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.

Hm.

Ujjal and Raminder are going all kinds of nuts over the widening availability of gender ID kits -- which have been around since 2005 -- that can now determine sex as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

Isn't that a good thing? If a woman or a couple wants a child of a particular sex, finding out early and acting early is better than later, yes?

And besides, what the hell can be done about it?

Government to the rescue!!

While there will always be people who are able to obtain the kits, it is our contention that government regulation could make it difficult for the ID kits to be purchased with the intention of sex selecting. An outright ban of gender ID kits may be unworkable {ya think?}, but given the potential risks of the kits being widely available -- and given that they are being used without the supervision of a medical professional -- we believe that regulations are in order.

The article contains no details of how those regulations might work. (Oh, and those 'risks'? Not medical, so why involve a medical professional?)

Let's ignore for a moment the impossiblity of regulating sales over the Internet and assume that these kits are available only in stores -- OK, drug stores, behind the counter.

Will a woman need a prescription? From whom? Based on what? Her declaration that this test has nothing nada zip zero to do with abortion? Some other basis?

Will all women need prescriptions? Or just those from certain communities? (Teensy problem there.)

What if the pharmacist has some kind of ethical problem with the test? Will he/she be able to decline to fill the prescription?

We at Birth Pangs think that Ujjal and Raminder have their heads firmly up their asses have a lot more thinking to do.

And besides, in multicultural Canada, does anybody expect that a gender gap in one community can't and won't be filled by members from another community? We at Birth Pangs don't. And that is a good thing.

(First published at Birth Pangs.)