Abortion vs. Right To Choose (specifically, to choose gender)

[Francesca R]

Originally Posted by Wolfman

People have talked about education, cultural change, etc. But in my opinion, the most important factor in changing/improving this situation is economic. China's progress has more than adequately demonstrated a direct link between economic security, and rejection of 'traditional' values. Give people greater economic security (the ability to save money for their old age, combined with ready access to necessary health care; and financial support for those who don't have enough money), and many of these problems would disappear fairly quickly.

I think you are on the right lines but that it is more complex than income-per-head, or social welfare coverage. Two of the important drivers of sex-selective abortion actually increase as income does--these being (i) declines in fertility which--if nothing "cultural" changes--increase the premium on the first-born being a son, and (ii) access to cheap gender identification technology which facilitates selection.

South Korea, mentioned above, is a test case for studying the reasons for a reversal in male birth preference. This is a good paper on the subject. Importantly the analysis does hold up education and societal ("cultural") changes as being significant. In the case of education, increases in female education and employment (and their recognition in non-discriminatory employment law) increase women's status and their "economic value" to society. In the case of societal changes, it identifies urbanisation, associated breaking-off of parental influence and growth of secular individualism as triggering "ideational" change. It also notes that these happened despite public policy that for most of the country's independent history--worked in the direction of trying to keep up the patriarchal bent. So the argument goes: if policy promotes female education/rights/status rather than retards it, the results could have been seen more quickly.

From the latter observation, it concludes that poorer countries like China and India--whose policies have already embodied gender equity interventions much more than Korea's did--can reverse their sex-ratio-at-birth imbalance well before they reach Korean levels of income.

Quote:

The findings show that nearly three-quarters of the decline in son preference [in South Korea] between 1991 and 2003 is attributable to normative change, and the rest to increases in the proportions of urban and educated people. South Korea is now the first Asian country to reverse the trend in rising sex ratios at birth. The paper discusses the cultural underpinnings of son preference in pre-industrial Korea, and how these were unraveled by industrialization and urbanization, while being buttressed by public policies upholding the patriarchal family system.

http://www.worldbank.org/research/20...ns-china-india

(One of the authors, Monica Das Gupta, has written extensively for the World Bank and others on this subject)

[Francesca R]

Originally Posted by Aepervius

if you allow abortion for convenience (which i think should be allowed) then gender selection is not less ethical.

Agreed (in post 16)

[Francesca R]

Originally Posted by Kahalachan

Isn't this preferred for overpopulated countries though? To have fewer reproductive members?

Biologically, yes it could be a "preference", but on what basis are China or India deemed overpopulated?

[Wolfman]

Originally Posted by Francesca R

Biologically, yes it could be a "preference", but on what basis are China or India deemed overpopulated?

You and I have had this debate before, and I see no point in doing it again. How about this instead: "Countries that currently lack adequate resources, in comparison to the size of their population, to provide adequately for that population" This could be food (given the relatively small area of arable land in China, combined with frequent natural disasters (droughts and floods) that frequently destroy that food); it could be lack of adequate hospitals and doctors; it could be lack of adequate schools and teachers; etc.

Were the amount of all these things significantly greater, China might not be considered 'overpopulated'; but currently, not only are these things not adequate, but the proportionately larger population makes improvement much slower and more difficult than it would be were there fewer people.

[Carn]

@all, who think sex-selective abortion should be limited legally:

What would be the justification for such laws?

If its discrimination protection for women, sorry these things in the womb aren't women (Well, at least given the suspected majority opinion of this forum). Furthermore abortion in general (and contraception even more) reduces the relative number of children in society, so both are discriminatory vs children and a ban would be at least something to think about with this line of reasoning.

If its about the problems a male/female imbalance creates in the long run for the country, this argument is questionable. Because with the same argument a ban on abortion would make sense, as the lack of children in some countries can create huge problems for society.

As i see it, the only consisten positions are either allowing abortion and alloweing abortion for whatever reason or banning or strongly limiting abortion including for reasons of sex selection.

[Francesca R]

Originally Posted by Wolfman

How about this instead: "Countries that currently lack adequate resources, in comparison to the size of their population, to provide adequately for that population" This could be food (given the relatively small area of arable land in China, combined with frequent natural disasters (droughts and floods) that frequently destroy that food); it could be lack of adequate hospitals and doctors; it could be lack of adequate schools and teachers; etc.

