We fought against patriarchy and religion for our sexual freedom. We now fight against multi-billion dollar sex industries to stop sexual exploitation of women. We fought against religion for our abortion rights. We now fight against misogynistic patriarchal societies to stop sex-selective abortion. It seems it is a never-ending fight.
”The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, ‘It’s a girl’ ”– Shirley Chisholm
Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winning economist said in 1990, that more than 100 million women are missing. ‘In India, China and some other countries in the world , girls are killed, aborted & abandoned because they are girls. The United Nations estimates as many as 200 million girls are missing in the world today because of gendercide. 50 million missing campaign fighting gendercide in India. Gendercide is war on women.
We know at birth boys outnumber girls, there are 105 or 106 male children for every 100 female children. But later women outnumber men because women are more resistant to disease, and tend to live longer than men even if men and women receive similar nutritional and medical attention and general health care. India and China are having skewed sex ratio at birth. In some places of India there are even less than 700 girls for 1000 boys.
Abortion is legal, but sex-selective abortion is not legal in India. Some people have tried to talk about law. Those women who have killed their own female fetuses, cried out, ‘law, what is law? Will the law come to my aid when my husband throws me out of the house or kills me for giving birth to yet another girl! Will the law help me when my husband marries again in the hope of a son? Can the law change the way society looks at me because I have no son! ‘
If the woman cannot provide a son, her life is torn asunder by strife. To put it bluntly, the message flashed by society – and this is what people really think, no matter what they say – is that, if you have two sons, you have two eyes. If you have one son, you are blind in one eye. And if you have two daughters, you are completely blind.
The women who support female feticide also say, ‘why should we let them live? We do not want any girl. Should we let girls be born so that they suffer the way we are suffering? They say, what good does being alive do to us? It is better that an insufferable life ends before it can begin. It is better to go straight to heaven than stay alive and endure the kicks and blows of the world.’ Are they wrong in saying this?
Once upon a time, people in patriarchal society would run temple to temple and pray to god for a son, they would spend extravagantly on saints and hermits, but now there is no need of magic charms and spells, a medium even stronger than god has come to India – science. Scan machines, amniocentesis and other scientific tests reveal the sex of the embryo in the womb – if the sex is not right then it is got rid of. The right sex is masculine, the wrong sex feminine. The healthy sex is masculine, the disabled sex feminine.
Girls are quickly disappearing. Anti-women traditions have been carefully preserved over the ages. There are quite a few communities, which regard sons as only offspring, and not daughters. Till 1980, infant girls used to be killed after they were born. Feticide had not caught on. Despite being banned, the incidence of feticide is on the rise. It makes one afraid that as long as the status of girls in society does not improve, there is no way these murders, this bloodshed, can be prevented.
We say, if women are educated and self-reliant, then female infanticide and female feticide will stop. Most people believe that these occur among the poor and the uneducated. But, in fact, the opposite is true. The study shows in India the ratio of girls to boys is the most skewed in South Delhi, a place where the rich and the educated live. It is here that the maximum number of girls go missing. Down from 904 to 845 in just 10 years. 24,000 girls disappear from South Delhi every year. The Patels of Gujarat are a wonder. Traditionally rich peasants, there is no trace of girls in their villages. It’s femicide, the systematic killing of women. A holocaust going on against girls across the country. A pogrom.
Sometimes I think ‘educated’ people can plan the murder of their fetuses with much more skill than uneducated people. ‘Educated’ girls can learn patriarchal system much better than uneducated girls. They sure have better learning ability. They even practice it better. Misogyny can not be wiped out through conventional education that does not teach gender equality.
Since infant girls have been murdered over the ages, female feticide today does not go against anti-women tradition. It is like weeding – plucking off girls from the soil of the womb reserved for the production of sons. There is nothing surprising about murdering daughters in a race that has always been thirsty for sons. Killing of girl children was probably in vogue from the ancient Vedic age. The Atharva Veda says, Let girls be born elsewhere, let boys take birth here. Son is wealth. Son is a blessing. The son will be the father’s strength in old age. The father will go to heaven if the son lights his funeral pyre. It is the son who will rescue the father from hell.
Female feticide is causing social imbalance. Now brothers share a wife. The murder of girls has led to such an acute shortage of girls that an exchange system has been initiated. According to this system, parents agree to give their daughter in marriage on the condition that the groom’s sister marries the bride’s brother. “Bride Trafficking” has started. Men are now ‘recycling’ the use of women for sex and reproduction.
Now a days men want educated wives. So girls are getting educated so that they can sell well in the marriage mart. An educated wife can do the shopping, pay the bills, look after the children’s studies, and solve problems at school, all on her own. A man said, my wife has a postgraduate degree in Maths, all the better since she can help the kids with the homework. So I don’t need to engage a tutor for them. And why should my wife work outside the home? We don’t need any extra money in the family. She has a lot to do at home.
The money women earn is known as extra money. University degrees are meant to help the kids with their homework, nothing else. The norm is that middle class girls will not work after marriage.Only those girls, who badly need money for survival or those girls whose money husbands want, get permission to work outside the house.
Alas! So much for education! Educated girls have to pay more dowry. The more educated a girl is, the more educated husband she demands. And thus the amount of dowry required also escalates. Many people think that a handsome dowry enhances the dignity of the girl. However, dowry never improves the status of a girl in her in-laws’ house, rather it results in loss of dignity. The more dowry is paid, the more the girl’s status at her in-laws will deteriorate. The husband is not supposed to pay dowry, no matter how educated the girl is, no matter how grand the job she holds. The ‘Brides Wanted’ column is clear testimony to the value of girls in this society. Wanted: A fair complexion, beautiful, educated, homely girl from a respectable family. ‘Homely girl’ means a girl who will spend all 24 hours of the day on domestic chores, one who will not hold a job. ‘Respectable family’ means a family that will pay a handsome dowry. If the groom comes from an affluent family, it does not mean that a poor dowry will do, rather the dowry must be all the more generous. When this is the condition, why will people not believe that the birth of a girl means entails huge expenses! Girls are an inferior race – this belief is ingrained in both men and women across India. And since a girl belongs to an inferior race, dowry is needed to get rid of her.
The abortion clinics display an advertisement. Spend Rs 500, you’ll save Rs. 50,000. In other words, kill this one. If this one lives, you’ll lose Rs. 50,000 in dowry. For those yearning for a son, the sex determination clinics are modern temples.
Women have had to struggle for decades for the right of abortion. Acquiring the right of abortion was a huge event in the history of women’s emancipation. However, when in India, a foetus is aborted by virtue of belonging to a certain gender, and that gender is the feminine gender, then such abortion has no relation whatsoever with women’s liberty, but is inseparably related with the tragedy of women’s subjugation.
The law has not been able to eradicate the dowry system. It can never be eradicated as long as every member of the family continues to believe that a girl cannot be as economically powerful as a boy. Society needs a lot of change. Society must understand that girls are very important members of the society, not burdens for whom dowry must be paid, not machines for the production of sons. If women and men do not unite in the attempt to transform society, female feticide will continue unabated.
This society is not a fit place for girls, so it is better not to allow them to be born. This logic is something like this: there is too much shouting and screaming all around, the noise pollution is giving one a headache, so it is better to chop off the head. Many claim that if women themselves choose the gender of the child before giving birth, then they will be saved from many undesired pregnancies. How helpless she must be not to have the slightest control over the fetus growing inside her womb! Women are compelled to yield to societal as well as many kinds of family pressure and opt for abort a female fetus. An undesired pregnancy is not as terrible as this forsaken, helpless, undignified, disgraceful condition of women.
If the practice of female feticide continues as they are now, it will not be very many decades before there will be not a single girl in the country, only men. The good thing will be that men will find no more girls to torture, trample, rape and kill.
”
Half of the babies murdered in abortion are female… if you really care about women you should be pro-life
I am very much pro-choice. I even worked at abortion clinics. I probably aborted hundreds of female fetusus. But none was sex-selective. Sex-selective abortion or systematic killing of female fetuses is just a bizarre patriarchal oppression of women, not a woman’s choice.
OK, I probably jumped on you a bit unfairly, not taking into enough consideration your rage about what is being done to women in India.
