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.

Sanctioned Doctor, Outmoded Abortion Protocol

The good news: An incompetent Ontario abortion provider, Dr Michel Prevost, was compelled to resign after documentation of poor practices.

The details (we'll get to the bad news in a minute): Because Health Canada is about 30 years behind the rest of the world in approving the "gold standard" of medical abortion, mifepristone, or RU486, doctors are forced to use the less effective protocol of combined methotrexate and misoprostol.

Methotrexate is used not just for abortion but also for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases.

The dosage needs to be calculated.

Methotrexate is given by injection the amount of which is individually calculated by each woman’s weight and height. As the medication takes effect, MTX interferes with folic acid and stops fetal cell duplication, and disrupts pregnancy at the stage of implantation in the uterine wall. When given early in pregnancy, it is effective in ending the pregnancy. (If a pregnancy were to continue after taking this drug, the fetus has a high risk of deformities.)

Which is where Prevost screwed up.

"He displayed a lack of judgment and patients were exposed to harm or injury in his failure to properly screen patients for medical terminations, in his failure to calculate doses of methotrexate on the basis of his patients' respective body surface areas, and in his failure to follow up with patients, including when he was aware that patients had ongoing gestations after the administration of methotrexate," the decision said.

Despite Prevost's treatment, two pregnancies went to term with fetal anomalies -- anomalies whose cause(s) were not investigated by the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Now for the (totally predictable) bad news. The fetus freaks are doing wild happy dances in celebration of "botched" abortions resulting in harm.

See? See? See? they're SHRIEKING. Abortion is terrible.

Here's SUZY ALLCAPS: http://www.bigbluewave.ca/2015/02/ottawa-valley-gynecologist-resigns.html

And people wonder why we oppose RU486.

It's one thing to have an RU486 abortion in a big city. In a remote location, it can carry far greater risks…

Two teensy problems there. 1) The drugs used were NOT RU486. 2) The supposed "remoteness" of Almonte, ON (46 km from downtown Ottawa), had nothing to do with the outcomes.

But for the mis- or uninformed, the sanctioning of this doctor will be seen as a blow to medical abortion in general and the as-yet unapproved (and uninvolved) RU486/mifepristone.

In January 2014, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published a commentary, titled "Medical abortion in Canada: behind the times."

In it, the authors specifically address the difference between the method Prevost -- and all other Canadian practitioners -- have no choice but to use and the "gold standard".

Unfortunately, Canadian women who want a medical abortion (assuming they can find a provider) must resort to a more cumbersome method that uses the cytotoxic drug methotrexate, followed 5–7 days later by misoprostol. Although the methotrexate–misoprostol approach provides a nonsurgical option, it is the second-best method. If allowed to take its course, the regimen is as effective as mifepristone and misoprostol for abortions at up to 7 weeks’ gestation, but its time course is longer and less predictable, with some abortions delayed several weeks after administration of methotrexate. Because methotrexate is teratogenic, the World Health Organization does not recommend it for abortion because of its association with serious deformities in the infant if the abortion fails and the pregnancy continues.

Takes longer, is less predicable, associated with serious deformities if the abortion fails.

Yup. And in the hands of a lesser practitioner, prone to fucked-up outcomes.

On Twitter the other day, I asked Dr. Jen Gunter, Canadian-trained, San Francisco-based OB/GYN, whether such outcomes would be less likely using RU486/mifepristone.

She was a tad busy at the time, dealing with her characterization by Heather Mallick as the dismissible "rural doctor" in The Star's flustercluck over the "dark side" of Gardisil.

She had time for only this reply.

@fernhilldammit WTF???? You don't have mifepristone???!

— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) February 12, 2015

Upshot: Far from being a condemnation of RU486/mifepristone, this sad episode should serve as an incentive for Health Canada to hurry up and approve the 21st-century medical abortion protocol.