As an abortion provider and abortion rights advocate, I follow abortion news, which means sometimes links like this one1, to an article decrying abortion for sex selection, appear in my inbox.
What I have noticed
is that abortion opponents argue against sex selection abortion in
order to establish a precedent that allows the state to determine
that certain kinds of abortion are not permissible. If the state can
override the decision of the pregnant woman in one instance, it
undermines the central contention of abortion rights activists that
the decision to continue or terminate a pregnancy belongs to the
pregnant person2.
Very often,
arguments will be couched in feminist terms. Whether crudely3
or subtly4,
they seek to use feminist language of opposition to discrimination to
appear to take a feminist high ground - in a completely anti-feminist
attempt to undermine support for women's and pregnant people's
autonomy. Their arguments only work if we accept the premise that the
foetus with XX chromosomes or with ultrasonic evidence of female
reproductive organs is a person with a right to life, a girl being
killed because of her gender. In passing, I will point out that there
is more to determination of sex than 2 combinations of sex
chromosomes, and more to determination of gender than anatomical sex.
But even if, on the whole, embryos with XX chromosomes, or foetuses
with female reproductive anatomy, would, if born, be girls, are they,
in utero, girls with rights beyond the right of the pregnant person,
rights that trump the right of the woman or pregnant person to
determine whether or not to continue the pregnancy? Opponents of
abortion don't (and can't) prove this - they just mobilise legitimate
indignation and anger at discrimination against girls and women, in
an attempt to get it to spill over into an attack on abortion rights.
Gender-biased sex
selection5
is a problem. But it's not the problem opponents of all abortion
would have us think. It is a manifestation of the same devaluing of
girls and women that underpins our oppression. In the societies where
it is documented, the combination of influences on gender-biased sex
selection usually includes deeply held values about the worth of sons
over daughters, the role of sons providing for parents in their old
age, women's relative exclusion from the paid workforce and lower pay
where included, discriminatory inheritance patterns and (at least in
parts of India) marriage customs such as the expectation brides'
families will provide a dowry.
What this means is
that if it is to be effectively confronted, the social context needs
to be changed. Not surprisingly, measurable impacts on reversing son
preference have been demonstrated by social measures affecting the
underlying factors. Economic security in old age (in the form of
savings or pensions), women's participation in the workforce, changes
to the rights and responsibilities of women in relation to their
family of birth, and media campaigns promoting the value of daughters
have all had an impact.6
One important
finding reported in a UN interagency statement on tackling
gender-biased sex selection7
was that educational programs that stimulate discussion and allow for
participants to share their experiences and thoughts in relation to
conflicting values are more empowering and effective than those based
on judgemental criticism of "bad" behaviour.
There is evidence of
prenatal sex selection taking place in Australia, predominantly among
women born overseas, most notably from India, China and South-East
Asia.8
A 2018 study of births in Victoria found that in these populations,
the male/female ratio at birth is significantly above the biological
norm of 105:100.
Banning abortion
performed for sex selection is only likely to put obstacles in the
way of women and pregnant people seeking care and support, and risks
harming already marginalised women.
The issues that
should be of concern are not whether to ban abortion performed to
enable sex selection, or to prevent women from undergoing blood tests
or ultrasound examinations that may enable them to know about their
pregnancy's chromosomal sex or reproductive anatomy. For healthcare
providers in particular, the point at which a woman is making a
decision to abort a pregnancy is not the point at which to refuse
care or impose judgement. It is a point for promoting our patients'
health and autonomy, including by the provision of safe abortion if
that is the pregnant person's decision.
What we should be
concerned about (healthcare professionals and wider society alike) is
to identify and support women at risk of coercion into abortion, or
facing harassment, violence or other kinds of pressure if they give
birth to girls. We should support efforts, particularly efforts by
young women of affected communities, to challenge and transform the
culture of son preference.
We'll know we're
succeeding when the sex ratio at birth returns to the biological norm
- not by taking measures that undermine women's rights, but by
implementing those with the capacity to enhance them.
1 https://caldronpool.com/researchers-say-discrimination-against-women-starts-in-the-womb.
This one is particularly obnoxious, implying in its sub-heading that
researchers who identified prenatal sex selection in a cohort of
Australian women conclude that abortion is not beneficial to women,
when that is, rather, the presupposition of the authors of the
article and an opponent of abortion, nothing to do with the study,
who they misleadingly quote.
2 I
use the terms woman and pregnant person in recognition that while
most people capable of becoming pregnant are women, some pregnant
people are trans men and some are non-binary people or people with
other gender identities.
3 E.g.,
https://caldronpool.com/researchers-say-discrimination-against-women-starts-in-the-womb
4 E.g.,
https://lozierinstitute.org/sex-selection-abortion-the-real-war-on-women
5 As
distinct from abortion to avoid passing on sex-chromosome-linked
diseases or conditions.
6 https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/44577/9789241501460_eng.pdf
7 https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/44577/9789241501460_eng.pdf
8 https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/47/6/2025/5057663
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