As is clear from my first post, I support you in your saying that the society needs to change and needs to acknowledge the value of women. But your post feels judgmental towards women who abort female fetuses because they don’t want their daughters to face the ugly life they are living. Why? They are victims of circumstances and oppression. It seems like you have more sympathy for an unfeeling fetus than the living woman carrying it. Maybe I just got that part wrong, but that is the impression you leave on me.
And that is true. Cultural bias against women in India may still be too strong, but more education can’t possibly hurt. I’m a bit baffled by that part of your post, really.
I said patriarchal and religious education would not help. Both boys and girls should start learning about gender equality in the primary schools. Science and secular education can bring a significant change in human life.
Absolutely agreed.
nthng should be done grl should look aftr her prnts she also gv her name to child both r equal so both should do equally & if it hpns thn we should no need of sayng i hv only grl or i hv a BOY … grl should do smthng …
@KingUber I am the founder of The 50 Million Missing Campaign — and I am a biologist, an atheist, a feminist, and living in the U.S. I have been a politically active supporter of the pro-choice movement. Most of my American college friends are doctors, some of them are gynecologists and obstetricians, working in abortion sensitive areas in the U.S., and believe me, I know first hand the kind of fire the pro-choice movement is under. But the underlying issue of the American pro-choice movement is not about abortion! It is about a woman’s undisputed/ individual right over her own body! Translation: No one, not her husband, family, religion, society, government — owns a woman’s body and dictates what is to be done with it! Do you think that is what is happening with millions of female feticide in India. Do you think this is an EMPOWERED and INDIVIDUAL decision Indian women are making about their own bodies? Do you know what happens to women who give birth to daughters — they are abused, they’ve had their noses chopped off, they are burnt, hanged, and drowned. Would you say that women who are aborting their daughters in India, and Indian women who are aborting their girls in the U.S., Cananda, U.K., and Norway too! are making a FREE CHOICE? Let me give you an example of a conversation recorded in an abortion clinic. A pregnant woman and her mother-in-law were having a debate. A fight. She was carrying a female fetus and wanted to abort it before birth. The mother in law wanted to wait till after it is born to decide whether they want to dispense of it or not. Why the fight? How many women want their new born babies to be snatched away from their arms and killed mercilessly? If that’s what the family is going to have her do — wouldn’t she rather do it before she sees it with her own eyes? For the mother in law the issue is money. Abortions, hospitlization etc. is very expensive — probably it is a 100 times cheaper to wait till the baby is born and then kill her. And then there is always the possibility it could be a boy and something was wrong w/ the ultrasound. It has happenend. What if they kill a precious boy? So wait till it is born and if its a girl kill her! Does that happen with people who are pro-choice. Tell me: In the U.S. if a couple is told their baby might have Downs Syndrome, do the couple discuss about whether to kill it in the womb or wait till it is born to see if it actually has Downs and how bad the symptoms are, and then kill it afterwards if it doesn’t match their requirement? Is this what the Pro-choice movement is about. Because this is EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH WOMEN AND FEMALE FETICIDE IN INDIA.
Your comment is very racist, religiously bigoted and culturally biased and you seem to be pandering to white society. You are basically saying Indian women (most who are Hindus) do not have the right to choose because oh they cannot be trusted but it is perfectly okay for white Christian women to abort babies because it is their right to choose. How do you know that all Indian women who have abortions are just doing so because of gender? And in any event it is their right to choose…not yours. How do you know white Christian women are not aborting their babies because of gender? Just because you say so? And, what makes any reason for abortion more acceptable than others? I am opposed to white Christian women aborting their babies just because they don’t want the responsibility. I consider that murder too. Who are you to decide what reasons are okay for abortion and which ones are not? It sounds more like the typical white Christian mindset of feeling morally superior to brown, mostly Hindu Indians. Either you are truly pro choice and support a woman’s right to abortion regardless of race and religion or you are truly against all abortion but either way it cannot be selective based on race and religion because that would make you a racist and religious bigot.
Half of nothing is still nothing, loser.
I don’t even know where to start.
You use words like feticide and call abortion holocaust. It’s not holocaust. Holocaust killed people who already existed. Who had feelings, thoughts and memories.
Using holocaust in this context just makes you sound like rabid anti-abortion religionists. Do you not think that woman has a right to abort for any reason, as long as it is her decision? Yes, that includes the reason “I don’t want a baby girl”. The important part is that part after the comma. She must be able to make her own decision. Neither government nor men (or women) in her life should be able to force or coerce her into making a decision they deem right and she doesn’t. We should fight for women being able to make their own decisions, not making a decision you deem right. We should fight against misogyny that values male life above female. It’s the culture that needs changing, not abortion rights.
You are just playing into the hands of anti-abortionist everywhere. Abortion isn’t the problem. Hate for women is the problem.
You don’t think an undesired pregnancy that a woman is forced to keep makes her helpless? That it’s disgraceful?
If this is happening, then these misogynists are sowing the seeds of their own destruction.
Pretty much, the trick is confining all those boys to their culture/nation of birth, let them reap what their parents have sown
The real irony is that it is the male that determines the sex of the child. The Y chromosome that makes a child a boy must come from the father; if he donates an X chromosome instead, the baby will be a girl.
In the west, you usually hear parents say I don’t care what sex it is as long as it’s healthy. Whether they mean it or not is another thing, but I think most of them mean it; but it hasn’t always been that way. As recently as 50 years ago, my mother was not happy that I was a girl. But, she didn’t kill me, she only made my life miserable. Not much of a trade? Probably not.
slightly off message, and perhaps I have incorrect information, but ISTM that it is the male XY that provides the male sex of the child, so dumping a specific `wife’ would not help.
What a potentially cruel future for most women who are left to live in India…
Taslima, do you think that scarcity of women will have any effect on women’s position in society? Do you think women will come to be valued more?
My ancestors gave their daughters dowries, but the dowry belonged to the woman and was an insurance policy that made sure she could take care of herself if her marriage failed. Reading this, it looks like the dowries you’re talking about belong to the husband and are a payment for taking the woman off her family’s hands. Is that correct?
Part of me thinks perhaps it is better for these fetuses to be humanely terminated than for them to grow into women who must live lives of abuse and misery.
@seditiousus — We talk about food, water and land as scarcity. Something that is a commodity. A non-human substance for the use of men. How do you talk about “scarcity” of women? Are they a resource for men’s use? Actually you are right — they are a resource for men’s use! And with shortage men in India are ‘recycling’ the use of women for sex and reproduction. It is called “Bride Trafficking” and it is the fastest growing sextrafficking in India. You should go to “Gender Bytes” The blog of The 50 Million Missing Campaign and look for the post titled “Brides: Bought, Sold, Resold.” Read it and decide whether in your words ‘scarcity’ of women actually makes India value and respect women more.
My apologies Rita, “scarcity” was the wrong word. I was thinking of the workforce, where people who are needed but are hard to get hold of tend to enjoy fairly high status and benefits. The human race needs women; even the most rabid misogynist has to admit that, if only because without women the species cannot survive.
Clearly the answer is no; women are not valued more when there are less of them around because the problem is that they’re viewed as a commodity instead of agents in the workforce of human society. Thanks for the reference, now please excuse me while I go bang my head on my desk.
In the short term, a shortage of women will lead to a lessening of women’s power and a rise in their value.
Expect to see younger brides, the average wealth and status of grooms rise, and more perks demanded by the
parentsfathers of brides. Expect to see greater protectionism of girls, meaning less education, fewer rights, and more control. Expect to see a rise in the incidence of kidnapping and trafficking of women to areas with lots of bride-less men with money and social rank.Many of these things are already happening in China.
You’re mixing two different issues (again!). Sex-selective abortions and “patriarchal” abortions (by which I mean abortions forced by the patriarchal society). The latter is oppression, while the former is choice (you might not approve of it, but that’s irrelevant). Yet you misleadingly group them together (just like many other topics you did before, c.f. e.g. prostitution).
You can be anti-sex-selective abortion and pro-choice — saying a woman has the right to choose whether or not to carry a fetus to term independent of the sex of the fetus.
Cultural practices that make girls “expensive” to families, and beliefs that girls are unable to support their parents while sons are able to, fuel sex-selective abortions as much as husbands threatening to leave their wives if one or two daughters are born before a son. They are due to patriarchal organization of society and there’s nothing hypocritical about grouping them together as they all have the same root causes and can (hopefully) be address the same way.
You can also be a religious scientist, that doesn’t mean you’d be self-consistent.