On that basis most countries poorer than China (thus lacking even more resources, or the ability to acquire them), and 95% of Africa are overpopulated. England would have been overpopulated in the middle ages when its population was a fraction of its current level, and only post about 1850 would it have been fine, even though its population was probably at an all time high then.

Quote:

Were the amount of all these things significantly greater, China might not be considered 'overpopulated'; but currently, not only are these things not adequate, but the proportionately larger population makes improvement much slower and more difficult than it would be were there fewer people.

The "proportionally larger population" does not make "improvement much slower". That statement contradicts everything observable about China's growth rate, and growth rate per-head, in the last 30 years.

[McHrozni]

Originally Posted by Carn

If its about the problems a male/female imbalance creates in the long run for the country, this argument is questionable. Because with the same argument a ban on abortion would make sense, as the lack of children in some countries can create huge problems for society.

Which is a ridicolus argument, since people will always want to have children (we're wired that way), and the problem won't manifest.

McHrozni

[Redtail]

Originally Posted by Wolfman

In China, there is an active black market in wives from North Korea and Vietnam. The wives are generally purchased from poor families in those countries, then smuggled across the border. They often speak little or no Chinese, and are in the country illegally (no passport, no visa), so they have little or no recourse to go to the authorities if abused. Very few women do this willingly.

This trafficking in women is a serious issue; the gov't has laws against it, of course, but they're poorly enforced. In addition, the women are often treated as criminals if caught (and if returned to their home country, may simply be sold again).

I was afraid it was something like that.

[McHrozni]

Originally Posted by Francesca R

On that basis most countries poorer than China (thus lacking even more resources, or the ability to acquire them), and 95% of Africa are overpopulated. England would have been overpopulated in the middle ages when its population was a fraction of its current level, and only post about 1850 would it have been fine, even though its population was probably at an all time high then.

I won't comment on Africa, but pretty much all of Europe was overpopulated from middle ages onward to the 19th century. It's was one of the main driving forces of European imperialism.

McHrozni

[Carn]

Originally Posted by McHrozni

Which is a ridicolus argument, since people will always want to have children (we're wired that way), and the problem won't manifest.

McHrozni

Check the birth rates in Europe.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4768644.stm
"Ireland: 1.99
France: 1.90
Norway: 1.81
Sweden 1.75
UK: 1.74
Netherlands: 1.73
Germany: 1.37
Italy: 1.33
Spain: 1.32
Greece: 1.29"

Thats average children per women during her entire life. So with this number ignoring immigration each generation in Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece would be 1/3 smaller in size than the previous. Considering that people also get older, this creates huge problems for society, as immigration policy is not always a success.

Edit: And these numbers have been like that since 10-20 years.

[Francesca R]

Originally Posted by McHrozni

I won't comment on Africa, but pretty much all of Europe was overpopulated from middle ages onward to the 19th century. It's was one of the main driving forces of European imperialism.

Economic growth was approximately zero (compared to afterwards) through that era, and so were most metrics of quality of life on average, so land-grabbing was much more of an "efficient" tactic to increase wealth compared to now.

The tables have comprehensively turned such that not conquering foreigners (which is a negative sum game, used to be positive for the conquerors) and getting growth at home (a positive sum game now, a non-existent prospect before) is the wealth/welfare maximising option.

More to the point, suggesting that Europe was over-populated when it invaded the New World, and observing that it is not overpopulated any more even though its population is a multiple of the C16th, suggests that the "remedy" is nothing to do with population itself.

[Wolfman]

Originally Posted by Francesca R

On that basis most countries poorer than China (thus lacking even more resources, or the ability to acquire them), and 95% of Africa are overpopulated. England would have been overpopulated in the middle ages when its population was a fraction of its current level, and only post about 1850 would it have been fine, even though its population was probably at an all time high then.

Francesca,

First, in regards to Africa...as you well know, it isn't just an issue of how much money the country has, or how much food a country has. It is an issue of proportions. For those countries where proportionately speaking the amount of money/food/other resources available is equal to or worse than that in China, then yes, I'd agree -- those countries are overpopulated.

