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Author Topic: Dosanjh's new term for abortion: "Feticide"
Ghislaine
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posted 17 April 2008 06:40 AM      Profile for Ghislaine     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Ujjah Dosanjh co-wrote an opinion piece in The Ottawa Citizen last week, which I just noticed as I read this letter to the editor today.

The piece argues that gender ID kits should be much more strongly regulated for use by women, due to what they term "feticide":

quote:
The subject of female feticide has garnered attention recently due to the advent of gender ID kits - home tests that allow expectant mothers to privately draw blood samples and send them to DNA testing labs where gender determination can be made as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Supporters of the kits say they are harmless, that they allow parents to decorate accordingly for the arrival of their child, and, in any event, that it is impossible to stop the progression of technology from making these kits available to the public.

But we believe that the kits present very serious potential for increasing occurrences of female feticide.


I found this piece rather strange, as Dosanjh writes that

quote:
While we firmly support a woman's right to choose as paramount...

Either they do or they don't. While I have stated on babble previously that I wouldn't choose abortion myself, I fully support the legal right for women to choose abortion. How can one argue that they support a woman's right to abort their unborn child, but not the right to a test to determine the fetus' gender? By not mentioning genetic testing, he also implies that he has no interest in trying to prevent abortions on fetuses with down syndrome.

As shown by the letter writer, the position of Dosanjh ends up threatening a woman's right to choose. You cannot say "I support a woman's right to choose... except for this and that reason", as there ends up having to be someone other than the woman deciding whether her reason is "legitimate". Women should have access to all information and control over their bodies and full informed choice. They go on to say:

quote:
We will continue to advocate for a woman's right to choose, but we will never support those who abuse that right - whether or not they are employing gender ID kits - to prevent the births of baby girls on the basis of sex alone.


[ 17 April 2008: Message edited by: Ghislaine ]


From: L'Î-P-É | Registered: Feb 2008  |  IP: Logged
bigcitygal
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posted 17 April 2008 07:26 AM      Profile for bigcitygal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The problem with the phrase "a woman's right to choose" is that it's not unconditional. It should be, but it isn't.

The abortion debates, including this one, are about control of women's bodies. So even now, when we should be past this, we aren't.

Access to safe abortion procedures remains highly contested and politicized in Canada. Some hospitals don't perform them. Some rural communities and entire provinces don't allow any hospitals or clinics in their regions to perform them. Sometimes, women are coerced into having abortions when they would otherwise choose not to.

Reproductive choice and freedom means exactly that. It means not sterilizing women without their consent, it means not putting women on Depo- Provera without their consent, it means sometimes women have abortions for reasons I personally may not think are good reasons, to which I would say so what, who the hell am I to judge, STFU bcg. (Yes, I tell myself to STFU sometimes.)

Rant over. I feel better now.


From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
Summer
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posted 17 April 2008 07:30 AM      Profile for Summer     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I don’t like the fact that people abort female foetuses because they don’t want daughters. Similarly, many people don’t like the fact that people have abortions because they don’t want to raise a child with Down syndrome. The fact remains that abortion is legal in Canada (as it should be!) and this means that some girls and some children with Down syndrome will not be born.

I would never advocate for certain abortions to be legal and others not to be. Like BCG said, who am I to judge? That said, I don’t think it is inconsistent to be pro-choice and anti-gender selection. Every child is a wanted child is not inconsistent with being opposed to sexist practices that result in less girls being born than boys.

To me it sounds like the Dosanjhs (note that article was written by both Ujjal and his wife Raminder) are opposed to early gender detection because they feel it leads to more gender selection motivated abortions. They are denouncing people who value sons over daughters and they note that this belief results not only in fewer girls being born, but also in “infanticide, neglect, malnourishment and death of young females…[including] killings of women during marriage, dowry killings and otherwise.” Arguably, if your daughter is going to be born into such an awful life, maybe abortion is the best solution.

I don’t think that the Dosanjhs are trying to replace the word abortion with the word feticide. Nor does it seem from the article, that they are anti-choice. I admit that I do not know where Dosanjh has stood on the issue of reproductive rights generally. If someone is able to point to some evidence that he is anti-choice then I would likely interpret this article differently.

I’m not actually sure where I stand on the issue of early gender selection, and I haven't decided if actually support the Dosanjhs' point of view. I just find it suspect (1) that the letter you linked to is distinctly anti-choice, and (2) that you selectively quote to make it look like they are anti-choice, when really the full quote shows that they are drawing a distinction between the right to choose and gender selection.

quote:
While we firmly support a woman's right to choose as paramount, there is a clear distinction to be drawn between supporting access to safe abortions, which we vigorously defend, and the abortion of fetuses solely to prevent the births of female babies due to biased socio-cultural norms, which we abhor.