You can also vote Republican 5 years in a row, except for one year you vote Democrat, and you could still be having a rational reason for the exception!
Those categories do not contradict one another, so who cares.
Oh really..nice racial and religious bigoted comment again. Who are you to decide what reasons are acceptable as somebody who supports pro choice.? Gender selective abortion is not okay but it is okay to abort for all other reasons including women who just don’t want the responsibility? The right to choose is the right to choose…it is only in your racial superiority beliefs that white women can abort for any reason because they are doing do for reasons you find acceptable even though you really don’t know their reasons because maybe they won’t tell you the truth but Indian women cannot have abortions because oh it must be because of gender.
Amartya Sen (like Vishy Anand) is one of the most high profile Indians in the whole world. He is one of my heroes. Your article quotes a study that he made in the 1990s but following China’s one Child Policy, started after the death of Mao Dze Dong c 1976, there were already reports of Chinese villages suffering a dearth of female infants.
During the 1980s I lived in Thailand for a while, and made the acquaintance of a lady from the Northern region (Chiangmai, Chiangrai) and asked her about the treatment of boys and girls in upcountry areas, including selective abortion. she told me that the peasants were not dismayed if a female infant were born, because they knew that the daughter might later on be able to earn a living as a hostess, or prostitute, or even go on to marry an American or European and get out of Thailand altogether.
Needless to say many think Thailand is a highly misogynistic country but there seem to be plenty of women wearing officers stripes in the various influential police and military organisations, not to mention the current political head of state, Yingyat Sinanawatr.
Furthermore there are plenty of Thai men who view the accession of the current crown prince with great trepidation, and would favour the promotion of the younger sister who is a scientist famous for her lectures in chemistry on Thai TV’s education channel.
Regarding abortion as ‘failed contraception’, Thailand took action on this problem when following the discovery of AIDS in the 1980s medical students started education campaigns on safe sex, and later on Mechai Viravaidy took charge of a high profile campaign to promote the use of condoms. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechai_Viravaidy)
The statistics speak for themselves. The two largest countries of the world have less than expected female populations and the some people in the medical profession must bear some of the blame.
tony goddard @d4maths
I think there are many problems with your post, but I will only choose to comment on one issue which, IMO, examplifies the problem:
Although you claim to be pro choice, and have worked at an abortion clinic yourself, you use “pro-life speech” throughout your whole text: highly emotional, highly inaccurate language.
You speak about “girls missing” as if they had been there and suddenly disappeared. You speak of “feticide”, “murder” and worst “holocaust”, all words known from the “pro-life” crowd to equate women who have abortions with murderers, nazi-officers and to paint abortion doctors as Dr. Mengele.
You must decide if either think that abortion is murder or not. If it’s not, why use such language to paint it as if it were?
Many people feel like they are the ones who get to draw the line between “moral abortion” and “murder”, and they are not the pregnant woman herself.
You are making the judgement of women, of what they think is bearable for them and what isn’t.
When you say:
you’re basically making that decision for her.
I’m not arguing with your view on the issue of the misogyny in Indian society, but I think you’re putting the horse before the cart by framing it as a problem of women having abortions.
Even if those sex-selective abortions never happened, the situation for girls and women wouldn’t be any better in China and India just because there would be 200 million more of them.
Sex-selective abortions ar a symptom, not the cause.
@Giliell I have been an active member of the pro-choice lobby in the U.S. In 1992 when Bush came to power and Roe vs. Wade was in danger, I was out there with millions of women marching in Washington D.C. to keep abortion a safe and legal INDIVIDUAL CHOICE for women, not just in the U.S. but symbolically the world over (since I’m from India). With me in the march were most of my closest American friends from college, who Biology majors with me, and who were starting medical school then. I’ve seen the PRO-LIFE movement in the eye and I have no idea what you are talking about when you say that you read Pro-life rhetoric in this piece by Taslima. I think that a lot of your commentary is based on ignorance. But since I’ve running a campaign on female gendercide (The 50 Million Missing) for 61/2 years, I want to enlighten you on this. “Missing” actually means eliminated. Women who have been eliminated from the population. And for your information — they are eliminated not just as fetuses, but as infants, as toddlers, as brides, and as widows. One thing you have to understand when studies talk about gender ratios in India and they give the at birth gender ratio there is strange age group they indicate. They are counting 0-6years. Based on that they decide how many girls are getting aborted! Which means they are counting the killing of female fetuses as the same as the killing of girls. According to a recent study by the Harvard School of public health, 1985 to 2005 of live births, over the last two decades 1.8 million girls under the age of six years had been battered to death by their families in India. The rate of mortality of girls under 6 years according to the U.N. is 75% higher than boys the same age. The head researcher Dr. Jay Silverman said, “Being born a girl into a family in India in which your mother is abused makes it significantly less likely that you will survive early childhood. Shockingly this violence does not pose a threat to your life if you are lucky enough to be born a boy.”
If they don’t kill the girl after birth or starve or batter her to death, guess they turn on. The mother!! Women are beaten, thrown out onto the streets, have their nose chopped off, or they are hanged, drowned or burnt to death for giving birth to a girl. I don’t mean just the poor uneducated ones, I also mean women who are educated and working are subject to all forms of abuse for giving birth to girls. So if a woman wants to survive in India, she makes a choice — its either me or it is the female baby. Should she kill the female baby after birth? Isn’t is less traumatic for her if she kills it in the womb? I don’t know if you call that CHOICE AS IN THE CHOICE MOVEMENT FOR A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO ABORTION. DO YOU? Many people, even the ones who follow the rhetoric and support the pro-choice movement don’t know the pro-choice agenda. It is not about abortion. It is about a woman’s right over her own body. Do you know that one of the clauses in the Pro-Choice agenda is that A WOMAN CANNOT BE FORCED TO HAVE AN ABORTION AGAINST HER OWN WILL. DO YOU KNOW THAT? Do you know why it is there? Because this fight is not about abortion silly! This is about a woman’s undisputed INDIVIDUAL RIGHT OVER HER OWN BODY. No one can treat her body like a piece of property and subject it to rape, pregnancies, or abortions against her will!! THAT IS THE FUNDAMENTAL CALL OF THE PRO-CHOICE LOBBY. AND I can tell you that every single one of the female feticides in India violates that very clause of the Pro-Choice lobby. If a Jewish person in Nazi Europe got themselves sterilized so that they didn’t have children who would be subject to abuse and death, would you say they are exercising their right to birth control? Because your argument against Taslima is exactly that!
One other thing. You mentions Life! See that is the other misinformation or lack of information that most people who have a surface understanding of the pro-choice lobby resort to! The prochoice lobby was never about whether or not the fetus is life!! Of course the fetus is life! I say that as a biologist and an atheist! The scientific definition of life is [and I’m quoting from the Princeton.edu now] “the starting point for a human life, comes into existence with the formation of the one-celled zygote; the union of sperm and the egg” When I taught biology, and students use to get upset about dissecting the fetal pig, I’d always tell that when they have their sandwich, it’s not just the ham, but the tomato and cucumber in there that is life too! In fact each of those seeds are embryos — and you are consuming the embryos with the womb! The abortion debate is never about life. Why do you think that even the most liberal countries with abortion laws don’t allow abortion after the first trimester? Because if a woman should have a choice why not have the choice to abort till one day before she delivers? Because it is about the independence of her life and the ability of the independence of the life she carries within. Once the fetus is capable of independent life — the law in almost all liberal countries feel the need to provide for that life as well. Countries like the U.K. and Norway and Australia with very liberal attitudes to abortion have outlawed sexselective abortions because the Indian communities in these countries have mass eliminated their daughters before birth. The same is true for the U.S. and Canada too — but the Pro-choice lobby here is so terrified to be under fire (I can understand that).
Another thing: It is not going to be about abortion any more. Medical companies most of them in the U.S. are racing to develop technologies to avoid abortion all together. So Gen Select is a kit by which you can filter sperms and remove the Xs so you have only Y and that way you most likely to have a son. It is a global market racing to join the woman killing machine. The 5th article of the U.N. Act on genocide says — the prevention of the birth of a group is genocide. One last question — Does any group ever voluntarily annihilate it’s own kind? Women eliminating their daughters in the womb. Women annihilating women. Does a group ever self-annihilate by CHOICE?
Does a group ever self-annihilate by CHOICE?