Let me put it in more concrete terms. Let's say that I have two petri dishes, with agar nutrient in them. One petri dish has ten times less nutrient than the other. Both petri dishes have the same population of bacteria attempting to live off those nutrients. Both dishes are the same size, both have the same populations...but based on the resources available, one of the dishes is overpopulated, and the other is underpopulated. I don't see this as being a terribly difficult concept to understand...you asked for a criteria to determine 'overpopulation', and I provided it.

Quote:

The "proportionally larger population" does not make "improvement much slower". That statement contradicts everything observable about China's growth rate, and growth rate per-head, in the last 30 years.

And here, I don't know if you're being intentionally obtuse, or are so caught up in how you think reality works that you miss out on actual reality. Yes, China's economy has been growing at a phenomenal pace, far faster than that of the U.S., for example. Yet there are still far, far more people living in poverty (both in terms of actual numbers, and in terms of percentages) than in the U.S. Furthermore, China started from a position far, far, far behind where the U.S. was.

Again, an analogy. A man suffers a terrible spine injury, and is unable to walk for several months. As he undergoes rehabilitation, he gradually regains the opportunity to walk. Now, if I compare that man's progress with the progress of a normal man, I could very easily make a case that his health is improving far faster than that of the normal man's, and that his rate of improvement in mobility is far faster than the normal man's. But that would be ignoring the fact that the former man still cannot walk as well as the latter, nor that he still needs a lot of work just to get to the point the normal man is already at.

Here's a plain fact -- and I'm truly fascinated to see what bizarre logic you'll use to contradict me. Some 60% of China's population still lives in poverty. Education and medical care are still offered at terribly substandard levels to a large portion of the rural population, despite massive investments in infrastructure by the Chinese gov't over the past 50 years (far, far behind that of any developed nation). Now, if China had only 1/10th the population that it currently does, this situation would not exist (or would be far, far less serious than it is today). Because the amount of time, money, resources, effort, etc. that are required to provide food, education, medical care, etc. to 130 million people is far less than that required to provide the same to 1.3 billion people. This is, so far as I can see, an absolutely indisputable fact.

Yes, China's economy is growing at a frantic pace...it has been for more than two decades now...and despite dramatic increases in the standard of living for many Chinese, despite the tons of money that's been plowed into agriculture, education, and medicine, hundreds of millions of Chinese still don't have adequate access to them for the simple reason that the resources simply aren't there at present.

Now, if you have some magic plan to provide hospitals, doctors, and nurses for the 500 million or so people who still need them (including all the money to build them, to train the professionals, to provide money to pay the costs of drugs and medical care for those who can't afford it); to build schools for the more than 200 million children who still lack adequate access to education, not to mention training the teachers, paying their salaries, providing books and equipment (that'd be tens of millions of computers, among other things); if you can tell me, or anyone else how to accomplish this, then please do...and I'll make sure you get a Nobel prize for it.

But as things stand, China does not have the resources to adequately provide for the needs of its population, and even at the current rapid pace of development (a pace that is slowing down, it should be noted), it will be decades (optimistically) before they could do so. Were the population smaller, the situation would not be so serious, or so difficult to overcome.

So yes -- in comparison with the available resources, China is overpopulated. So is India. So is any other country that, when looking at the proportion of available resources compared to the actual size of the population, is equal to or worse than either of those two countries. It isn't the size of the land that determines population; it is the availability of resources to support that population. If you lock me in a room with enough resources to sustain five people, then 10 people would be overpopulated, regardless of how large or small that room may be.

And before you get around to accusing me of Malthusian thinking again, that's not my argument at all. If/when China develops to the point where it can provide adequately for its entire population, then I will not consider it overpopulated any more (even if its population at that time is greater than it is now). And I think that, given time and technology, China could reach that point. But currently, it is not at that point, and the current size of the population is an impediment, increasing the time until that point will be reached.

[Mark6]

Originally Posted by McHrozni

Which is a ridicolus argument, since people will always want to have children (we're wired that way), and the problem won't manifest.

McHrozni

You don't know any childless (by choice) adults?

[Number Six]

Wolfman, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the effects of China's one child policy. My impression was that it was fairly draconian but that in the long term it would help, but recently I read an article that implied that China's birth rate probably would have gone down anyway and that the one child policy may have ended up doing more harm than good.

