So in the case of an abusive marital or sexual relationship, how does the legal system handle the situation? Is marriage or sex banned?
I don’t think anyone here is denying that there exists a larger societal problem with regard to the status of women. In that sense, though, India is hardly unique and hardly the worst case. And from what I have seen personally, Modernaisation and the liberalisation of society – including the right to divorce, contraception, and abortion – has helped make some improvement.
If you hate Jews and refuse to donate blood because it will benefit Jews, I don’t want the state to be able to force you to donate blood. Or bone marrow, or a kidney, or a uterus. You should get to decide what happens to your body parts.
I’ll agree with this. If a woman wants to abort babies because they are female, and that’s truly her choice that wasn’t made under what I consider to be “extreme duress” then as long as it falls under the laws of the land in which she lives it doesn’t bother me that much (I still view it as sin, and a great moral wrong, but it’s nothing that doesn’t happen every day so not something I’m going to get upset about.)
However, I think if a woman is in a situation, a marriage, where she is a complete slave to the desires and interests of her husband; where any opposition to that situation would result in being thrown out on the streets to suffer poverty, separation from family and friends, or worse, severe beatings at the hand of her husband; then that is a situation where if the man decides to abort the baby and the woman is given no say in the matter it is what I consider a grave human rights violation. A woman’s unborn child/fetus/thing whatever you feel the need to call it due to your political affiliations is being taken from her, not as an exercise of her reproductive rights, but in complete disregard for her as a person and her right to decide about that as a future mother.
There is a “fine line” though. It’s one thing to feel “pressured” to abort a baby because you’re in High School, you just “don’t want to deal with the hassle” or you’re worried the father is going to not be involve et cetera. In that situation the woman has basically decided it would be best, for her life, if she did not have a baby right then. With that in mind she makes the choice to abort her baby. That’s a different situation from a woman who isn’t even given a vote in the matter. A woman who is told by her husband, “We can’t afford a baby right now, a male we could abide by, but we simply can’t go through this hardship for a girl right now. You’re going to abort the baby.” And then does so because she is in a marriage where she is not an equal partner, but a virtual slave to the whims of her husband, that’s got nothing to do with “reproductive rights.” That has to do with basic rights of liberty and freedom that people are supposedly endowed with by virtue of being human being violated.
Most people these agree consenting adults have the right to engage in sexual relations however they wish. That doesn’t mean (this is so obvious) that people think it is okay for one person to coerce or force another to have sex with them. Just as many people agree that a woman has the right to have an bortion, that does not mean those same people would (logically) conclude that it’s okay for someone to force the woman to have an abortion.