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 Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 5:41 pm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070504/hl_afp/britainabortionrights;_ylt=AjqJ8_Z1ZMskVUm3fIKu8uLVJRIFQuote: LONDON (AFP) - Right-to-life campaigners warned of a surge in abortions following the release this week of a new DNA testing kit which determines the sex of a baby six weeks into pregnancy, a report said Friday. The Early Gender Test, which went on sale on the Internet to non-US customers this week, checks blood from the mother for Y-chromosomes, the presence of which indicates a boy. Michaela Aston, spokeswoman for the right-to-life charity LIFE, told The Sun newspaper: "This test is very dangerous. It could lead to babies being aborted simply for being the 'wrong' sex." "There is a real risk that some people would choose to abort babies of a certain gender," added Julia Millington of the anti-abortion Prolife Alliance political party. The sex of a foetus can be determined by ultra-sound imagery but it is not very accurate before four to six months and hospitals in Britain generally do not offer to identify a baby's sex to prospective partents. The test, made by DNA Worldwide, costs 190 pounds (375 dollars, 280 euros), with an express version available for 240 pounds (475 dollars, 350 euros) allowing the result to be known within four working days. The test works because foetal DNA is present in an expectant mother's blood only weeks into the pregnancy. DNA Worldwide's website includes testimonials from US women who have already used the kit. "It was strange at first to see the confirmation only written and not see the baby with my own eyes on the ultrasound, but I got adjusted to the idea pretty fast," reads one, from a woman named Loreta.
I know I believe that the lifers should butt out of this, because it's the woman's right to know and all but eh
Will it cause a rise in abortions? I don't think so.
If someone really wants a baby - then they'll have it regardless of it's sex. Then again there are women out there who would abort
a fetus depending on it's gender.
The only good thing I can think of right now, is that if a mother knows what the sex of the child is, she can then make a decision about keeping the fetus or not, if she or the fetuses's sire ,has a sex related genetic problem that would effect her health or the future child's health / life.
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Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 7:01 pm
1. Abortiong a fetus just because of its sex is sexist bullshit.
2. It's still their choice.
3. Do you REALLY want to force somebody to have a child who they beleive is inferior just because of its genitals?
4. This isn't about fighting sexism for the people protesting it, it's about furthering it. They need to back the ******** off.
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Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 7:16 pm
Sure, I'd abort a fetus once I found out it was a female, just because it was female. If I could turn back the clock on life and abort myself, I would as well.
In my mind, the only thing sexist about it is how the female gets treated by society. It's my personal experiences that my life would have been dramatically better if I was a male instead of a female. Since I know how much it sucks, I could not let another human being come out of me with that status. Especially in a world where misogynistic, a*****e male pro-lifers rule with their laws against women's rights.
I will laugh if humanity overloads itself with so much boys by aborting female fetuses, though. I hope that if something like that occurs, that humanity will really learn the true inherent value of a female, when a buncha horny 20-year old males scramble to get hooked up with the fewer female population down the road.
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Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 7:31 pm
Charming.
That's like saying "Let's make abortion illegal just to show them how bad it'd be!"
You can't fight sexism by making it worse.
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Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 7:36 pm
Heres an intresting fact that I remember and was spurred by your post Grip, razz
Boys naturally out number girls 5 to 1.
Some speculate that this is because males have a higher infant mortality rate, teenage boys have a higher rate of 'completeing' suicide, and older men have a higher rate of suicide then women.
Men biologically also live shorter lives.
BUT - for some reason that 5 to 1 ratio is falling, whether due to diease such as cancer, genetic mutation ( y chromosome shrinking) or just an adaptation to mother nature - females, slowly but surely, will out number males in the future.
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Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 12:25 am
Trite~Elegy Heres an intresting fact that I remember and was spurred by your post Grip, razz
Boys naturally out number girls 5 to 1.
Some speculate that this is because males have a higher infant mortality rate, teenage boys have a higher rate of 'completeing' suicide, and older men have a higher rate of suicide then women.
Men biologically also live shorter lives.
BUT - for some reason that 5 to 1 ratio is falling, whether due to diease such as cancer, genetic mutation ( y chromosome shrinking) or just an adaptation to mother nature - females, slowly but surely, will out number males in the future. Yup. Hopefully by then we will have evolved to reproduce asexually.
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Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 8:39 am
I thought women outnumber men already because of all the reasons trite lists. Also the evilness of the male fetus (someone showed us that article it was about how male fetuses harm the woman more than the female ones because the female ones will have to go through the same thing sometime in the future). Anyone have a link to some statistics? whee
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Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 9:29 am
Grip of Death Sure, I'd abort a fetus once I found out it was a female, just because it was female. If I could turn back the clock on life and abort myself, I would as well. In my mind, the only thing sexist about it is how the female gets treated by society. It's my personal experiences that my life would have been dramatically better if I was a male instead of a female. Since I know how much it sucks, I could not let another human being come out of me with that status. Especially in a world where misogynistic, a*****e male pro-lifers rule with their laws against women's rights. I will laugh if humanity overloads itself with so much boys by aborting female fetuses, though. I hope that if something like that occurs, that humanity will really learn the true inherent value of a female, when a buncha horny 20-year old males scramble to get hooked up with the fewer female population down the road.Take a look at China. "An official estimate says that, by 2020, there may be 30 million men of marriageable age who will not be able to find a wife." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6346931.stm
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Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 12:23 pm
If I don't want to have sex with any man who is black, that's my choice.