Also I've read that in coming years the male/female imbalance may start giving China some problems with social unrest, what with tens of millions of young males with nobody to mate with and the nature of young male energy that needs expressed somehow.

[Francesca R]

China's one-child policy

[McHrozni]

Originally Posted by Mark6

You don't know any childless (by choice) adults?

I do. So? The argument would be only valid if no (or very few) adults would have children. That's not the case in any society in the world. Hong Kong has among the lowest birth rates in the world, and a large majority of adults has children there.

McHrozni

[Number Six]

Originally Posted by Francesca R

China's one-child policy

That's an interesting thread. Thanks for the link.

[McHrozni]

Originally Posted by Carn

Check the birth rates in Europe.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4768644.stm
"Ireland: 1.99
France: 1.90
Norway: 1.81
Sweden 1.75
UK: 1.74
Netherlands: 1.73
Germany: 1.37
Italy: 1.33
Spain: 1.32
Greece: 1.29"

Thats average children per women during her entire life. So with this number ignoring immigration each generation in Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece would be 1/3 smaller in size than the previous. Considering that people also get older, this creates huge problems for society, as immigration policy is not always a success.

Yup. But this has very little to do with abortion, but mostly with all other forms of birth control we all know and love.

Secondly, the argument was that no adults would have children. Even in Greece, the average is more than one child per woman. It's not enough, I know, but it's a fair cry from zero.

McHrozni

[Francesca R]

Originally Posted by Wolfman

For those countries where proportionately speaking the amount of money/food/other resources available is equal to or worse than that in China, then yes, I'd agree -- those countries are overpopulated.

That appears to mean that every country with GDP/capita at or below China is overpopulated. I'd call that a strange statement. One could say they were poor, or even too poor. "Overpopulated" suggests that the appropriate response (to increase wealth/welfare) in China and these other places, is to reduce the population.

Quote:

Yes, China's economy has been growing at a phenomenal pace, far faster than that of the U.S., for example. Yet there are still far, far more people living in poverty (both in terms of actual numbers, and in terms of percentages) than in the U.S. Furthermore, China started from a position far, far, far behind where the U.S. was.

Yet you think China's growth (improvement) would be faster if there were fewer people in China. I don't see any rationale for this. It is both of the most populated and close to the fastest growing economy over the last two decades. Where's the evidence for your (hypothetical) statement? Certainly it is not "indisputable fact"

Your analogies are either not relevant, or are attempting to make different points from the statements you made that I challenged.

[Carn]

Originally Posted by McHrozni

Yup. But this has very little to do with abortion, but mostly with all other forms of birth control we all know and love.

About 110000 known abortions and 680000 life births in germany. So abortion could change the above number by 0.2-0.3.

Other stats i read was, that about 40% of women have abortion in their life, meaning it could be even 0.4.

Originally Posted by McHrozni

Secondly, the argument was that no adults would have children. Even in Greece, the average is more than one child per woman. It's not enough, I know, but it's a fair cry from zero.

McHrozni

The argument was that for the good of society the right to choose whether to have a child can be limited if necessary.

If you assume that, the question of banning or limiting abortion or contraception is just a question, whether or not the situation is dire enough and whether a law actually helps.

One gets in a mine field by assuming that reproduction should be controlled for the greater good of society.

[Mark6]

Originally Posted by McHrozni

I do. So? The argument would be only valid if no (or very few) adults would have children. That's not the case in any society in the world. Hong Kong has among the lowest birth rates in the world, and a large majority of adults has children there.

First, the very existence of voluntarily childless people demonstrates we are not in fact "wired that way." Second, the problems Carn was talking about:

Originally Posted by McHrozni

Originally Posted by Carn

If its about the problems a male/female imbalance creates in the long run for the country, this argument is questionable. Because with the same argument a ban on abortion would make sense, as the lack of children in some countries can create huge problems for society.

Which is a ridicolus argument, since people will always want to have children (we're wired that way), and the problem won't manifest.

do not require complete lack of children. One child per couple for 2-3 generations, add the fact that women have that one child much later in life (thus "generation" gets to mean 35-40 year span rather than 20-25), and you have a country with huge proportion of old people. That's a problem.

[McHrozni]

Originally Posted by Carn

About 110000 known abortions and 680000 life births in germany. So abortion could change the above number by 0.2-0.3.