The Shakers. VHEMT. Look ’em up.
If you’re going to argue these things, could you maybe use less emotion and more facts? You certainly come off as knowing a whole lot about not much.
I’m so hardline pro-abortion (yes) that I am not against sex-selective abortion. I am against coerced abortions, but I think once you start saying “Well, you can have an abortion for this reason but not that” you’re setting a dangerous precedent that eventually will wind up with nobody able to exercise control over their own bodies.
The “missing” girls are their culture’s problem, and they need to fix it at the cultural level, not by outlawing any particular medical procedure. What might work, however, is jailing people who coerce women into having abortions.
Ok, I’m not sure if you can hear me as high up as you obviously are, but I’ll try.
First, you’ve added nothing new.
Although you seem to think that you must school me on what’s happening in India (or China, or for that matter, Canada), but I can assure you that I’m perfectly well aware of the situation.
Second:
It must have been a strange pro-life crowd you encountered if you haven’t heard them use the words “holocaust” and “murder” when referring to abortion, or have never encountered the starwman that pro-choice is racist because it grants women of colour the choice to abort (complete with a few old quotes from Magret Sanger).
Really, did they never tell you that “abortion is murder” and that “there’s a generation missing”?
One of these things is not like the other. Infants, toddlers, brides and widows are autonomous human beings. Fetuses are not.
Oh, and thank you again, but I really didn’t need your information, I was well aware of it before.
That is a statistical tool. It does not mean that those things are the same.
Now clue me in:
How does making sure that more women give birth to more girls improve that situation? As I said before, sex-selective abortion is a symptom, it’s not the cause. Let’s talk about that, actual harm being done to actual people before we start arguing about “feticide” (another pro-life term).
I call that a shitty choice, but it’s still one more choice than being forced to have the girl and then die both.
Unless, of course, you decide that this abortion for this reason is bad and therefore what?
Force her to have the child?
Those are seperate issues. It’s like all those people debating about reducing the number of abortions by deciding which one is moral and which isn’t instead of talking about contraception.
Yeah, silly me though that still applied when she made a choice that I personally disapprove of. If it’s not about abortion, don’t make it about abortion.
And you can tell me that because you have, of course, personally talked to all the women who had a sex-selective abortion.
And if they tell you that they themselves didn’t want a girl for those reasons, and they tell you that it was their decision, then of yourse you know better than they.
You know what’s another fundamental tenant so to speak of the pro-choice side?
That the woman in question is the only one who can make that choice. Yet if you deny that a woman can make that choice out of her own mind you’re denying that.
Women all over the planet abort children they might rather have had: Because they’re poor, because the fetus has disabilities and a cruel and anti-social society pushes them into that corner where they have to choose between a bad life for both of them and some relative happieness for themselves. It means being between a rock and a hard place, but it’s still their call.
Because they still think that deep down women are stupid beings who need to have decissions about their own body made for them and that a fetus is much more important than a grown woman.
Ok, I honestly don’t understand what “ability of independence” is supposed to mean.
Yes, a woman should have the choice for the whole time of pregnancy. I actually trust women to handle that right well.
Yes, they still place the possible life of the fetus above the actual life of the woman. You’ve talked at length about the right to bodily autonomy above. Why should a woman lose that right at a certain point?
Yes, that provides a handy way out: You don’t actually have to do anything about improving the situation of those women but put an additional burden onto them.
How do you kill a woman that doesn’t even exist as a zygote?
Ever seen a doe eat her litter?
A male polar bear kill his own cub?
You are a biologist, you should know that those things happen all the time.
Black women abort black fetuses.
Do you think that that’s a black genocide?
Oh, and there’s the group for voluntary extinction somewhere…
Seriously, your argument is full of grandeur, yet lacks substance.
Yu have not proposed any means to improve the situation of girls and women and you fail to make a case as to why somehow bringing more unwanted girls and women into this world by involuntary and mistreated women will somehow make that situation any better.
That’s why I said this whole thing puts the cart before the horse.
I am pro abortion but against sex selective abortion because sex selective abortion is mainly coerced abortion. Sex selective abortion is a symptom, it is also a cause of bride trafficking etc.
Madness.
When you sign onto the abortion train, this is where you end up. Some of us have warned about it. It’s a bit much to hear all of your wailing about “feticide”. Oh, all of a sudden the unborn is a real person, is that it? Think you might have wanted to pay attention earlier?
You seem confused about cause and effect, again.
Again, I’m asking:
How is the situation of women in India improved if they’re forced to carry pregnancies to term that they don’t want to carry to term and that will lead to serious bad consequences for them?
Gilly, how are their lives improved if they can’t afford the dowries if they do decide to have a girl? Better support killing female infants, just to be on the safe side.
I have no idea whom you mean by “Gilly”.
If you mean me it’s nice to see how you dodge the question.
Gilly, sure I gave you an evasive answer. But here’s the thing. The last time I got stuck in a debate about this subject with you, you responded in the most rude and evasive way possible, refusing to grant even the basics of rationality and decency. Think I’m going to try to be reasonable and logical with you again?
You must mistake me, my name isn’t Gilly.
Actually, i have no idea who you are, but I’m perfectly willing to believe that I was rude.
I have little sympathy for people who regard women as broodmares.
Yet, if interacting with me is so painfull, why bother?
Seems like, should we have met before, you took it mightily personal.
Thank you for proving my point. Anyone who has any qualms about abortion, regardless of their other positions, regardless of whether or not they support contraception and education, regardless of whether they’ve worked defending women’s rights, “regards women as broodmares”. That’s the level of your mind. And you wonder gilly-girl why I don’t bother even trying to reason with you? Reason is for adults, gilly.
Gilly, nice to see you policing the edges of the reservation.
“In India, China and some other countries in the world , girls are killed, aborted & abandoned because they are girls.”
And it’s still going on. From the Times Of India, 2007:
http://www.shvoong.com/society-and-news/news-items/1618872-times-india/
—–
“Female feticide is causing social imbalance. Now brothers share a wife. The murder of girls has led to such an acute shortage of girls… […] “Bride Trafficking” has started.”
I can think of at least three ways it could get worse:
(1) Men being murdered to turn women into widows, “available” to marry again. Cats (domestic or great cats like lions) are known to do this, killing the offspring of competing males to cause females to back in heat. Except that unlike cats, it will be the competing males who are murdered.
(2) Women might become not just chattel but slaves and property as the wealthy attempt to ensure brides for their own sons. “Mail order brides” used to come from countries like South Korea, among others. Now they’re the ones paying for brides as numbers decline.
(3) Civil wars/violence and foreign invasions. Shortages of women could lead to rioting in male-centred cultures because men can’t get married. China has a shortage of women due to bias and the “one child policy” – in Nepal, mistreatment by the Chinese dictatorship has driven many Nepalese women to marry Chinese men, leaving Nepalese men without brides. It wouldn’t surprise me to see some countries returning to the methods of the Khans in centuries past, kidnapping women across borders and forcing them into marriage.
Sex-selective abortion is a symptom of a sick and primitive society…but aborting the fetus early is more merciful than killing a baby with a fully-developed nervous system.
And I see the anti-choicers are out in force in the comments again. Do they understand how hypocritical they sound? They want to control women’s fertility just as much as those who practice sex-selective abortion.
Sick society, perhaps, but not primitive. The cultures employing ultrasound and medical technology that enable sex-selective abortions are a lot of things, but they aren’t primitive. “Primitive” is a distancing word, that helps the speaker of the word downplay similarities in favor of differences. It’s safe, and helps protect you from seeing the place you live in as complicit in any way.
No matter where a woman lives, she’s makes some compromise that her male peers are not making. You may not live in a sex-selective abortion culture, but you are not free from some degree of the same misogyny that motivates women to have these abortions. (Yes, it is a spectrum, and yes, I know how different it is in my daily life from the life of another woman on another part of the spectrum, and that I do not have to make these particular decisions and compromises.)
Primitive is troublesome language, for a lot of reasons, but in this case it is also a form of us/them.
The only real solution is to isolate such society, as we did with South Africa during the apartheid era in an attempt to enact internal change.
Abort all the female fetuses you want China, India, etc, but bear in mind we are not obligated to trade with you, nor are we obligated to accept your surplus populations, provide any sort of aid, or educate your young people. We present them with a choice, change your ways, or remain isolated.