From: Ottawa | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged
bigcitygal
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posted 17 April 2008 07:35 AM      Profile for bigcitygal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Okay, not quite over. The notion of women, who live in patriarchy like everyone else, being targetted through their abortion choices, as perpetuating violence against women, is one of those "sleight of hand" "appropriating the language of progressives" moves that changes the focus, again, to women, and not to the structures in our world that inflict violence and harm on women.

If one feels so strongly that this is one of the most heinous acts of violence against women, and an enactment of misogyny, and I don't entirely disagree (see my post above for what I say to myself under these circumstances) I can imagine there are myriad other places one can direct one's energy towards social change rather than women who choose to abort based on the gender of the child.

Like where?

* Women's shelters, constantly underfunded
* Anti-violence workshops for men
* Making violence against women a true crime
* Rejecting rape culture
* Raising the minimum wage
* Building affordable housing

etc..


From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
oldgoat
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posted 17 April 2008 07:42 AM      Profile for oldgoat     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Seems to me that the whole idea of discouraging sex selection abortion by implementing roadblocks to the proceedure itself misses the point by a mile. So some family didn't get a gender selection kit, and now a young girl is growing up in a family that may at least be ambivelent about her very existance.

It may be a lot more difficult and complex, and thus not an ideal political solution, (politicians are best at just passing prohibitive laws, calling for more jail time, and calling problems solved) but what needs to happen is to shine light on the underlying cultural attitudes and assumptions and grapple the issue on that level. Communities can be engaged and encouraged to have internal dialogues on this practice where it occurs. I for one don't know much about it other than what I hear anecdotally which of course is likely wrong. Is it related to poverty?


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bigcitygal
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posted 17 April 2008 07:47 AM      Profile for bigcitygal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
A quick google of Ujjal Dosanjh (note, not "Ujjah") has found that he's not a popular guy with the pro life crowd. Which could mean something, or not.

I agree, Summer, that the article was written clearly in support of abortion, with a critique of gender selection in the language of feminism.

It's very relevant to point out that Ujjal and Raminder are from India, and that they have a certain role to play as the speakers for this practice in India. It's a complicated place for progressives, starting with "Well, that's where they're from, they have the right to critique it", never minding that their critique goes very well into the "those countries with brown people are so uncivilized" trope.

Again, I will ask, if people are so outraged at the expression of violence towards women and children, who actually exist right now there are many places such energy and passion are needed.


From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
Scott Piatkowski
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posted 17 April 2008 08:11 AM      Profile for Scott Piatkowski   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by oldgoat:
Seems to me that the whole idea of discouraging sex selection abortion by implementing roadblocks to the proceedure itself misses the point by a mile.

Exactly. If people (of any culture) valued women and girls as much as they do men and boys, this wouldn't even be an issue.


From: Kitchener-Waterloo | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Ghislaine
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posted 17 April 2008 08:33 AM      Profile for Ghislaine     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by bigcitygal:
Okay, not quite over. The notion of women, who live in patriarchy like everyone else, being targetted through their abortion choices, as perpetuating violence against women, is one of those "sleight of hand" "appropriating the language of progressives" moves that changes the focus, again, to women, and not to the structures in our world that inflict violence and harm on women.

If one feels so strongly that this is one of the most heinous acts of violence against women, and an enactment of misogyny, and I don't entirely disagree (see my post above for what I say to myself under these circumstances) I can imagine there are myriad other places one can direct one's energy towards social change rather than women who choose to abort based on the gender of the child.

Like where?

* Women's shelters, constantly underfunded
* Anti-violence workshops for men
* Making violence against women a true crime
* Rejecting rape culture
* Raising the minimum wage
* Building affordable housing

etc..



Exactly. I think it would be much more effective for them to focus their energies on changing the societal issues/attitudes etc that make having a daughter undesirable.


From: L'Î-P-É | Registered: Feb 2008  |  IP: Logged
Ghislaine
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posted 17 April 2008 08:43 AM      Profile for Ghislaine     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Not to cause thread drift, but I just stumbled upon this:

quote:
Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.


Strange that she thinks anyone will want to see any of that - although I assume her exhibit will be well-attended.


From: L'Î-P-É | Registered: Feb 2008  |  IP: Logged
Wilf Day
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posted 17 April 2008 08:52 AM      Profile for Wilf Day     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
In Alwar district, a survey found 76 per cent of families were aborting girls. In one upper-caste Jain community, birth rates of girls plummeted as low as 416 girls per 1,000 boys.

