The point is that it IS technically within the meaning of the Law, but politicians are trying to run a blind side and suggest that the law says something that it does not.
Ah, if only there were some way we could find out whether pregnancy is a rare phenomenon in the UK, eh?
The goal… well, at least that answers the canting humbug that we keep hearing. It’s not about ending pregnancy as an unwanted bodily condition that can be corrected by a medical procedure; it’s about ensuring that something isn’t born alive when we don’t want it to be.
Once you let that in, I think you’ve left yourself without a leg to stand on for objecting to sex-selection terminations. If you don’t want it to be born then you don’t want it to be born - if that’s a private matter in the first place then it doesn’t suddenly become someone else’s business just because your motive in this case might be one they disapprove of. What are they going to do, manacle the mother to a prison cot until she gives birth?
If only, indeed, CurtC had some way of reading earlier threads in the post, where the British abortion rate is given not merely as a proportion of pregnancies but also as a proportion of women of childbearing age. Pick whatever statistic you like; the British abortion rate is strikingly high by comparison with its Western European neighbours. But CurtC is explicit about the fact he doesn’t see this as important.
CurtC has not said that he sees sex-selective abortion as problematic.
Doesn’t that happen all the time? Not sure how things work in the UK, but in the US, it’s up to the courts to decide the proper interpretation of the law, but that almost never happens unless someone with standing brings a case against the existing interpretation by the executive branch.
Yes, but the problem in this instance is that executive branch speak with forked tongue. On the one hand, government ministers are saying that the law does not permit abortion for the purpose of sex-selection. On the other hand, the prosecuting agency will not prosecute on the basis that an abortion has been undertaken for reasons of sex selection. On the third hand, the regulatory authorities will not proceed against doctors who certify that there is a risk to health in order to facilitate an abortion for reasons of sex selection.
In the UK, where the executive is expected to enjoy the confidence of parliament, it’s up to the executive to ensure that the law (a) is clear, and (b) says what they think it should say. If this conditions are not satisfied, the executive should be bringing legislation before the legislature that would clarify and/or correct the law. They shouldn’t be waiting for someone with standing to litigate the matter.
How, exactly, does one determine that?
Well, hereis a link to a Guardian report in which the Department of Health is quoted as saying “The law is clear that termination of a pregnancy on the grounds of gender alone is illegal”. And about half-way down this pageyou’ll find the Prime Minister assuring the House of Commons that it is “clear that abortions on the basis of a child’s sex are wrong and illegal in our country”.
On the other hand, up the page in post #10 pjen links to a Daily Mailreport in which the Director of Public Prosecutions is quoted as saying that “nothing in abortion law prevented a woman from terminating her pregnancy because she did not want a girl”. He says this in the context of a statement explaining a decision not to prosecute two doctors exposed in a newspaper sting operation as agreeming to do precisely that.
Is that what you’re looking for? Or have I misunderstood your question?
So it’s not about women being in control of their bodies so much as women being exclusively in charge of eugenics.
No, I meant how is a prosecutor to determine if an abortion is performed solely based on the sex of the fetus?
Oh, right.
Well, at the moment he isn’t, of course, since the relevant law creating the offence (procuring an abortion) and the exception (where the necessary certificate is provided) doesn’t mention motive at all.
Starting from where you are now, if you wanted to outlaw sex-selective abortions in the UK, I think you’d want to do it by amending the law to provide that a doctor is not to give a certificate if the woman’s motive for seeking an abortion is that she does not want a child of the sex of the child that she is carrying. (Or, that he is not to give a certificate in that case unless some further factor is present, e.g. heightened risk of the child suffering from a x-chromosome linked condition. Or, you could play around with this to try to give effect to your desired view on when, if ever, sex-selective abortions are permitted.)
This would put the onus of identifying the patient’s motivation on the doctor, rather than on the prosecutor.
Does this put doctors in an impossible position? Not necessarily. The British Medical Association already has guidance for its members that “it is normally unethical to terminate a pregnancy on grounds of fetal sex alone, except in cases of severe x-linked disorders”. So they clearly don’t think it’s an assessment that a doctor can never make.
This wouldn’t necessarily be a completely effective measure, of course. A well-informed and determined patient could simply lie to her doctor about her reasons for wanting an abortion, and if she lied convincingly her doctor would have no reason not to give the certificate. But not every patient would be willing to do so. And, in any event, such a provision would, if nothing else, mean that the government could truthfully say that the law does not permit sex-linked abortions. Which, I think, is not something they can honestly say at the moment.