Other stats i read was, that about 40% of women have abortion in their life, meaning it could be even 0.4.

The first statistic is probably more relevant. Many abortions in fact prevent single mothers, who have a notably lower chance of finding a new partner and have more kids.

Quote:

do not require complete lack of children. One child per couple for 2-3 generations, add the fact that women have that one child much later in life (thus "generation" gets to mean 35-40 year span rather than 20-25), and you have a country with huge proportion of old people. That's a problem.

I red the argument as a leading to a childless society, and I see now it might not have been intended as such.

McHrozni

[Kaylee]

Originally Posted by Professor Yaffle

<snip>

I have less of a problem with barring sex selective abortions than some others do. There are many things we can do, but are barred from doing if it is done of the basis of sex (or race etc). For example shops have the right to refuse service, but they don't have the right to do so on the basis of racial discrimination, for example.

I agree.

Laws have to balance the rights of individuals and groups. It probably takes centuries to get it right. For example, in this era, most of us probably don't have a problem with not having the right to take personal revenge against someone who had violated our legal rights or even harmed us physically. We are use to the idea of turning that right over to the community, which in our time is done by having this handled by the police and district attorney. I'm willing to bet that originally that was a very unpopular idea and that it took a long time to get widespread acceptance, probably over hundreds if not thousands of years.

I think it's a good balance to let women have the legal right to abortions but not to use it as a tool for parents to select their children's sex.

I would have thought that a policy that makes female babies more rare than male babies would have resulted in rapidly increasing the social value of females including female babies. But we've had decades to see that is not the case and that allowing the male/female ratio to become skewed usually results in even more problems for women [ETA], and men also.

For me its the same reasoning that societies have seen that it is better for people not to directly solve their own legal and criminal problems but to delegate most of those issues to the government. Deciding how to allocate rights between individuals and groups of people is a delicate balancing act.

[Carn]

Originally Posted by Kaylee

I think it's a good balance to let women have the legal right to abortions but not to use it as a tool for parents to select their children's sex.

Its an completely arbitrary balance.

It assumes that society has a right to force women to have children they do not want, to avoid a skewed men/women ratio.

If a society has that right, it would also have the right to force women to have children they do not want, to avoid a skewed children/adult ratio, or to force women not to have children they want, to avoid a skewed children/adult ratio (China did the later the last decades. Forced abortions, forced sterilisation and in cases even "post birth abortions" to meet the quota).

Originally Posted by Kaylee

For me its the same reasoning that societies have seen that it is better for people not to directly solve their own legal and criminal problems but to delegate most of those issues to the government. Deciding how to allocate rights between individuals and groups of people is a delicate balancing act.

So the legal issue of how many and which children to have should be delegated to government?

And i still do not see, how one actually legally could argue for such an intrusion, if the position is, that an embryo is not human or even something like tissue. If its not human, its part of the women's body. And so the state would tell the women "You want to remove that part of your body, but sorry its not allowed, because it will be a girl in 6-8 months."

And any idea that by just not telling the women, whether its boy or girl, is although softer along the same line - the women's body is state property and some commission decides how to put that property to best use for society.

[Francesca R]

Originally Posted by Kaylee

I would have thought that a policy that makes female babies more rare than male babies would have resulted in rapidly increasing the social value of females including female babies. But we've had decades to see that is not the case and that allowing the male/female ratio to become skewed usually results in even more problems for women [ETA], and men also.

Well I think it does increase the value of women in several ways. A problem with that concept is that the value doesn't accrue to the women themselves, and they can come out of it worse off (EG trafficking brides in the worst cases). Another point is that it may be increasing the economic value of women from a negative number to something like zero (EG the disappearance of dowries).

Unfortunately in patriarchal societies the inequality between male and female has historically been staggering.

[Puppycow]

Originally Posted by Francesca R

(and the only observed tendency for it to skew is against female births)

An interesting caveat though:

The End of Men

Quote:

In the 1970s the biologist Ronald Ericsson came up with a way to separate sperm carrying the male-producing Y chromosome from those carrying the X.
. . .
Feminists of the era did not take kindly to Ericsson and his Marlboro Man veneer. To them, the lab cowboy and his sperminator portended a dystopia of mass-produced boys. “You have to be concerned about the future of all women,” Roberta Steinbacher, a nun-turned-social-psychologist, said in a 1984 People profile of Ericsson. “There’s no question that there exists a universal preference for sons.” Steinbacher went on to complain about women becoming locked in as “second-class citizens” while men continued to dominate positions of control and influence. “I think women have to ask themselves, ‘Where does this stop?’” she said. “A lot of us wouldn’t be here right now if these practices had been in effect years ago.”