As for importing brides, human trafficking is a violation of international law, and can be combated by offering incentives, such as trade deals, to the countries where the brides originate.
It’s only a matter of time before those patriarchal failed world states implode under their own weight as those boys reach puberty and are unable to obtain mates, education and employment.
…and, once again, a post from Taslima telling women how we should behave, instead of advocating for the freedom to let us choose as we wish.
Are you serious?
Woman’s right to choose, remember? And sometimes that means the right to choose that you don’t want a girl.
Oh, sorry, didn’t think that’s the way it’d work out? Well, sorry, tough.
You know, when those of us who are, shall we say, less gung-ho than most for abortion, brought this up, we were howled down.
Well, we told you so. We really, really did.
Funny, when some people argued that the high preponderance of black abortions amounted to black genocide, the feminists spat and screamed. Despite the fact that planned parenthood starts out as a eugenics racket. When some of us thought it wasn’t cricket for rich firstworlders to buzz off to the third world to hustle people into abortion clinics, we were denounced.
Well, welcome to the oldest and most enduring truth: What you sow, you reap.
What the hell are you talking about?
Do you think this gendercide is something that didn’t exist before abortion was widely available?
It did. It just used to be infanticide.
The tragedy here is one of patriarchy, not abortion. Taslima is arguing that the women who abort their female children are making that decision (when it is their decision) in a context of extreme oppression of women. In other words: they are not truly making a free choice.
You and your little anti-choice friends are idiots.
Of course. That’s why there are those of us who are very squeamish about abortion. It belongs in the same tradition, and there are those of us who consider human life as sacred. Infanticide was once considered A-OK – and still is in many places. As abortion is now, by you.
You reap what you sow. In fact, it has been the pro-lifers who have been beating the drum on this issue for a long, long time, only to be ignored by people like you.
Oh, to forestall the inevitable howling: skip it. The pro-choice crowd have argued for years that killing the inhabitant of the womb is A-okay, because it’s not reaaaaally a human being. Well if it’s not really a human being, it’s not really a girl, now is it?
That’s the way it goes, boys and girls. Learn.
These are two separate issues. Even if one believes that there is no problem at all with abortion (at least at an early stage of pregnancy), selective abortion (in practice, aborting more female fetuses) will lead to a huge social problem. This is bad not because of aborted fetuses (assuming that one has nothing against this in general) but because of the result.
Although the reason for selective abortion is patriarchal, the result is that it is a huge disadvantage for heterosexual men. Of course, this problem is not the fault of men who were not aborted, but they are the ones who will suffer for it.
While it is a social problem and needs a social solution, this doesn’t mean that it is not meaningful to outlaw the practice or to better enforce laws against it which already exist.
What strikes me about this is the enforcers are often the mothers-in-law who were once at risk of being killed themselves as infants, who may have been compelled to murder their own babies. What emotional and intellectual processes did they go through such that they side with the enemy? Is there a positive process that could be brought in to play to subvert this?
I remember seeing a documentary years ago about the relationship between women of different generations in China and how abusive mothers-in-law tended to be with their daughters-in-law. But the younger generation of women featured in the documentary were trying to change that. One young woman had interceded on her mother-in-law’s behalf in an argument in which the father-in-law had not wanted the older woman to go to a local event. The mother-in-law was shocked by this. No one had ever taken her side. And slowly, ever so slowly, she came around and started sticking up for her daughter-in-law and they became not only supportive of each other, but close.
This is risky, to be sure. To anger the men in the family can be dangerous. And there are plenty of mothers-in-law and mothers who are personality disordered and who behave in cruel and controlling ways to those over whom they have power. That’s a sad fact of human life.
But if you are being forced to murder a newborn, you are already at risk and it might not help to keep your head down. I don’t know.
If only there was a way to get women to see how much more we gain by helping each other. Even here in the U.S.A., we are taught to see our lack of success as the result of personal failings, instead of any sexism. And when we are insecure, we are more likely to keep each other down than to give each other a leg up: ye olde crab bucket syndrome.
I think the mother-in-law vs daughter-in-law phenomenon is quite present in most cultures: The m-i-l is on her son’s side. It’s not on a “women vs men” but a “my family vs strangers” level. In an openly patriarchic society, furthering her son’s interests includes maintaining the oppression of his wife.
Interestingly, it is usually the evil stepmother in fairy tales, not the evil stepfather. The usual explanation is that women invest more in their children so a stepchild for a woman is a real waste of time, detracting from her children, while some men don’t even know how many children they have.
Most women who wear burqa say, ”it is my CHOICE”. Most women who were victims of sex trafficking and ended up in prostitution, learn to say, ‘it is my CHOICE’. Most women who live with their abuser husbands, say, ‘it is my CHOICE’. Most educated women who are not allowed to take a job and are forced to be dependent on their husbands,say, ”it is my CHOICE”. Most women who feed male members nutritional food and eat their leftovers everyday, say, ”it is my CHOICE”. Most women who practice anti-women traditions,cultures and customs and religions, say,”it is my CHOICE”. Most women who kill their female fetuses and female infants say, ”it is my CHOICE”.
We should have the ability to know which choices are real and which are not, which are made only because there are not too many options.
1) How do you actually decide whether that choice is real or not? By the number of alternatives that person had? Sure, that might be an indicator, but actually the thing she does when there were only two alternatives is the thing she would have chosen among a hundred alternatives.
Or do you make that call depending on whether you disagree with her choice?
To have that ability certainly sounds magical to me, because it seems like whatever she says is pretty irrelevant. And that seems to me is nothing else but to deprive them of their agency once again.
2) The way out must be to give women more choices, better choices, not to limit those they currently have because you disagree with them, especially not when they concern their bodily autonomy. More people telling them what they can/can’t do certainly isn’t going to help them on their way to become free and equal. A benevolent dictator is still a dictator. And I think it especially problematic since it puts the onus and pressure on the women again. No men will suffer from a ban on abortion, no man suffers from banning the burqa.
I ask you again, how do you think that the situation of women will improve if they are forced to carry the pregnancies to term against their will?
Yes. Give women more choices, better choices. It sounds good, but it’s rather vague.
I definitely think interrogating how much agency women have and trying to work out how much of that agency is percieved and how much is actual is a first step. I don’t think it takes “magical” ability to figure out that if women in a population face consequences for action x and rewards for action y and then disproportionately choose y, then the playing field is not truly even. Of course, you can talk about populations and yet it becomes much more difficult to apply that to individuals.
And yet, many scientists and philosophers have been working on this problem and they don’t seem to consider it magic either.
Women are not the decision makers in a patriarchal society, it is the male members of the family who make the decisions to abort female fetuses, but not male fetuses. If women protest against patriarchal tradition of son preference or son obsession and let their female babies born, there will be no skewed sex ratio (Good for women’s heterosexual sons. Also necessary for the survival of the human species). Changes would come through women’s education and empowerment including the right to property. Girls get free education. Parents’ property is equally shared by brothers and sisters under Hindu law. There are laws to protect women from sexual abuse and domestic violence. But hatred against women is widespread. If we support elimination of females,there will be no one to challenge anti-women mindset of people. Hatred is contagious.
Well, in the first instance, I notice you step completely around the point of who has been sounding the alarm about this for years. In short, I notice you avoid anything to do with the subject of responsibility.
I’m not opposed to all abortions, but I do think that two months in is the last point when it should be okay, and I could give all the embryological and neurological reasons why I think that, post-two months in, it’s a person and may not be killed. But I know that pointing this out will make no difference whatsoever to the pro-abortion crowd (and that’s what I’m dealing with here; there are genuine pro-choicers who regard abortion as the lesser of two evils, to be avoided if at all possible. And then there are those that make a fetish of it.)
Wait – female babies? So you admit now that the unborn are babies, right? That’s a worthwhile concession.
I’ve written and worked a long time for women’s emancipation, so we are certainly on the same page here. I’d just like you to assume a little bit of responsibility here. I’d like you to remember who has been sounding this alarm, and who’s made all this possible.
I’d also be very careful if I were you. Pro-abortion types like gilly are very unforgiving of those who stray off the reservation.
And thirdly,
Please, please quit pretending that it’s just mean ol’ men who engage in sex-selective abortion and similar. This has a long history of support by women, also. Patriarchal – to use your term – injustices have been supported by women almost as much by men, historically. It’s the reason there are women protesting demanding that the law that has a raped woman stoned to death in Pakistan, be maintained.
