A Woman's Right to Choose...

Would you object to not allowing a woman to know what the sex is of her fetus if she is planning on having an abortion?

Fetal testing and gender identification were illegal where I lived in the UAE - primarily because the practices led to abortion
(naturally performed outside the country ---- usually in Europe).

I'm not ready to go there, though.

I would support a physician who refused to perform abortions triggered by pre-natal testing, and would support a physician who refused to provide pre-natal testing on the grounds that it might trigger an abortion. In fact, were I to manage or own a hospital or clinic, I'd want my physicians to adhere to a code of conduct that would preclude these actions. (the Catholic Church does that).

I would NOT, however, want to go so far as to legislate these practices.

We're talking about ethical issues --- not legal issues. It's an area that simply cannot be addressed with legislation.

I don't see this as a rights issue, because our rights can already be limited by law.

The classic example is that we have freedom of speech, but you can't yell "FIRE!" in a theater. We also have the right to bear arms, but laws limit just what kind of arms you can legally bear.

Aborting a fetus based on its sex is something that is despicable and should be illegal, IMO, but I don't see how you could enforce it unless the person doing it was an idiot and bragged about it.

Women who have an abortion are murderers of the worst sort.

Arlen wrote: Women who have an abortion are murderers of the worst sort.

In your not so humble opinion, not in the eyes of the law. You are surely entitled to your opinion, as am I.

Arlen wrote: Women who have an abortion are murderers of the worst sort.

:Snooze

Arlen wrote: Women who have an abortion are murderers of the worst sort.

No, they're not.

The limits on the exercising of one's own rights have always been when that action infringes on the rights of someone else. Take yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater as an example, or the laws that provide for punishing one who uses their freedom of speech to slander or verbally defame someone else. The reason that your right to free speech does not allow you to do these things is that action infringes on the rights of others when you do them. That is the consistent limit that our laws place on the exercising of one's individual rights - you are not allowed to infringe the rights of others in the process of exercising your own.

That is my objection to abortion - pure and simple. By exercising your right to choose you are infringing upon the most basic of human rights of the human life that is alive and living in the womb - it's right to life. Dress it up any which way you wish, proclaim that the law allows it and protects your right to choose to your heart's desire, it doesn't change anything. Abortion denies to the human life in the womb the most basic of all human rights and it is for that reason alone that it should not be allowed outside of a very few circumstances - one of which is to defend your own life if the pregnancy puts that at risk. No one can say that the fetus in the womb isn't human and isn't living, it is therefore human life that is living in the womb. Abortion denies to that living human life it's most basic and fundamental right - it's right to life.

Science Chic wrote: In the grand scheme of things, assuming if every time an abortion was performed that it was for gender selection, the results would come out in the wash - because about half the couples would want a girl and half the couples would want a boy. Even in China and India where boys are favored for economic reasons (which isn't the case in many cultures), the demographics haven't gotten that skewed, and they've been trying for what, 30 years?

Choosing to have an abortion in order to avoid a genetic disease, or even a supposed "social" trait, isn't going to breed that gene out of the population or get rid of that disease or social trait, unless it is done on a conscious, forced-on-everyone-who-comes-up-positive-whether-they-wanted-an-abortion-or-not-type-of-program, so again it doesn't matter.

What it comes down to is we need better education of the general public - that abortion is never going to be the answer to "getting rid of a problem" (either genetic, gender, or cultural trait), and that abortions aren't necessary to avoid the social or economic hardship of having a child too young or out-of-wedlock.

That's all fine and dandy SC, but how do you feel about having an abortion based on what sex the baby is? Do you think there is any moral consideration there? Why does a woman need to know the sex if she's planning on killing it?

This is just another right wing faux outrage extending the Republican's war on women. Sex can not be determined until the 20th week. According to the CDC, less than 1.5% of pregnancy terminations occur after that time. So even if pregnancy termination was based on sex determination, it would have little effect. Even so, there is simply no evidence of gender based pregnancy termination. The O'Keefe/Breitbart video cited by the OP has no evidentary weight that gender based pregnancy termination occurs. In fact, the actual evidence shows just the opposite. Since 1983, according to the CDC, the rate of boys being born has actually decreased.


Yet another "outrage" with no facts behind it.