No problem, IMO, with aborting for any reason, unless that abortion can be demonstrated to impact society negatively; that is, “Look, our male to female ratio is dropping and we cannot allow people to abort fetuses based on sex.”
Sexual preference could also fall under my protected scheme in the opposite manner: “to many gays and not enough people using artificial insemination to keep the species going.” You don’t have to give birth to a straight baby, but you couldn’t abort because it was straight (for example, a lesbian couple wanted a gay baby for whatever reason). This could, of course be done in such a way that announcement of sexual preference could not be legally revealed to expecting mothers.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by erislover *
**No problem, IMO, with aborting for any reason, unless that abortion can be demonstrated to impact society negatively; that is, “Look, our male to female ratio is dropping and we cannot allow people to abort fetuses based on sex.”
**
So would we need to change those cool bumper stickers to “Keep your hands off MY body, unless you’re forcing me to deliver to term because of the gender of the fetus”?
I think this question will probably become more germane in the near future as genetics become more sophisticated. It will be interesting to see how people define the line where an abortion is approved in the future, given how the population of earth is increasing steadily and geriatric sciences are extending lifetimes. Will there come a point when the right to have children becomes a privilege? When a North American couple has to apply and wait for the opportunity to have one child, will they blow this one chance on anything less than the best they can achieve? I think this is all going to get very interesting, possibly even in our lifetimes.
I don’t suppose there are any cites as to how many abortions are performed each year because of the results of currently available genetic testing such as amniocentesis and expanded AFP screening?
I think it is a tempest in a teacup. While I am absolutely pro-choice, I don’t think that most people would selelctively abort to achieve a designer baby. Though I am a mom who has felt babies kicking in her womb and heard very early heartbeats, I believe that “life” begins at birth.
And I want to say that cbtcad’s post was a pro-life breath of fresh air! Way to be reasonable!
EJ, I’m not trying to stir up controversy, and I said right off the bat that I didn’t have all the specifics. I am also pro-choice, but I cringe a bit at seeing young women (like my college roomate) use abortion as birthcontrol (she had three in school year), and so I can perceive that one day, when women are getting abortions because their kids may have scoliosis or whathaveyou, that I may also start cringing.
My question is, at what point do we say…“woah woah woah…let’s get a hold of ourselves”?
I just wanted to clear up that I’m not trying to be a harbinger of doom, I’m just posing a question for discussion.
Why, if you support abortion, do you care how many times a person has one? I’ve never understood this. I don’t think it is irresponsible to have so many abortions, I think it is just plain stupid. But since I don’t care if they had one, I wouldn’t care if they had 6.
Well, here’s the thing. I don’t necessarily support abortion. I am pro choice. The choice I’ve made is that I simply could never CONCEIVE of having an abortion. Your choice may be different.
And from what I heard, and what abortion supporters try to tell me…it’s an emotionally trying and draining and difficult decision. If it’s such a nightmare why would you rather have three in a school year than use a damn condom? (which she didn’t. She said she could always have an abortion). So, when others say there’s an inherent bond between embryo and mother or that it’s not an easy decision to make…I have to think of her and figure…it can’t be all that hard…so why not abort if it’s not the sex you want?
I admit that I think there are cases when abortion is MORE appropriate than others, but I’m still struggling with where I cross that line.
But the issue isn’t whether you would personally have one, but why—if you’ll allow others to have one without condemnation—you would care how many others have in a given time frame. For whatever reason. Are her claims to desiring to abort not legitimate because she’s already had one or two this year?
Like I said, I am surprised anyone would ever have to have more than one abortion in their life after what my ex and I went through. Terrible. But, hey, if you like having your uterine wall sucked out, more power to you, I guess.
Well, like you said above, I think it’s just stupid. That’s all. I’m not saying she should be put in jail, or not allowed to have any more…I just think it’s poor decision making and poor for her health to keep doing this to herself. No condemnation…I DO think it’s irresponsible, when she can just as easily go on the pill or use a condom.
And…I’m just trying to say to those people above that I don’t think (and I don’t have a child) that an ‘inherent bond’ keeps women from aborting unwanted babies. If my roommate was able to so flippantly get three of them and go out drinking the same night…it doesn’t seem like such a heartbreaking decision.
erislover…could you please repond to my earlier question about your post?
If I understood you correctly, you don’t want abortions to be allowed solely as a basis for gender selection (or other things “proven” to be socially destructive). Did I understand you correctly that to accomplish this, you will forbid women (or couples) from having ultrasounds or other tests that allow them to know the gender of their embryo/fetus?
Well, everyone is different. The person who casually gets multiple abortions seems to be the exception, rather than the rule, IME. Regarding said people, I do think it is irresponsible to repeatedly undergo medical procedures with at least some degree of risk when they could be easily avoided with a little prevention; I’d feel the same about someone who had to go to a doctor multiple times due to major infections from neglecting to properly care for minor injuries. I think you have a certain responsibility to those who care about you, and to yourself, to not risk your life out of sheer laziness.