China's one-child policy makes this an issue there too. CIA source may be accurate:

quote:
Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.11 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.13 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.91 male(s)/female
total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2008 est.)

The correlation between the increase of sex ratio disparity on birth and the deployment of one child policy would appear to have been caused by the one-child policy. However, other Asian regions also have higher than average ratios.

From: Port Hope, Ontario | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
bigcitygal
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posted 17 April 2008 09:16 AM      Profile for bigcitygal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Wilf, I will not discuss issues that you raised in the babble medium. There are far too many white progressives who have little to no anti-racism or global analysis that I would trust to have a conversation about these issues that would not descend into some form of how those uncivilized nations are compared with light, bright, enlightened Canada. I will not converse with the mostly white babble population about this. So knock yourselves out.

As for the Yale senior's project, the server is down. At this point I will assume that she, like many others, thinks that "shock art" is art.


From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
Wilf Day
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posted 17 April 2008 02:47 PM      Profile for Wilf Day     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by bigcitygal:
Sometimes, women are coerced into having abortions when they would otherwise choose not to.

Reproductive choice and freedom means exactly that. It means not sterilizing women without their consent, it means not putting women on Depo- Provera without their consent, it means sometimes women have abortions for reasons I personally may not think are good reasons, to which I would say so what, who the hell am I to judge, STFU bcg. (Yes, I tell myself to STFU sometimes.)



I agree with all of the above.

My only point was to give the discussion a bit wider context. Sex-selection is not just a question of reproductive choice.

quote:
Despite laws enacted to curb sex-selection and new programs that give cash to families who have girls, the problem in India is getting worse.

Money is part of the reason most doctors continue to flout the 1988 law that criminalized sex-selective abortions.

The Delhi-based Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR), which has expertise in women's health and HIV, held workshops to train more than 50 Rajasthan non-governmental organizations how to spot ultrasound clinics illegally disclosing the sex of a fetus.

At the time, violence against Rajasthani women had reached a peak, and some women like Madhu Jain complained they were being pressured by in-laws to have an ultrasound to determine the sex of the fetus, and abort it if it was female.

Akhila Sivadas, CFAR's executive director, said there is little time to change societal attitudes towards women, so taking action to help land guilty doctors in jail is the key to improving the birth ratio.

All ultrasound clinics must fill out Form F to state the reason a patient is having ultrasound, what the procedure found, and the name of the referring physician. Form F is then handed in to the district medical officer for review.

But Sivadas said clinics involved in sex-selection rings aren't filling out form F properly, if at all. District medical officers who are supposed to keep a watchful eye on sex-selection aren't monitoring, despite the fact clinics that don't fill out paperwork properly can be criminally charged.

Last year, Krishna Hospital in Bhilwara was shut down for 15 days after audits revealed ultrasounds were used for sex-selection.

At least 12 doctors were implicated, and several ultrasound machines were seized by district medical officials.

Few Indian doctors have been formally charged for violating laws prohibiting sex-selection, and medical professionals continue to deny the problem exists. Several cases are before the courts, and activists like Ahluwalia think it will take a high-profile prosecution to send a clear message to health professionals that sex-selection won't be tolerated.

Krishna Hospital reopened after doctors banded together and threatened to cease all ultrasounds in the district -- a move that would hinder diagnosis of a swath of other illnesses.

Dr. Sangeeta Kabra, an obstetrician at Krishna Hospital, denies sex-selection was ever performed, despite glaring birth statistics that show a growing disparity between boys and girls.

In November, the hospital delivered 49 boys and 20 girls.


[ 17 April 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]


From: Port Hope, Ontario | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
wanker
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posted 17 April 2008 08:03 PM      Profile for wanker     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Prochoice and eugenics go hand in hand. This has been obvious from the outset. It just took science a few decades to catch up. In the future science will be able to learn even more about the fetus and even more data about the future newborn will be available to help determine whether to keep a baby. Prochoice couples will be able to plan their perfect family, two boys and two girls or whatever combo they are after and if you use your imagination I'm sure there are other "undesirable" traits in potential offspring that could be identified in order to guide the choice to either abort or keep, once science can isolate the identifiers.
Welcome to the brave new world. There is no point opposing it because it will only grease the skids for fetal rights legislation and undo all the advances that prochoice have made.
The solution is education. To implore women to make ethical abortion decisions ie abort because they don't want a baby as opposed to not wanting, "that baby".