Ericsson, now 74, laughed when I read him these quotes from his old antagonist. Seldom has it been so easy to prove a dire prediction wrong. In the ’90s, when Ericsson looked into the numbers for the two dozen or so clinics that use his process, he discovered, to his surprise, that couples were requesting more girls than boys, a gap that has persisted, even though Ericsson advertises the method as more effective for producing boys. In some clinics, Ericsson has said, the ratio is now as high as 2 to 1. Polling data on American sex preference is sparse, and does not show a clear preference for girls. But the picture from the doctor’s office unambiguously does. A newer method for sperm selection, called MicroSort, is currently completing Food and Drug Administration clinical trials. The girl requests for that method run at about 75 percent.

So this is not sex-selective abortion but sex-selective IVF. And in America the preference seems to run the other way.

[Kaylee]

Originally Posted by Carn

Its an completely arbitrary balance.

It assumes that society has a right to force women to have children they do not want, to avoid a skewed men/women ratio.

If a society has that right, it would also have the right to force women to have children they do not want, to avoid a skewed children/adult ratio, or to force women not to have children they want, to avoid a skewed children/adult ratio (China did the later the last decades. Forced abortions, forced sterilisation and in cases even "post birth abortions" to meet the quota).



So the legal issue of how many and which children to have should be delegated to government?

And i still do not see, how one actually legally could argue for such an intrusion, if the position is, that an embryo is not human or even something like tissue. If its not human, its part of the women's body. And so the state would tell the women "You want to remove that part of your body, but sorry its not allowed, because it will be a girl in 6-8 months."

And any idea that by just not telling the women, whether its boy or girl, is although softer along the same line - the women's body is state property and some commission decides how to put that property to best use for society.

This reminds me of another thread at the JREF that I saw years ago. The topic was about whether human rights are innate or something external that is granted by others.

The thread got very heated as you can imagine.

My preference is to grant individuals as many rights as possible, until we get to the point where it infringes on other people's rights or allowing such rights can make being part of a community insufferable. Sometimes its easy to define the boundaries and sometimes it isn't.

I would not care to live in a society that was almost all male or almost all female, and I'm comfortable with society creating laws to prevent that. I think that this is one of the situations where the rights of others outweighs the rights of the individual (to select the sex of his or her children). I think we can have a legal framework that prevents that from occuring but still allows women to chose whether or not to have an abortion without knowing the gender of their fetus, or loosing the right to decide how many children they will have.

[Kaylee]

Originally Posted by Francesca R

Well I think it does increase the value of women in several ways. A problem with that concept is that the value doesn't accrue to the women themselves, and they can come out of it worse off (EG trafficking brides in the worst cases). Another point is that it may be increasing the economic value of women from a negative number to something like zero (EG the disappearance of dowries).

Good points. What I was trying to say was that I was surprised that this didn't trigger a cascade of events that caused women to be granted more rights and be shown value that way, both under the law and in reality. (Just because a law is on the books doesn't mean that its carried out.) But as you said:

Quote:

Unfortunately in patriarchal societies the inequality between male and female has historically been staggering.

Sometimes I wonder if that will ever change in some parts of the world, and if it does -- what it would take. Wolfman mentioned upthread that one of the things communism got right in China was to give woman equal rights. I agree, but I am puzzled how that came about because as he also explained it went very much against the culture.

[Carn]

Originally Posted by Kaylee

My preference is to grant individuals as many rights as possible, until we get to the point where it infringes on other people's rights or allowing such rights can make being part of a community insufferable. Sometimes its easy to define the boundaries and sometimes it isn't.

I would not care to live in a society that was almost all male or almost all female, and I'm comfortable with society creating laws to prevent that. I think that this is one of the situations where the rights of others outweighs the rights of the individual (to select the sex of his or her children). I think we can have a legal framework that prevents that from occuring but still allows women to chose whether or not to have an abortion without knowing the gender of their fetus, or loosing the right to decide how many children they will have.