If I don't want to have sex with someone just because they're short, that's my choice.
If I don't want to have sex with someone who's tall, that's my choice.
None of them are entitled to my v****a even though my prejudices and biases about who I will sleep with are assinine.
In the same way no fetus has a right to use my uterus no matter how absurd my reasons for not wanting it there are. The fact I do not want it there makes it the equivalent of rape... just like any one of the above men using my v****a becomes rape even if I only don't want them using it because of some superficial stupid reason.
I support abortion for any reason. It's not anyone's right or privilege for any reason to claim another woman's body, be it a fetus that's male/female or a man that's black/asian/tall/short/whatever.
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Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 3:06 pm
Send the chinese men to other corners of the world- there's plenty of women outside of china, who'll be happy to have some exotic men for company wink The ratios are against women's favor over time because while it's 50/50 boy and girl when we're collectively born, the men die out sooner. There's slightly more females to males when we've hit our 20's as it is.
My worry is that when there is a female shortage, society will still collectively not value women intrinsically, but will condone men wanting to rape and pillage women and taking away more of their rights in the "greater" interest of breeding for the next generation.
It's not fun to hear of females being aborted just because of femaleness, but if a personal choice freely made is what it takes to force society to value females more, then it may have to happen inadvertently like that. Society itself needs to change to value not just male life, but female life so that the motivation for rejecting female children decreases. And while I'm at it, value male life so that their health and longevity increases.
It's better that we have the freedom of choice to control our bodies and destinies, so that the next generation of children have these same freedoms. What good is it for pro-lifers to take away women's rights so that the next batch of women live a lesser quality of life of restriction and lack of freedoms?
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Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 4:25 pm
If a woman wants to abort a child because it's not the gender she wanted, maybe it's best that she do it. Being born into a sexist family like that isn't good. Anyone ever heard of Bloody Mary? Her daddy was a guy called Henry VIII and he treated her like crap her whole life just because she wasn't a son. He treated her mother like crap too, because, after all, women magically have the ability to pick the sex of their children. Growing up in that situation resulted in her having some "issues" later in life. Namely that she was insanely jealous of her little sister and she had this habit of burning people at the stake because they didn't think like her.
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Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 10:03 pm
I highly doubt most normal people would abort a fetus because it's the "wrong gender." I mean, I know our society is sexist, but I think we're past the whole hating kids because they were born the wrong gender thing. For the most part, anyway.
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Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 10:31 pm
What's with all the "omg sexism" stuff?
Yes in China they're doing it out of sexism because boys are valued... But I sincerely doubt most Brittish people, a society where women are generally equally valued, are doing this out of any sexist agenda.
If I have a child, I only want one, and I want a girl. If I adopt I will adopt a girl. I do not value fetuses at all. I'd have no problem aborting a male fetus. Does this make me sexist? Would choosing to adopt a girl over a boy make me more sexist than choosing to abort a boy over a girl? Some people just have a "picture perfect" image of their families - I want one girl, others want 3 boys, others want one of each gender and only one of each gender. It's not sexism, it's just the type of family we wanted and we wouldn't be shamed for choosing to adopt those genders, so why feel shamed for choosing to birth those genders?
Seriously I'm seeing some hypocrisy here: My choice to abort for financial reasons is not shameful and reflects in no way upon how I would raise a child! My choice to abort because I'm childfree is not shameful and reflects in no way upon how I would raise a child! Your choice to abort because you want to raise a girl/boy is shameful and sexist, I suppose it's better you don't have a child of that gender then since you'd obviously be a terrible parent >O
No. It's not. No fetus has a right to be there, and the arbitrary selection of gender is no more shameful than an arbitrary selection of number (omg how could you not want any children/more than 2 children, how shameful!), or an arbitrary choice of time (how dare you want them be 2 years appart, how shameful!) or financial situation (how dare you want to buy a new car instead of give birth, how shameful!)... and it does not reflect upon how a person would raise a child of that gender should they have one.
I do think that societies that value boys over girls are unfortunate places, but I do not believe that the choice to abort because of gender is something women should feel ashamed of more so than any other reason they choose to abort.
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Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 7:34 am
Freedom Fire I highly doubt most normal people would abort a fetus because it's the "wrong gender." I mean, I know our society is sexist, but I think we're past the whole hating kids because they were born the wrong gender thing. For the most part, anyway. Most normal people wouldn't, but their are people out there that would. In some countries more than others. And it might not be blatent sexism either, just "We've already got two girls, we don't need another."
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Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 9:48 am
PersephoneMediocris Freedom Fire I highly doubt most normal people would abort a fetus because it's the "wrong gender." I mean, I know our society is sexist, but I think we're past the whole hating kids because they were born the wrong gender thing. For the most part, anyway. Most normal people wouldn't, but their are people out there that would. In some countries more than others. And it might not be blatent sexism either, just "We've already got two girls, we don't need another." It may not be sexism at all! And even if it were construed as such, that's no reason to say a fetus is entitled to use the uterus or deny women access to gender testing kits. It's their right to permit whomever they want to use their uterus and deny permission to whomever they want. Their basis of gender is no more shameful than basing it on money or number of children total.
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