Right. And most FGM is performed by women.
Bother to read. Bother to bloody learn something
http://www.emirates247.com/news/world/mum-kills-16-year-old-daughter-over-fake-affair-2012-02-14-1.443071
Your rights end where the rights of other human beings begin, even if that other human being is growing inside you.
A group of cells that is not viable on it’s own is not a person and does not have rights. When the fetus is viable and can survive outside and apart from the mother’s body, then we have two people and can talk about conflicting rights.
I suppose with your choice of name, I can assume you haven’t actually experienced pregnancy, and have no idea what you are talking about? Pregnancies are a complete upheaval for the woman’s body and for her entire life, being pregnant can kill you. That’s right, the embryo or fetus can actually kill the mother, even when she does everything just right. So, perhaps this idea of an idealized symbiotic bond between mother and child is not accurate? Perhaps we could look with open eyes at the reality that pregnancy is not some dreamy fantasy, it has real consequences for the woman who is pregnant and she should be the one to make any and all choices about the pregnancy.
I think that it is right on the money to say that the problem with sex selective abortions is not that abortion or sex selection is possible, it is the society and culture that leads to making the choices that must be changed. We cannot simply force women to have children that are unwanted and think that this solves anything. Instead it would lead to violence against those women and the girls that would be born, and I for one cannot live with the thought that my dogmas are directly causing harm to others.
So how can we influence societies and cultures to change the value or lack of value they attach to women? It seems to me that this is the real question, and I would love to hear if anyone has ideas about how someone far from India or China might contribute in a meaningful way to that kind of change?
Another interesting angle. Thanks, Taslima.
I’m pro-choice, which in most cases where I am means being pro-abortion. But I guess I also have to keep in mind that the position is one of *choice*, so I must also defend women who want to choose to keep a pregnancy, but might have their choice overriden (for instance, maybe a Tibetan mother forced to have an abortion by the Chinese government).
And now, after reading this, I realise that we also have to think about the environment that women are making their choices in. In a healthy society, women might still have to choose to have abortions for whatever reason, but if people are aborting female babies more than males, that’s a sign that something very unhealthy is amiss. And of course the female infantacide, trafficked brides, etc all add to the picture of an unhealthy culture.
Of course it does. It’s just nice to see the feminists finally noticing this.
Thanks. I do not like to call anti-choice people pro-life. Because we pro-choice people are not pro-death or anti-life. We value life much more than those anti-choice people. We should not use this positive term for those who do not believe in individual freedom.
I am waiting for the day when women will control their own bodies and reproduction. “The fact is that women have been trapped. Reproduction is used, consciously or not, as a means to control women, to limit their options and to make them subordinate to men. In many societies a serious approach to reproductive health has to have this perspective in mind. We must seek to liberate women.” Without reproductive health and freedom, women cannot fully exercise their fundamental human rights.
Women all over the world should enjoy the equal rights and freedoms they deserve. We fight against inequalities and injustices to make the world a better place.
Yeah, I read a story a few days ago about wikipedia’s debate over the terminology:
http://jezebel.com/5904296/wikipedia-invites-users-to-debate-whether-pro+life-is-really-a-thing
And living in a country where abortion is currently illegal, I think I need to get out of the habit of calling people “pro life” and start refering to them as “anti choice.” Because there have been some serious cases here where the mother’s life or health was endangered or the foetus was brain dead and the mother had to leave the country for an abortion.
Oooooh! I have a better idea. Why don’t we replace “pro-choice” with “pro-abortion”? Sound a fair trade?
A better term for anti-choicers would be anti-woman. They’d rather see women and unwanted babies starve in poverty, or see women give birth to still-born babies and die from disease.
As for your other lie, the anti-abortion/anti-choice people are not “pro life”. If they were, they’d be against the state murdering its prisoners, the misnamed “death penalty”.
Oh, I have an even better idea! From now on, instead of saying “pro life,” I’m just going to say “asshole.”
Sorry, wrong sweety. I’m pro-life (well, largely anyway) and I oppose the death penalty. There are many people who think like me. And I’m not anti-woman. I mean, I’m anti-you, but I really don’t know what you are.
Though I wonder what sort of a twisted mind you have to have to support killing unborn children but not convicted murderers.
No. Because the pro-choice position also advocates for the ability to CHOOSE not to have an abortion. We oppose forced or coerced abortions. For example, it always astounds me that a chunk of pro-lifers oppose welfare and universal healthcare for pregnant women & mothers, because I am very much aware that lack of money for things like food, housing, and so forth, combined with a lack of health care, often results in women having abortions they don’t want. Thus, I support policies that allow women to freely CHOOSE.
And pro-lifers want to preserve human life. Hence “pro-life”
And you can skip the rest of your “guilt by association” smears. I’ve met plenty of feminist pro-lifers and left-wing pro-lifers. Get. Real.
Pro-lifers want to preserve life? No. They want to preserve SOME life SOME of the time. A prime example is the Catholic Church, which is “pro-life” but bans abortion even when both the woman and the fetus will die without an abortion. People who hold these kinds of views are not some strange fringe group; they are an influential and significant part of the “pro-life” movement. And if a chunk of your movement isn’t moved to save the life of a woman whose pregnancy is killing her, then “pro-life” doesn’t work. Maybe “pro-will of God as I interpret it” but not pro-life
And you’re pro-abortion. You want abortions to go on. So, we could just as easily call you anti-life, or anti-choice (if it can be shown, as I think it can at certain stages, that the foetus qualifies as a human life, then we are talking a whacking great “forcing a decision on someone else” line).
I’ve written and argued extensively with the religious nutcases who make this argument far more difficult than it needs to be, and I’ll be the first to admit that there are troublesome types and difficult issues. I know it’s more satisfying to impute motives to others, but it’s also tiresome.
I agree with Giliell that sex selective abortion is the symptom of a great problem: the fact that women are not respected or valued. Simply outlawing sex selective abortion will not stop sex selective abortion (despite what anyone, including pro-lifers in this thread, might have us believe) because sex selective abortion is illegal in places like India and it has not stopped it, and it certainly won’t stop sex selective infanticide because (once again) it hasn’t stopped it.
Because I rather like analogies, it’s like if a person broke a woman’s arm and then she declared, “I can’t move my arm.” Grabbing her arm and pumping it up and down to force her to move it is not constructive. You must heal her broken arm, and prevent someone from breaking it again.
If we don’t want a male skewed sex ratio, if we don’t want women feeling like they need to abort female fetuses, we need to deal with the actual problem.
Good luck with that. You see, the non-abortion societies have the demographic wind behind them. By embracing abortion as a sacrement, the feminists may well have ensured feminism’s extinction:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2006/02/17/the_return_of_patriarchy
First, the article you just linked to mentions abortion once in a four page article. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to support your cause.
Second, I’m 27. I have no children. Want to guess how many abortions I’ve had? Zero. How many times have I used birth control? Zero. Hmm, so what could be the cause of my childlessness? Could it be that I’m infertile? No, not to my knowledge. Or could it be . . . that I’ve never had sex?! Yes, I admit, it’s the last one. Acting like abortion is somehow the reason women aren’t having babies is silly; I haven’t had babies because I’ve so far chosen to follow the pro-life approved abstinence plan. Women choose not to have babies for lots of reason and achieve this through all kinds of methods (as is mentioned in your article). It’s more complicated than your side wants to admit.
Yes, there are many reasons for this. But it’s impossible to argue that the pro-choice crowd doesn’t have a massive demographic deficit, and that the institutionalisation of abortion doesn’t go hand in hand with the rest. I don’t like the the implications of that article at all, but you should like it even less. When push really does come to shove, I wouldn’t give a busted teacup for your chances if you’re relying of people like gilly to hold the line.
As I pointed out, by making a fetish of abortion, the feminists have given a huge power-up to genuinely patriarchal societies.
Are you saying that the ‘actual problem’ should be solved first and then women should start giving birth to female babies, not before that? Patriarchy is an actual problem. If you want to wait until patriarchy dies out, you would most likely end up having no woman in the country. There would be nobody who could give birth to female babies.
I don’t think anyone proposes to wait until the world is perfect and there is no trace of patriarchy or female suffering left. But right now those girls are being born into a life of misery. Basically, you expect those women to act for “the greater good”. For their daughters to live lives you know are going to be miserable for “the greater good”.
