# If an American woman keeps aborting female babies to get a boy should that be OK legally? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 30, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066 "2010-06-30T15:01:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/81 "2010-06-30T21:37:44Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Not really. The number of immigrants for China and India has been significant in the last 40 years, and that’s just two countries I can think of off the top of my head where sons are valued over daughters. Forty years ago, immigration from China was nil. Significant to us? :dubious: > **[History of Chinese Americans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_American_history#Third_wave_.281980s_to_today.29)** > > The history of Chinese Americans or the history of ethnic Chinese in the United States includes three major waves of Chinese immigration to the United States, beginning in the 19th century. Chinese immigrants in the 19th century worked in the California Gold Rush of the 1850s and the Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860s. They also worked as laborers in Western mines. They suffered racial discrimination at every level of White society. Many Americans were stirred to anger by the "Yellow Peril"... 1.17%? Good lord, I think the _Jews_ outnumber them! ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/82 "2010-06-30T21:47:08Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > I’m not making slurs against people that disagree with me. Oh? > [@](#): > > “Baby killers” isn’t a term I use for the pro-choice members among us. It’s a term I use for those posters that like to say that all pro-life posters are women-hating, totalitarian bible-thumpers, etc. > … > For those of you that don’t automatically think I want to enslave woman and keep them barefoot/pregnant, then the baby killer comment doesn’t apply. Carry on. So when you say, “baby killer,” you mean, not someone who kills babies, not someone who kills foetuses, but someone who jeers at right-to-lifers. This is actually worse, & you are in fact making slurs against people that disagree with you. > [@](#): > > This type should be illegal because it’s morally reprehensible. Anyone that would kill their unborn child because it’s the wrong gender has a broken moral compass and is not fit to walk around in society. And what’s your remedy for that? Should people who have an abortion for the wrong reasons be imprisoned? > [@](#): > > Anyone that would kill their child because it’s otherwise going to kill them, or would kill their child because that child isn’t going to live anyway, they’re perfectly fine morally and might actually be decent people. > > That’s why some types should be legal and others shouldn’t be. I can elaborate on those other types, but that’s beyond the scope of this thread, and it’s been done. This last bit, at least, is sensible. I can support this position, & that’s why I support the present legal _régime._ After viability, there is a schedule of permissible reasons for abortion. Before viability, the law doesn’t presume to know that the foetus has a future. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/83 "2010-06-30T21:54:09Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Bullshit. You said… I admit my error in attributing the idea to you. But there’s no moral outrage in my questions, and I’d cheerfully direct them to anyone who _does_ support a policy to withhold information in the belief that it doesn’t impose on abortion rights. Heck, I could imagine someone arguing that requiring a pregnant woman to perfectly recite from memory a scene from Shakespeare before she can get an abortion doesn’t impose on abortion rights, because abortion itself remains legal and this is just a minor additional regulatory imposition and not an abrogation at all. Lest this seem too far-fetched, I’d point out that useless hoop-jumping policies already exist in some U.S. states. > [@](#): > > Two problems here. I wasn’t proposing anything and in fact I specifically said I opposed it; and what is happening in some London hospitals isn’t a limitation on abortion. Well, I’m afraid we’ll have to disagree. I’m sure it’s _sold_ as something not intended to be a limitation, but that doesn’t make it so. It still constitutes third-party interference in what really should be nobody’s business, by withholding information for no good reason. I guess as long as it remains up the policies of individual hospitals and not mandated by law or National Health regulations, there isn’t much one can do about it. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/84 "2010-06-30T21:54:25Z")
This is a subject I know quite a bit about, because my husband has an x-linked dominant genetic disorder: it’s not fatal, but it is painful and degenerative, and any girls we have will have a 100% chance of getting it. We are about to pay roughly the price of a new car to use IVF/PGD to ensure that if I get pregnant, we will have a boy: after my eggs are fertilized, a lab will evaluate the chromosomes and discard the girls. There is a good chance I won’t get pregnant at all, and when the money runs out we have decided to look into donor sperm before selective abortions or passing on this disease. For ourselves, we’ve agreed that this isn’t enough of a reason to abort a child I was actually carrying, but it is enough of a reason to discard the female “clumps of cells” that will be generated in the process. We have been \*\*very \*\*careful not to conceive, but if it happened and it were a girl, we’d deal with it from there. That’s where we, personally, draw the line. This is currently really too expensive to casual use, certainly not to any degree that would actually affect sex ratios in a community. Even so, the labs that do the PGD (where they analyze the chromosomes of the blastocysts) won’t do sex selection for “family balancing” unless the family already has at least one child and now wants the opposite sex. My first reaction to this was to nod approvingly, but then I had second thoughts: I picked the doctor I am working with in part because he was the only one I talked to who didn’t insist I prove I was married (I kept my maiden name). In that case, I was irritated that any doctor would presume to determine whether or not I should have a mother based on my lifestyle. This feels like kind of the same thing–telling people whether or not they have a good enough reason to prefer one gender over the other. So I don’t know. It’s complicated, though I certainly wouldn’t make such abortions illegal. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/85 "2010-06-30T21:54:53Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > What’s wrong with designer babies? Who’s the victim? Potentially the baby, depending on what it’s designed for. To use extreme and not-yet-possible examples, what if someone wanted to produce compulsively submissive girls, or religious fanatics to order? > [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’m no fan of religion, but when science doesn’t have the answer, we turn to philosophy, of which religion is one form. Religion has no real answers to offer, and since when did “making stuff up” qualify as philosophy? ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/86 "2010-06-30T21:59:18Z")
Investing in sons is a valuable strategy in both humans and mammals. It’s self correcting if the pendulum swings too far in either direction. Daughters become more valuable as more and more males of decreasing value flood the market and vice verse. Now, it is true that excess testosterone can lead to more crime and general unpleasantness in your day to day life, but it could also lead to more innovation down the line. And besides, this is what wars are for anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/87 "2010-06-30T22:06:03Z")
> [@wwworldclique](#): > > Abortions performed to “select gender” should be illegal. It smacks of eugenics. No judgment, just an honest question: would you say the same thing if parents chose to abort a child who would be born with severe mental or physical problems that required constant care? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/88 "2010-06-30T22:32:03Z")
While I’m also uncomfortable with the implications of this idea, an individual preference is not eugenics. Eugenics implies a societal program designed to eliminate undesirable traits or types of people. These kinds of things are about deeply ingrained sexism or poor families trying to avoid having to pay a dowry. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/89 "2010-06-30T22:37:25Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > This is a subject I know quite a bit about, because my husband has an x-linked dominant genetic disorder: it’s not fatal, but it is painful and degenerative, and any girls we have will have a 100% chance of getting it. We are about to pay roughly the price of a new car to use IVF/PGD to ensure that if I get pregnant, we will have a boy: after my eggs are fertilized, a lab will evaluate the chromosomes and discard the girls. There is a good chance I won’t get pregnant at all, and when the money runs out we have decided to look into donor sperm before selective abortions or passing on this disease. > > For ourselves, we’ve agreed that this isn’t enough of a reason to abort a child I was actually carrying, but it is enough of a reason to discard the female “clumps of cells” that will be generated in the process. We have been \*\*very \*\*careful not to conceive, but if it happened and it were a girl, we’d deal with it from there. That’s where we, personally, draw the line. > > This is currently really too expensive to casual use, certainly not to any degree that would actually affect sex ratios in a community. Even so, the labs that do the PGD (where they analyze the chromosomes of the blastocysts) won’t do sex selection for “family balancing” unless the family already has at least one child and now wants the opposite sex. My first reaction to this was to nod approvingly, but then I had second thoughts: I picked the doctor I am working with in part because he was the only one I talked to who didn’t insist I prove I was married (I kept my maiden name). In that case, I was irritated that any doctor would presume to determine whether or not I should have a mother based on my lifestyle. This feels like kind of the same thing–telling people whether or not they have a good enough reason to prefer one gender over the other. > > So I don’t know. It’s complicated, though I certainly wouldn’t make such abortions illegal. But your case is clearly different than what the OP is asking about, where gender is selected for no other reason than gender itself. You’re just using gender as a proxy for the specific gene or genes you are trying to avoid passing along since you know it’s x-linked on the father’s side. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/90 "2010-06-30T23:07:58Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > But your case is clearly different than what the OP is asking about, where gender is selected for no other reason than gender itself. You’re just using gender as a proxy for the specific gene or genes you are trying to avoid passing along since you know it’s x-linked on the father’s side. Yes, but it opened the door to the discussion of using IVF/PGD to determine sex much, much earlier in the process and whether or not that is ethically different. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/91 "2010-06-30T23:19:12Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I sympathize with your position, but what is the legal remedy? It’s well & good to play bishop & say, “This is bad, don’t do it,” but a law without teeth is a wish for a pony. > > What are the teeth? Well, as I said to **Marley** : > [@Bosstone](#): > > You know, I don’t really have a good answer for that. I thought I did, but I argued myself out of it before posting. To expand on that a little, I had thought that regulating it would be similar to regulating, say, TANF or other financial assistance. You’d have to demonstrate that the abortion is necessary. The problem with that is that such eligibility is necessary because the government is giving something out and has a right to set terms for it. No such thing is happening when it comes to an abortion unless we want to establish permits or some such crap, and I don’t think it needs to go that far at all. Besides, it’s not the best precedent to draw on. Closer is the euthanization of animals. As far as I’m aware, it’s legal to euthanize an animal for any reason so long as you can find a cooperative agent to aid you. It’s possible to euthanize an animal because you didn’t like that its all-black coat had a white spot behind the ear if you wish. Although it’s legal, doing so is a huge social taboo which many people consider monstrous. If it’s legal for animals, it should be legal for an undeveloped fetus, and just as socially disapproved of, if not more so. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/92 "2010-06-30T23:22:52Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > The rejects. They don’t even exist. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/93 "2010-06-30T23:30:17Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > No, that’s definitely a religious belief. The belief that a clump of cells is imbued with a magical fairy spirit that makes it a real human being is pure moonshine. Pro-lifers calling clumps of tissue "babies’ is like when PETA people say that animals are people that meat is murder. It’s the exact same kind of delusion. So basically you’re saying, you can’t be against abortion unless you’re religious? :dubious: If you’re going to start one of your tangents, please, start another thread. Please. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/94 "2010-06-30T23:40:40Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > It’s not purely religious, no matter how often your ilk say that. I’m an atheist anyway. It’s biology. I’m on record for saying that the thing goes from “blob of cells” to “human” at 9-10 weeks. You want to stretch it to 12 weeks? Fine. It’s splitting hairs to me. You want to stretch it to _birth_? You’re insane. How do you feel about present abortion law, which draws the line at viability? > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > A chicken has most of those characteristics. A monkey has all of them. These animals also have more sentience than that fetus, which is what really matters and which is the distinguising characteristic of personhood. Unproven. > [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > Yes, it should be okay, legally. However, she should probably be committed into permanent psychiatric care, complete with straight jacket and rubber room, because she’d obviously be somewhat less than sane. …unless she’s being forced into it, in which case the compelling agent(s) should be garroted. Not permissible under present common law. > [@marshmallow](#): > > Investing in sons is a valuable strategy in both humans and mammals. It’s self correcting if the pendulum swings too far in either direction. Daughters become more valuable as more and more males of decreasing value flood the market and vice verse. Now, it is true that excess testosterone can lead to more crime and general unpleasantness in your day to day life, but it could also lead to more innovation down the line. And besides, this is what wars are for anyway. Is this meant satirically? > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > … since when did “making stuff up” qualify as philosophy? Since always. I read philosophy one semester in college. That’s all it was! ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/95 "2010-06-30T23:49:45Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Using psychiatry to punish people? How very… Soviet of you. Not punish, but to protect her from herself. i don’t see how such a practice can be considered anything other than manically (if not maniacally) self destructive. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/96 "2010-06-30T23:57:57Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Insane? :dubious: Well, yeah. If I go by the question in the OP: “If a woman _ **keeps** _ aborting female babies…” meaning, to my understanding, aborting over and over and over until, or worse, unless, a son is produced, I’m sorry, but I would consider that person not in command of her faculties and needs to be protected from herself. Believe me, I’m more pro choice than many people on this board, but someone engaging in such a practice has to be more than a little off, unless, as I said in my earlier post, she is being forced to do it, which I can actually envision easier than a woman deciding on such a destructive course of action on her own. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/97 "2010-07-01T00:27:07Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > Not punish, but to protect her from herself. i don’t see how such a practice can be considered anything other than manically (if not maniacally) self destructive. Yeah, that’s pretty much what the Soviets said. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/98 "2010-07-01T00:32:11Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > If I go by the question in the OP: “If a woman _ **keeps** _ aborting female babies…” meaning, to my understanding, aborting over and over and over until, or worse, unless, a son is produced, I’m sorry, but I would consider that person not in command of her faculties and needs to be protected from herself. Do you think she might try to abort herself? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/99 "2010-07-01T00:33:13Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Do you think she might try to abort herself? My brain hurtsss… ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066/100 "2010-07-01T01:11:55Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Yeah, that’s pretty much what the Soviets said. Yeah, sounds bad, I know. But there it is. I never realized I have a line. I guess I have a line. ☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-an-american-woman-keeps-aborting-female-babies-to-get-a-boy-should-that-be-ok-legally/545066.md?page=6)