I do not say this position is wrong.
It just has the consequence, that in case someone can show data, that lack of children is a problem for society (this data is available), and convincing argument, that banning abortion will lead to more births (for which no data is available, but as you assume a law effectively limiting sex-selective abortion is possible, a law effectvely limiting abortion is conceivable as well), then there is no reason not to forbid abortion.
And as i said, it would even open up the possibility to meddle with contraception. Banning contraception would certainly solve the problem of (statistical) lack of children some countries have in a matter of years. Black market cannot provide reliable products in sufficient amounts for affaorable price, so at least parts of population would lack contraception, which would increase number of children, if the option of abortion is also effectively limited. All for the good of the society.

[McHrozni]

Originally Posted by Carn

And as i said, it would even open up the possibility to meddle with contraception. Banning contraception would certainly solve the problem of (statistical) lack of children some countries have in a matter of years. Black market cannot provide reliable products in sufficient amounts for affaorable price, so at least parts of population would lack contraception, which would increase number of children, if the option of abortion is also effectively limited. All for the good of the society.

You think way too much in absolute terms. Using speed limits as an analogy, you would be only considreing two possibilities - a universal speed limit of 15 mph on all roads and no speed limits at all. The first one, effectively enforced, would reduce road deaths to almost zero, while the results of the second option would be a bit bloody. Both would also result in fairly significant downsides, so neither option is vey appealing.
In road speed limtis, we use a system that determines the speed limits based on the type of the road and the dangers of the road ahead. There is no reason not to use the same principle on other issues, such as abortion and birth control. Some forms of abortion result in much more significant downsides than others, so those should be restricted, even if the abortion as such is permissible. Skewing gender ratio is an issue that requires banning abortion for it, but banning contraception over low birth rates is not - it would only result in a rise of unwanted children, creating even more, larger problems, and quite likely another STD epidemic.

McHrozin

[jcp]

What happens to these unwanted girls once they are born? Brr, I don't think forcing parents to have children they don't want is a good idea.

[AcesHigh]

this question is interesting because feminists will be the FIRST to defend the right to abortion above all else.

but they would also be the first to cry against women aborting female babies in favor of having male babies.

[Francesca R]

Must not be a feminist myself then, since in post 16 I outline that if abortion is ethical (which is my position) then sex-selective abortion is no less so.

[mumblethrax]

Originally Posted by AcesHigh

this question is interesting because feminists will be the FIRST to defend the right to abortion above all else.

but they would also be the first to cry against women aborting female babies in favor of having male babies.

I don't agree.

I think the first to cry against women aborting female babies in favor of having male babies would be stalking horses for those opposed to abortion rights.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by NewtonTrino

IMHO you can't really fix stuff like this with laws, you have to fix it through education and changing culture. Basically fixing it is ridiculously hard.

This.

Personally, I don't think we should make some reasons illegal. It's their problem if they get 90% males and 10% females.

I also don't agree that it devalues females. In a society where each female gets 9 potential husbands, she is VERY valuable.

[Carn]

Originally Posted by mumblethrax

I don't agree.

I think the first to cry against women aborting female babies in favor of having male babies would be stalking horses for those opposed to abortion rights.

This is even more true due to the legal system being based on individual rights. In these any intrusion into individual rights requires a justification. If a justification regarding one aspect of abortion is found to be legally sufficient for the intrusion into individual rights acsociated with limiting abortion, then a precedent of limiting abortion would be established, which could be used to establish similar justifications for other limitations of abortion.

E.g.
If discrepancy of male/female causing society problems is sufficient justification for limiting abortions, then it could be argued that a discrepancy of children/adults causing society problems could also constitute sufficient justification for limiting abortions.

[CplFerro]

Quote:

“Female feticide devalues women completely,” said Dr. Kale, interim editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. He wants to see doctors withhold information about the sex of a child in the womb until 30 weeks' gestation to prevent “an unquestioned abortion” because parents prefer a boy.

That's rich, ain't it? Ordinary feticide, killing a fetus out of the inconvenience it causes, doesn't devalue anyone completely, and in fact is a healthy, wholesome, and womyn-empowering righteous act. But if the inconvenience it causes is due to its XX-chromosomal condition, then, oh no, let's struggle to find a way to revoke a womyn's Right To Choose!

Cpl Ferro