Sex Selective Abortion

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Sex Selective Abortion
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Why discuss SSA?

• Feminism and multiculturalism enemies?
• Contextualized judgement
• From traditionalism to modernity?
• Moral agency of women
• Defend position
• SSA is morally wrong
• Yet, no reason to tighten the abortion law.

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Contextualized morality

• Liberal principles are generic principles gt too
  indeterminate, need for situational understanding
  of principles
• If context counts what is acceptable in one
  society, may not be so in another society?

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Prenatal diagnosis (PND)

• 1. Chorionic villus sampling
• 2. Amniocentesis
• 3. Ultrasound
• 4. Triple test
• 5. Measuring cervical crease
• 1 2 most reliable sex determination, on medical
  indication only. 3 also used

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Abortion law

• Dutch abortion law if risk to life or health,
  including mental health (mental crisis situation)
• No further criteria, procedures to guarantee
  cautious decision making
• Most European countries a)women have right to
  choose abortion or b)broad grounds for permitting
  abortion
• SSA legally possible in most European countries

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The public debate

• Does critical situation include sex of foetus?
• I can imagine that a woman from a foreign
  culture finds herself in such a critical
  situation when she has a daughter for the third
  or fourth time and her marriage, or even her
  life, is at stake
• Els Borst, Minister of health and reputed
  feminist, Jan. 1997.

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Reactions

• Pro Borst
• Abortion protects children against loveless start
• We should not apply double standards
• not the minister but the law is to blame

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• Pro life lobby proof deficiencies in law to
  protect unborn life
• Christian democrats constitutional point we
  compromised our principles for the sake of ...?
  Partners show no respect for compromise
• Only medically relevant info should be
  transmitted when pre-natal testing
• It is only speculations stigmatizes certain
  groups

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• National womens organizations, including black,
  migrant, refugee women
• The ministers statement is
• a smack in the face for many women in the
  Netherlands who campaign for gender equality and
  equivalence in their own community
• Full right of self-determination for all women
• Universal principle of gender equality
• You cannot have both, unless you assume SSA not
  freely chosen.

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• Anil Ramdas
• seemingly contradiction freedom of choice and
  gender equality, but here culturally imposed
  demand thou shalt bear males. Result of male
  chauvinism in Islam. The minister abandons
  Islamic women and sticks a knife into the back of
  the incipient emancipation movement in that
  culture
• Arnold Koper
• if a culture is sexist, it should be opposed

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The ministers reaction

• Investigation whether abortion clinics stretched
  notion of critical situation beyond tolerance.
• No procedures are correctly employed.
• No reason to tighten abortion law.

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• Does the practice occur in Nl?
• Why would SSA be wrong?
• Even in pro choice justifications abortion is
  tied to certain restrictions
• Fetus yes/no sentient?
• If yes only compelling reasons qualify as
  justification.
• Sex preference a compelling enough reason?

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SSA India

• Practiced on large scale, popular among middle
  class SSA way to ensure modern small family, yet
  with a son.
• Reasons son preference
• Sons carrying forth family name occupation
• Perform religious rites cremation
• Sons expected look after parents old age
• Daughters economic burden marry out dowry.

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• Sex preference a compelling enough reason?
• In India yes (for individual women).
• Right to choose means little when woman are
  living under conditions that they as individuals
  are powerless to change.
• Right to choose or instrument of male control?
• Warren1.the more powerful the social pressures
  upon women to have sons, the more room there is
  to doubt that they are really free to choose or
  reject SSA, and, perhaps, the stronger the
  argument for prohibition

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Autonomy reconsidered

• Freely chosen? No.
• Yet, abortion ever freely chosen? Double
  standards?
• Rational decision under wrong social conditions,
  but also
• Heavy family pressure to comply
• Any way no reason to assume brainwashed cultural
  victims, instead capable of autonomy

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Change the abortion law?

• SSA moral wrong violates sex equality
• In Nl and in India prevention not through
  restricting access to abortion, but through
  restricting access to PND.
• In India stricter legislation, yet more SSA lack
  of public support for the law, because so may
  have son preference, therefore problems with
  enforcement of the law.
• Grudgingly tolerate in Nl what we forbid in
  India morally inconsistent?

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Conclusions

• Legal rules in most European countries do not
  exclude SSA
• SSA is probably practiced also in Europe
• SSA tradition, modernity and sex inequality
• Women choosing SSA no less capable of autonomy
• Preventive measures
• Feminism vs. Multiculturalism?