I think most women view an abortion as a fairly major procedure, and don’t really care that much about minor physical features, and are aware that you only get so many chances at having a child, and children never turn out how you’d expect anyway. In any case, if a woman would abort because a child would have green eyes, do we really want her raising a green-eyed child? Let her bother with all the tests and abortions and risks thereof in the hopes of spinning the wheel and hitting the jackpot while her fertility and chances of a healthy baby continue to decline, if she wishes. But I don’t think it will be a popular choice except in the case of severely impairing conditions, barring severe social pressure against non-harmful variations.
beagledave: No, they could have ultrasounds as I believe those serve other purposes as well. The doctors would be prohibited from sharing this information with the patient, and the parents would be prohibited from having pictures of these ultrasounds for their own use (to avoid the parent finding out themselves by inspection).
Probably difficult to enforce in general, but I would imagine many doctors could see the pragmatic necessity of needing nature to take its course now and again.
Social planning through ignorance…? Well, that is certainly one way to describe it. We aren’t forcing adults to have only women (in that scenario) but that they cannot know what the gender of the child is. But instead of calling it social planning I would say it would be removing an invisible socially planning hand from the picture. YMMV.
bGaudere**, add to that… isn’t it also the case that those who have abortions have harder times actually carrying a child to term? Frivolous abortions might have their own selective agent built-in.
I’m curious what other pro choice dopers think about erl’s proposal (women forbidden by law from knowing the gender of their embryo/fetus) , as it fits in with the notion of “reproductive rights”
Now I’m confused, erl. (really, I’m not trying to be flippant) Unless I’m misreading your statement and winkie smilie…are you suggesting that in a roundabout way women who have many frivolous abortions somehow deserve the subsequent infertility or difficulty in carrying? That because they’ve aborted three or four times before that they obviously wouldn’t be a good parent and that is the ‘selective process’?
I think that if a person is so set against having a boy/girl that they will abort based on gender, we’re better off not forcing them to have a child they don’t want. I think if boys or girls are so favored by society that a woman would choose to abort, we should change the society’s values, not try to keep women ignorant. I think the most likely result of erl’s policy, if implemented in a society where one sex is regarded as so highly undesireable that gender-based abortions are frequent and a gender imbalance is becoming problematical, would not be an equal valuation of boys and girls, or even a equal proportion of boys and girls, but a sudden market for underground testing labs (and abortions of the “undesireable” sex anyway), and an increase in child abandonment and even murder of the “undesireable” sex. Forced ignorance is rarely a truly successful answer, IMHO, and one that I, as a doper, would not choose except as the last of all possible resorts.
erl: I have not seen any studies that women who abort have difficulty carrying to term later.
Well, Gaudere, why would restricting abortions based on gender/ eye color/ whatever not have the same effect as my proposal, then?
A cursory search on abortion is revealing that having had one or two abortions significantly increases the risk of later miscarriage… but no studies or citations, just assertions. I’m digging.
There are some citations there, though I am not certain the two cited for the above quote are definitely technical journals. One sounds like it is, but was from 1974, and the other doesn’t, but may be.
With the advent of medicinal abortions I think the risk has become negligible. In this case there is probably no long-term physical harm to the mother.
jarbaby, my point wasn’t that they don’t deserve to be parents or something, merely that if abortions did affect one’s ability to reproduce that it would act as a selective agent in deciding whether or not to have an abortion for reasons like eye color, gender, or other non-health related issues. No good or bad proclamations there from me.
However, as noted to Gaudere above, it is possible that I have simply heard a little bit of a UL about abortion based on shoddy researching.
Well, if you restrict abortions based on sex/eye color/etc, then people will just lie about their reasons and have the abortions anyway. I would prefer that a fetus be aborted if it will he killed or abandoned if carried to term (which I think would be quite possible if someone feels so strongly about such an attribute that they would rather abort).
Your proposal is not likely to result in an actual change of a sociey’s values, IMHO, and it will promote a cottage industry of underground testing. So our courtrooms and police officers will spend precious time and resources prosecuting people for running or particpating in these underground testing facilities, as well as these testing facilities will probably not be altogether up to snuff and will not be government regulated, so the potential for accidently injury/death will be higher. And if it’s not going to change the root cause of the abortions, and you have to deal with a whole new group of people to find and arrest and prosecute and jail; it just seems like more trouble than it’s worth. If you think there will be benefit for the govt making a symbolic statement of “Don’t abort based on sex”, you can do that just by making it illegal to abort based on sex…it’s toothless, but think of the millions of tax dollars that will be wasted arresting and prosecuting those who want to know the gender of their child if your proposal is implemented.
I think the best solution, if a society is becoming unbalanced due to gender-based abortions, is a system of education and support to remove or ameliorate the social and financial burden of having a child of the “undesireable” sex. If you can change people’s attitude, the problem goes away entirely without need for laws; Since many countries do not appear to have a problem with gender-based abortions, it is not as if these abortions are a inherent human inclination that need laws to prevent.
Personally, I do not think that restricting early-term abortions based on any attribute is neccesary. I think such restrictions will not work, since people can always lie about their motivations, but I don’t think hiding information is any help either, based on the reasons I gave above. Like I said before, if someone wants to waste their precious chances at bearing a child by dicking around trying to get a certain set of eye color/hair color/gender, I think they can go right ahead. But I think most people don’t really care about such things to the point that they’d go as far as to abort (barring severe social pressure), and are well aware that they only have so many chances to have children and don’t want to waste any chance for less than serious medical reasons.