Right. So " On the other hand, the prosecuting agency will not prosecute on the basis that an abortion has been undertaken for reasons of sex selection" isn’t really a valid complaint.
Just for the record, I’m in favor of abortion on demand up to the point of viability of the fetus (minus a few weeks, just to be sure). If a woman wants to abort a female fetus, so be it. We’re supposed to be supporting a woman’s right to choose, so we shouldn’t be concerned with the reason for that choice. Now, the tricky part is if she is “forced” to abort by her husband or other family members. But that’s a completely different issue, and one that is not so easily addressed.
I agree. I don’t think the current state of UK law makes it an offence to have an abortion because you are dissatisfied with the sex of the child you are carrying, and the DPP is right not to prosecute. My criticism would be of those within the executive who claim that the law does forbid sex=selective abortions.
And that’s a morally coherent and consistent position.
The problem here is that it is, I imagine, often true that women’s choices about abortion are subject to pressures from partners, family or wider society. This isn’t just true for women from minority communities, or of women making choices of which you or I would disapprove. But once you acknowledge this, it does call into basis the validity of laws based on a woman’s right to choose. Are they really functioning as laws which support a woman’s right to make the choice acceptable to others?
I imagine that if British prosecutors were to start prosecuting this there would probably be a fair element of racial profiling involved.
In India, which has sex-selection abortion laws and does prosecute them, I am told - no cite, personal conversation - that it is done through sting operations which target doctors who offer sex tests (also illegal) and termination of pregnancies where the foetus is female. They don’t target pregnant women at all and the laws are actually completely ineffective in that respect.
Women’s choices about everything are subject to pressures from partners, family and wider society. That doesn’t invalidate giving us the right to make those choices, nor in most cases does it remove our ability to decide which of the available choices best suits our needs. There are exceptional cases where the woman really is left without any choice in the matter (and that could go either way - coerced abortion *or * coerced childbirth), but to suggest that this is how they usually function is really pretty insulting and infantilising. And certainly is not an argument for removing the choice from women entirely and letting the State decide.
The executive is using an age old technique for keeping everyone happy (or at least only moderately unhappy, depending on how you look at it). Having laws that one doesn’t enforce (or passing laws one knows are unenforceable) is a time honoured method.
It’s entirely improper, but the older I get the more sympathy I have with leaders who have to kludge together a workable solution in a world that contains both Bryan Ekers and Hector_St_Clare to pick on a couple of examples.
Likewise.
There have been some press sting operations but the DPP has refused to follow up with charges.
It would be doctors who would be prosecuted, not women. And the authorities probably wouldn’t go out looking for doctors to prosecute; the issue would only arise when someone made a complaint. Which, you’d have to reckon, wouldn’t happen that often. Except when newpapers mounted sting operations. Which, hell, yes, would involve racial profiling.
I’m not suggesting that this is “how they usually function” or advocating “removing the choice from women entirely”. I’m just suggesting that if we think that a woman seeking a sex-selective abortion is not a free agent, when we don’t think that of a woman seeking an abortion because having a child would disrupt her academic/professional/marriage prospects, we’re maybe engaged in a bit of racial profiling ourselves. The assumption at work here is that women internalising and acting upon values and priorities approved of by mainstream society are free agents, whereas women internalising and acting upon values which associated with ethnic and cultural minorities are not.
South Asian immigrants to Britain aren’t hermetically separated from the rest of society. An immigrant culture with a wildly male biased sex ratio is going to have problems that spill over to the rest of society. (The morality of sex selective abortions set aside for the moment).
India itself contains a lot of different cultures, many of which do not practice sex selective abortion (male biased gender ratios aren’t much of a problem among Muslims, or among people in the south or the east, for example). Nevertheless, the fact that many people on the north and west do practice sex selection, has harmful effects on the entire country.
I’m an Indian and even I agree with these statements, and oppose the sex specific nature of Indian abortion laws quite vehemently. The laws shift the cost of the ‘crime’(valuing male children over female children) from the perpetrators(society) onto the victims(female children) that would have to be born into and live in a family and a culture that did not want them. Much better to try to change societal values or in the worst case allow the problem to correct itself. When women are a scarce commodity, they will become more valuable. There are some (weak)positive signs from India already - the sex ratio in the last 10 years has gotten worse at a slower rate than ever before!
Edit: I was referring to the sex ratio among children. Overall sex ratios have been improving in the last two decades, though they will likely get worse in coming decades.