[ 17 April 2008: Message edited by: wanker ]


From: ottawa | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 17 April 2008 08:59 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by wanker:
Prochoice and eugenics go hand in hand. This has been obvious from the outset.
No, actually is hasn't been and they don't go hand in hand.

quote:
The solution is education. To implore women to make ethical abortion decisions ie abort because they don't want a baby as opposed to not wanting, "that baby".

Imploring women is not education. It is imploring women.

Main Entry: im·plore
Pronunciation: \im-ˈplȯr\
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): im·plored; im·plor·ing
Etymology: Middle French or Latin; Middle French implorer, from Latin implorare, from in- + plorare to cry out
Date: circa 1540
1 : to call upon in supplication : beseech
2 : to call or pray for earnestly : entreat

Oh yes, you threw in ethics didn't you, I guess you mean teaching women ethics. Thereby suggesting we have none and need to be taught them in order to make the "correct" personal choices, because apparently we cannot make them, as we currenlty have NO ethics.

Have you not read the thread points where women who have abortions based upon gender selection are forced to do it, because of patriachial notions that males are worth more are imposed upon them?

How about we educate men, such as yourself, as you are the ones who need it?

[ 17 April 2008: Message edited by: remind ]


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Scott Piatkowski
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posted 18 April 2008 06:20 AM      Profile for Scott Piatkowski   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Ghislaine:
Not to cause thread drift, but I just stumbled upon this:

Thread drift, thread schmift. The whole thing was a hoax designed to get media attention.


From: Kitchener-Waterloo | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
Ghislaine
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posted 18 April 2008 07:09 AM      Profile for Ghislaine     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Scott Piatkowski:

Thread drift, thread schmift. The whole thing was a hoax designed to get media attention.


Yes I saw that today. The artist definitely got the attention she was craving though, I believe.


From: L'Î-P-É | Registered: Feb 2008  |  IP: Logged
Jabberwock
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posted 18 April 2008 09:40 AM      Profile for Jabberwock     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Perhaps a little thread drift, but I am currently 32 weeks pregnant. During the ultrasound, the tech asked us if we wanted to know the sex and happily told us. A girlfriend of mine, or rather, her husband, was refused the same information at the same clinic. Her husband is darker complected- could be seen as indo-canadian or middle-eastern in heritage. I wondered if they refused the info based on some kind of racial profiling.

[ 18 April 2008: Message edited by: Jabberwock ]


From: Vancouver | Registered: May 2007  |  IP: Logged
Jabberwock
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posted 18 April 2008 09:40 AM      Profile for Jabberwock     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Sorry, unintended double post.

[ 18 April 2008: Message edited by: Jabberwock ]


From: Vancouver | Registered: May 2007  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 18 April 2008 09:42 AM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Jabberwock:
I wondered if they refused the info based on some kind of racial profiling.

Surely they asked why the info was refused? What reason was given?


From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Summer
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posted 18 April 2008 10:13 AM      Profile for Summer     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Maybe it was because the husband was asking and not the pregant person. Can clinics give this information out without the consent of the person carrying the child?
From: Ottawa | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged
Jabberwock
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posted 18 April 2008 10:14 AM      Profile for Jabberwock     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The reason given was policy. The husband and wife were in the room together during the ultrasound, and he asked the question, in his wife's presence. My husband did the same, and the tech just looked at me for confirmation that I wanted to know as well.
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wanker
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posted 18 April 2008 12:06 PM      Profile for wanker     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think the above case is probably racial profiling. As Dosanjh points out aborting female babies because of their gender is a problem in India and is being directed by males.
In response to Remind, the eugenics comparison may be too harsh but my point was that once abortion decisions are made because of identifiable characteristics of the fetus, ie gender or something else, then you are moving into the realm of eugenics, which I've always thought was inevitable once science started providing the data.
But my main point is that Dosanjh ideally should be ignored. women should be free to abort for any reason, otherwise there is no more choice. And yes I am fully aware that men are responsible not only in India but also in Canada for many abortions, as many guys do not want women that they are not married to or committed to, ie their affairs, short term girlfriends etc, having their babies. Its fine for Mick Jagger to have children from many different women. He can afford the paternity suits, but most guys can't and do put pressure, sometimes unbearable pressure on women to have abortions. So consider me educated as to how men benefit from abortion.
My main point, though is that the Brave New World of being able to abort based on what is known about the fetus is here to stay and there is nothing that can or should be done about it, unless one is willing to put restrictions on Choice, which would get very complicated and play into ProLife hands.
If we end up with less women or less disabled persons or less of anything, so be it. I can't see any way out of it other then hoping both men and women, or maybe more accurately, couples planning families, make "responsible" choices.

From: ottawa | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged

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