I’m saying that I don’t see an alternative. As you yourself have indicated, sex-selective abortion is generally illegal in places that it is a problem (like in India) and it continues to happen at a staggering rate anyway. This current rate that you say will lead to there being no women (which I think is unlikely; I think we’ll just end up with female deficit cultures doing things like stealing women from other cultures with women, or having the dowry reversed) is currently happening right now under the “sex selective abortion is illegal” policy. And in places where revealing or determine the sex of the fetus isn’t allowed, you end up with a) people doing it anyway b) female infanticide, which is also illegal. I don’t know how else to say it other than making it illegal won’t work because it’s already illegal and it isn’t working.
If you want to stop this (and I support such a goal), simply making it illegal isn’t a viable method, and we know this through experience. You’ve mentioned some other strategies that I agree with (strategies that will make females more valuable in a country, etc), but prohibition of sex selective abortion, while understandable, doesn’t work even if we go by your statements alone.
Yes. It’s very difficult to prove that someone had an abortion for sex-selective reasons. So, if you want abortion-on-demand to go on, this is what you will have to accept, with all of the demographic thunder it will bring with it.
To gilly,
The question is what type of people there’ll be around. The ultimate effect of abortion will be to render people like you extinct. But there’s also downsides.
You know what? Giliell may be willing to talk to you after you continue to call her “gilly” even though she’s indicated that she doesn’t want you to, after you’re gone to go so far as to stress via bolding your disregard for her simple choice of her own name, but I’m not.
I’m tired. I’m busy. I’m stressed out. If that’s the kind of stuff you’re going to pull, I don’t have the time or the energy to deal with someone who is interested in that kind of interaction.
My response, Erista, is that a while back I got into a debate about this subject here, and I did everything in my power to be reasonable. I cited facts, data, and tried to see it from her point of view. Gilly, predictably, went off the hysterical deep end, behaved in the most most rude and insulting manner. I’m never going to bother treating her as a rational being again.
Curious that you use this to skip over answering any actual arguments or points. Well, please by all means skip out – I know this hard mental work’s a bit above you.
Whereas baby boys would be produced how? Male parthenogenesis?
Or to male babies either.
And that matters exactly how?
It’s not like there’s an actual shortage of people on this planet.
And no, nobody suggests that people wait until the world is perfect. But most pro-choice people would think that a woman who knows that her child will have a miserable life full of violence and abuse and therefore does not want to carry that child to term makes a reasonable decision.
You insist that it’s never the woman who makes the decision (if she makes it, it’s obviously he false consciousness) and that therefore somebody else must “protect her”.
Well, I agree with everything you say about empowering women. And that’s what we should do instead of fighting about their uteri. Using them and their reproductive systems again to “fix” the birth sex rates in a country isn’t any better than using them to upset it.
Let’s support women who actually don’t want to abort their female fetuses and who are forced into doing so.
I love the fact that, in their unguarded moments, the pro-choicers admit that the unborn is, in fact, a child.
Yes, cupcake, if and when it’s carried to term it’s a child.
That seems very hard for you to grasp.
But I notice that you seem quite obsessed with my.
I must really have pissed you off.
Good.
A group of cells that is not viable on it’s own is not a person and does not have rights.
A *Jew* that is not *possessed of a soul* is not a person and does not have rights.
Sure, whatever you say, Hitler
*rolls eyes*
Idiot.
Okay, I admit the Hitler thing was a bad argument, but it was the first thing that popped into my head when I heard the whole “X doesn’t count as a person and has no rights” screed. So let’s move on to another one: The whole “you’re not a woman so what you have to say doesn’t count, neener neener neener” crap.
This is one of the worst pro-choice arguments ever. Exactly what are you trying to say with this?
Are you implying that no women can ever be pro-life? That’s obviously not true because so many are.
Are you implying that if I was QueenUber, you’d agree with me? Again, that’s obviously false, as you have made the same arguments and dismissed the same logic used by female pro-lifers.
So if my gender has no bearing on what I would say, or how you would respond to me, then what is the point of this argument?
A: There is none. It’s just a childish attempt to shut down debate.
As for the whole “fetus doesn’t count as a human” bullshit, I have to ask you where do you draw the line? Why is it wrong to kill a baby a day after it leaves the womb but not a day before?
If it is wrong to kill it a day before birth, what about 2 days? A week? A month? Where is the cutoff? And if you give an answer make sure to have good reasoning to support it.
The angel of Rebuke wrote to the country of India:
all females are blessings from God, not just males. God created Male and Female altogether not separated. I am rebuking the people there in India to stop killing newborn girls. I am the rebuking angel and I want male and female united in one big family. God loves his children, he does not want abortions. Girl infants will stay in the country of India, if the girl is killed, I will sternly rebuke the person who killed her. Abortion is wrong, I don`t want babies being aborted every year or in every month. Stop the killing of newborn girls or otherwise, the country of India will suffer the Wrath of God in fierce anger. Remember to treat the with respect.
The angel of Rebuke wrote to the country of India:
all females are blessings from God, not just males. God created Male and Female altogether not separated. I am rebuking the people there in India to stop killing newborn girls. I am the rebuking angel and I want male and female united in one big family. God loves his children, he does not want abortions. Girl infants will stay in the country of India, if the girl is killed, I will sternly rebuke the person who killed her. Abortion is wrong, I don`t want babies being aborted every year or in every month. Stop the killing of newborn girls or otherwise, the country of India will suffer the Wrath of God in fierce anger. Remember to treat the girls with respect.
TASLIMA NASHREEN ..
DONT TALK ABT VEDIC PERIOD WITH UR HALF KNWLEDEGE OF VEDAS..
OK..
Allegation of Hinduism hater:
Vedas’ prescribe a special ritual called ‘Punsawan sanskar’ (a ceremony performed during third month of pregnancy). During the ceremony it is prayed: ”Almighty God, you have created this womb. Women may be born somewhere else but sons should be born from this womb” – Atharva Ved 6/11/3
TRUTH :
1. Punsawan Sanskar is recommended for aspirants of both sons and daughters. So there is no male bias here.
2. The mantra meaning has been distorted to suit the agenda. The mantra has a deep meaning. But simply put it means that: “By Grace of Ishwar, woman is able to have a womb and nurture the child therein. May the woman have a son if she desires and planned so ELSE she may have a girl.”
Thus the mantra simply implies that if couple has planned for a boy, may boy be born else girl be born. What translators have done is to translate ‘Anyatra’ as ‘Elsewhere’ instead of ‘In other condition or else’.
3. The Vedic methods of procreation suggest ways of deciding either a boy or a girl. But regardless of the case, Punsawan Sanskar is practiced by all Veda followers. Hence there is no gender bias here.
The western world(Christian world) needs nothing from the rest of the world. “Our” money and “our” culture is responsible for the economic growth of asia. Free trade is a sham and the western(Christian) world only stands to lose ….nothing to gain. The only people who will gain from this one world economy will be the people who own transoceanic freighters and the people who sell the oil to fuel them. Let the emerging markets improve the lives of their own citizens,by manufacturing for “their own citizens”. When a wealthy country buys food from a poor country it makes food in the poor country more expensive.As a matter of fact,buying anything from a poor country makes it more difficult for their people to buy the same product. The environmental impact is another subject i will not go into here. China is stealing peasant land from it’s people while their children are in the city working to fuel their economic growth, to sell to the west( Christians). When these Chinese people can’t afford to buy property in the city, they then have no family land to go home to. STOP TRADING WITH THESE PEOPLE THAT ABUSE 1/2 OF THEIR POPULATION. NO TRADE UNLESS THEY TEACH THE EQUALITY OF MEN AND WOMEN IN EVERY SCHOOL GRADE. THE WEST(CHRISTIAN WORLD) IS BEING DESTROYED BY CULTURES THAT BORDER ON CRIMINALITY,BY “OUR'” STANDARDS. And before any idiots bring up the Afghan and Iraq wars as evidence of USA criminality….WE FOUGHT WARS AGAINST 2 WELL KNOW TERRORIST STATES, WMD or not. The world needs women,women are beautiful and should be loved as much as men. Less manufacturing in these countries also means less pollution. While a percentage have seen an increase in the standard of living in these countries, the poor are worse off,because everything cost more. WAKE UP WESTERNERS(CHRISTIANS) do you need to do anything but open your eyes and see what is happening in the west? I was in the poorest country in Europe last year, Bulgaria, and store shelves were filled with merchandise “made in China”. This country does not have the money to send to other countries.Bulgaria would prosper with trade to the rest of Europe if the Chinese manufactured goods were not allowed in Europe, based on human rights and environmental policy. The subject of women’s treatment in India is definitely related to this “one world economy” garbage, so if you want to accuse me of being “off topic”. I submit to you, I AM NOT!!!!!! It is all interrelated, if your brain is “big enough” to grasp a larger concept. And i do not read “The Bible” and i do not attend church, but i am adult enough to see things ” as they are “. My 2 cents , and in this “politically correct” world i’m sure plenty of people will hate me for even saying the west is the “Christian”, but sorry, IT IS. BYE BYE
Female gendercide
“Shakti” the empowered female in Hinduism and its scientific relevance.
