is a simple, clear-cut proposition. The voluntary termination of a pregnancy is a medical procedure.  It is regulated in Canada through public health care.  Canada is not a christian theocracy.  It has - or used to have - a secular government.  Religious freedom implies that individuals can observe their own private religious beliefs, practices and rituals at will - but NOT enforce those upon people who have different ones.

This Op-Ed piece in the Ottawa Citizen addresses the abusive obfuscation that M408 has generated, most lucidly and potently.

That the fetus you are carrying is female is certainly a terrible reason to have an abortion — but, good or bad, your reason is none of the government’s business. It’s simply not the place of our federal Parliament to voice an opinion on the merit of this or that reason behind a woman’s choice to have an abortion.[...]

It’s not for Parliament to voice an opinion on women’s reasons for having abortions, for human fetuses are neither in fact persons nor recognized as such in Canadian law. They are not persons for they have no interests; they lack the self-consciousness necessary for having interests.

Since they lack interests, human fetuses cannot be wronged. They cannot, therefore, be wronged by being discriminated against, not on grounds of sex, not on any grounds.

Warawa’s motion, then, makes no sense. No fetus is wrongfully discriminated against when it is aborted on account of its being female, so sex-selective pregnancy termination involves no wrongful discrimination for Parliament to condemn.

Now this is not to say that the fact that some women in Canada choose to abort fetuses because of their sex is no proper concern of civil society or even of the Canadian government.

It may very well be a proper matter of concern for you and me, and perhaps our government eventually has some role to play. But no one, no doctor, no ultrasound technician, no politician should seek to place any barrier between any pregnant woman and an abortion.

"It’s simply not the place of our federal Parliament to voice an opinion on the merit of this or that reason behind a woman’s choice to have an abortion."  Expect the zygote zealots to shriEEEk in reply to this view. It is a bracing, thoughtful antidote to the religious fundamentalist, authoritarian, crotch-sniffing ideologues who are lobbying to criminalize abortion.

Update: fern hill caught tweets from @ThomasHall17 - a retired House of Commons procedural clerk, who sets the record straight with regard to M408.  That alleged sacrosanct parliamentary "right" that some mansplainers tried to foist upon proChoice supporters, bellowing that Warawa was entitled to something that was bigger and more important than our silly little hill of beans? 

All self-indulgent BS.  Thomas Hall has the real 411.

It starts here.  A very good, illuminating read.

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.