Reasearch paper to be presented at the RCOG World Congress 2013, Liverpool, UK, 24-26 June 2013.
One of the main reasons for female gendercide is the concept of exclusive paternal lineage that is why people want to have sons. There is no scientific/genetic evidence in favour of exclusive paternal lineage. The contribution from the nuclear DNA comes equally from both the father and mother (50% each). This is 25% from the paternal grandfather (and maternal grandfather as well). If we trace back by 7 generations this contribution would be about only 0.78% from the paternal ancestor (and maternal ancestor). Given the fact that 99% of the human genome is similar to that of the chimpanzees (only 1% difference in the genome but so much of difference as a creature), the possible similarity with an ancestor 7 generations ago with only 0.78% of nuclear DNA contribution is self-explanatory. Therefore, the issue of female gendercide based on the concept of exclusive paternal lineage does not have any scientic basis. This is true in relation to maternal lineage as well. But male gendercide is not an issue!…
To read the full article see
http://themedideas.com/science/biology/female-gendercide-shakti-the-empowered-female-in-hinduism-and-its-scientific-relevance/
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The abortion, murder or abandonment of baby girls has absolutely nothing to with what you claim it does. In China, where births are limited to one child per family (strictly enforced in urban and many rural areas), a boy is legally bound to care for his parents after they become to old to work. Parents can sue a son if he does not provide this care.
A girl is not legally bound to care for her parents and, when she gets married, will actually be bound to her husband’s parents. Since there is not a social safety net and very few pensions, parents see boys as their retirement accounts. Without a boy, they have to be more concerned about how they will survive in old age.
So – what actually causes this ‘genocide?’ Making men legally responsible for the care of their families in an environment where men and women have equal access to education and jobs. As many women in China work as men, but only men are held responsible for the financial care of their families. The result is, families kill the girls.
Extend the law to include women so that they are financially responsible for their parents and the deaths will stop tomorrow.
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I read with horror the recent rape and hanging of the two young girls and before that last year I believe it was the gang rape and death of the young woman on a bus also in India. I personally think this situation in some countries where they prefer males is not always to do entirely with gender issues which sex is better than another. Until these societies also address that females are just as important as males this will continue to go on. When you have a male dominated society in countries like India where some men think they can abuse women sexually and treat them in a cavalier way this will not change. To my mind in some respects has humanity really moved on from it’s primeval past. I think that where these terrible situations take place the government and the police should do more to arrest the abusers and give them long prison sentences. These issues must be started at grass roots level and people in these countries must be educated to treat people with respect be they male or female worldwide.
Sex selective abortion is a direct result of patriarchy, patrilocality, and patrilineality. I talked to many people.Why do they do not prefer girl child???Answer: Not just dowry, but it is also because of our faulty social mindset towards marriage and family..One,people say that, if a girl is born , one day she will be married ‘away’. and the problem actually lies with this word ‘away’. People need to understand that marriage is not female donation,but a holy ceremony of unification of 2 families, by legally and socially pairing up a girl and a boy from the 2 respective non- blood related family groups.So , in such a case there should be no question of Marrying ones daughter away.Two, the criteria is that, it is always the the girl who is to be transferred during the ceremony, (You always have to marry ‘away’ your daughter never your sons, so sons get to stay with there parents to look after them in their old age, hence highly preferred) so people without sons are left empty handed at the last, and investment spent on the girls go into the hands of the families with male children…I think, exactly this criteria needs to be replaced with ‘one of the siblings will go in a marriage and the other will stay and get to bring in a son or daughter-in-law during a marriage, no matter what the gender is’ for families with two children and ‘ 2 families unify and parents of the bride and the groom stay together and equally share the benefits from the newly married couple’. This will drastically solve every gender preference related issue in our society…Need of the our End of the masculine ego…
Sex selective abortion is a direct result of patriarchy, patrilocality, and patrilineality. I talked to many people.Why do they do not prefer girl child???Answer: Not just dowry, but it is also because of our faulty social mindset towards marriage and family..One,people say that, if a girl is born , one day she will be married ‘away’. and the problem actually lies with this word ‘away’. People need to understand that marriage is not female donation,but a holy ceremony of unification of 2 families, by legally and socially pairing up a girl and a boy from the 2 respective non- blood related family groups.So , in such a case there should be no question of Marrying ones daughter away.Two, the criteria is that, it is always the the girl who is to be transferred during the ceremony, (You always have to marry ‘away’ your daughter never your sons, so sons get to stay with there parents to look after them in their old age, hence highly preferred) so people without sons are left empty handed at the last, and investment spent on the girls go into the hands of the families with male children…I think, exactly this criteria needs to be replaced with ‘one of the siblings will go in a marriage and the other will stay and get to bring in a son or daughter-in-law during a marriage, no matter what the gender is’ for families with two children and ‘ 2 families unify and parents of the bride and the groom stay together and equally share the benefits from the newly married couple’ for families with single child. This will drastically solve every gender preference related issue in our society…Need of the our End of the masculine ego…
ma,am reading through the lines of your essay i was almost in tears, it is unbelievable how people so cruelly kill an infant.
In that kind of Country,
all girls should leave that Country
When no girls remain
>then all Men will F*#k off each other.
>and no more next generation of F*#k*ng S#!Ts……
I am a male . But my look was girlish . My
breasts are bulgy. I want them to be perfectly
shaped as female breasts. my lips are thin .I have
mixed feeling about my body being straight ,
strong desire to be submissive/petticoated hubby
( without compromising loyalty from either side :
from me and my would-be-wife) ,practising cross
dressing , first be father of some kids then
become T-woman for a nice hubby , marrying a
nice T-girl. I don’t fantasize . But I am living in a
confused state of mind.
I want to pursue my journey as I want to marry a
self-
reliant , independent she male with or without
SRS. and allow me to relocate at her place. she
should be virgin , passive , caring and loving like
a babe, beautiful with natural long hair and girly
attitude , style , voice and manner. She should be
bold and assertive. free from alcohol etc.
write me queenbeauti@gmail.com
plz help.
I have one question. I just would like to know that who is more responsible of killing girl child in the womb?.. Male or female..? I am not talking about social facts…
ANNNIE BESANT, SAROJINI NAIDU, KIRAN BEDI, LAXMI LAKRA, KALPANA CHAWLA ,SUNITA WILLIAMS and many more was girls but now they had became our proud and inspiration.girls plays the role of wife, sister, mother,daughter etc.then why do we kill girls we need a wife, a sister then why don’t we want a daughter.NEVER KILL TO GIRLS,WHO KNOWS THAT WHAT THEY WILL BE?
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help me in falling pregnant,me and my husband have been trying to have a
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when a friend of mine who have the same problem with me, fall pregnant
after she contacted the man of God . prophet jeremaih.she directed me to him and when i contacted
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Such a heart touching post. I am totally agreed with you. Before a mother, sister, daughter and wife a women is a girl. I have found one more best article.
http://www.mycity4kids.com/parenting/working-mommy-and-little-angel-experiences-thoughts-suggestions/article/she-was-killed-she-never-knew-why-and-other-short-stories
One of the most idiotic things about women being “punished” for having girls is that it’s actually the MAN’S fault! It’s HIS sperm with the X or Y chromosome that determines the sex. The ova will always only have the X chromosome. It’s amazing that hasn’t clicked for some.
Valuable info. Lucky me I found your web site accidentally, and I am stunned why this coincidence
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