Ethical issue

I agree with Joan. I don't believe that organised religion is of any great benefit to society and, on the whole, I think good people are good despite their religion, not because of it. I find it annoying that, in most religions, women are not treated as equals and that, for instance, the Pope can affect the lives of millions of women, when he is probably one of the least appropriate people to pronounce on issues like contraception and abortion.

This is always a delicate subject. Personally I feel that abortions have their place but only for reasons regarding the babies/mothers health. It should not be used to select which gender of baby you have by aborting a certain gender until you sucessfully have the gender you desire. People will never fully agree on this topic but these are my personal views.

But surely anybody posting an ethical question should be willing to give their own views?

Petallus says, on another thread:'Sometimes the point of asking a question is to facilitate the thinking process in the meditative philosophical sense, not to arrive at a scientifically sound answer.

Some of us like that kind of thing.'

I feel ambivalent on the question of abortion on gender grounds - for the very reason that I support abortion in general. If a girl is going to be unwanted (at least by the father) and treated badly, perhaps it would be better for her not to be born. Of course, it is a very bad idea for reasons of normal distribution of the sexes.
Is this thread prompted by a simple anti-abortion stance?

Yes, I agree banning legal abortion would be a dreadful thing, resulting in two very definite outcomes: unwanted babies being born to unwilling mothers, and illegal abortions taking place, with resulting danger to the mother taking place.

My whinge against religion in general is that it can cause people to act in an irrational way that is harmful for themselves and others. Misogyny is one reason - hence the aborted female fetuses, and fewer rights for females in general.

There are many other problems:

Catholic men joining a priesthood that demands celibacy - a recipe for sexual disaster as we have seen.

Fights, battles, wars and genocide between people who resent and hate the beliefs of the other side.

Huge amounts of money being taken out of society and landing in places like the Vatican, or the bank accounts of televangelists.

Children, still too young to recognise manipulative bullshit, being scared witless by the prospect of burning in hell.

The irrational use of guilt to control young people - this is especially so in the catholic and Jewish faiths.

Political and religious leaders the world over cynically use religious beliefs to manipulate their populations.

Of course, not all religions cause these problems, and the christian establishments in England are among the least harmful anywhere. (I can't say that of Australia as the horrors of our catholic establishments are still coming out, and the new royal commission will show a lot more)

Jess I think the dowry system in a lot of countries has something to do with preference for boys. Traditionally girls are very costly to get married off and dont give anything back to their families. Once they are married they "belong" to their husband family.

Joan I can fully understand the moral arguments against abortion but I feel the alternatives of banning it would cause far worse problems.

Mishap I agree! If someone really hates the idea of having a child for whatever reason it would not bode well for that child to be born totally unwanted.

Bit of a clue if a healthy woman comes along after she has had a scan saying she has suddenly gone off the idea though.

Quite - that'd clinch it!

She might have to wring her hands.

Yes, two doctors. GP and the one from the surgery next along the passage.

And it must be the case that having the baby would be detrimental to the woman's physical or mental health. So, the woman would just have to say, "I couldn't cope!" look stressed, and that would be that.

Lots of abortions take place that frankly skate on pretty think ice legally - you can twist your case around to suit the regulations.

There is no legal way in which a baby could be aborted on the grounds of gender, except in the case of a gender-specific hereditary disease.

But people will twist things around to make it fit one of the categories.

When I was a SW I used to do assessments under the "social clause" - people would tell you anything they pleased in order to get what they wanted and it was virtually impossible to prove when someone was lying, even though you had a pretty shrewd idea that they were. But if they were preapred to lie their way through, then they obviously weren't going to be very committed parents.

Yes, that's the way I understood it to work, anno - although in reality I've never heard of anyone actually being denied an abortion and I do think the "good reasons" can be open to question in some cases.

No, a woman can't just walk into a clinic and say she wants a termination. It does have to be sanctioned by two doctors and there have to be good reasons such as the ones in Jess's post. I believe that a woman who already has enough children and never intended to have any more will be permitted. Or it may be that a young woman's life is going to be seriously disrupted by having a baby and it will be better for her to have a termination. There are lots of reasons, but it's not, strictly speaking, 'on demand'.

I think up to the twentyfourth week it is on demand.

You can't blame everything on religion! If people didn't do stuff under one label they'd find another one.

I think that Joan is thinking of the fact that the majority of religions seem to place woman on an inferior level. That's because the majority of religions are invented by men, of course. The funny thing is that so many female adherents claim the very opposite...

Do you think it is religion joan that is behind the "boy babies are better" thinking? Or are you thinking that some religions anti abortion?

I don't think abortion is available on demand in the UK. it is legal:
(a) that the pregnancy has not exceeded its twenty-fourth week and that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family; or
(b) that the termination of the pregnancy is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman; or
(c) that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated
(d) that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities or serious disability.[1]

So parents would have to argue that they would suffer mental health problems if they had a girl
In Ireland there is no legal abortion. Not sure what the position is in Australia.

Bloody religion - it is causing so much misery. I constantly ask myself why people can't just rise above it and say "Enough!" The brainwashing must be really deep.

On the issue of aborting babies on gender preference basis - this is disgusting and unethical. However, if abortion is available on demand, I guess there's nothing to be done to prevent it.

I don't like the idea of abortion, but I hate the idea of illegal abortions more, so I support a woman's right to choose. But that choice is beyond the pale.

I think abortion is justified if parents to not want to have a child with a serious disability. There is a great deal of suffering involved in many disabilities.
I think it is also justified if people do not feel they can do a good job of bringing up a child at this stage in their lives. Children need and deserve a lot of time, emotional effort, etc. Not everyone is in a position to give parenthood what it needs.
Neither of these are decisions that should be taken lightly.
But if you have a couple that want to have a child, have deliberately embarked on a pregnancy but only want that child if it is a boy I have no sympathy. This is sexism pure and simple and such attitudes are the product of sexist societies. The same sexist cultures that abandon full term infants, cover up rapes, refuse women a whole long list of human rights.

(I know we are a long way from perfect but that is another argument)
So if there is evidence that gynaecologists are colluding with couples who are having girl foetuses aborted I think they should get into trouble. It is technically against the law isn't it. Not legal grounds. So no legislation would be needed to crack down on this if it was shown to be a problem.
There is also the point that it may in some circumstances be abortion because the father demands it. Although women may have been indoctrinated to believe that boys are better.
An example i came across recently, told to me by a Muslim woman who has just one daughter and no sons.
Muslim women are "not allowed" to accept any financial help from a daughter - they can from a son. So this mum in her 60s, no husband, feels she should not even accept a restaurant meal from her daughter who has a very well paid job.

I don't think it matters what country we're in. We either agree that girls can be aborted or we don't.

If it became too common then it will upset the gender balance. They've discovered that in China when girls were sometimes aborted due to the one child system.

riverwalk I feel abortion on a gender basis alone is much worse than termination for reasons of major health and disability issues and a totally unwanted pregnancy.

I would not want to knowingly have a child with the sort of very serious health problems which would cause major suffering.

JO& I have heard the effects of gender selected terminations is already having quite bad effects on population balance in some cultures and it seems there will be shortages of marriageable girls, in future years. It's a damn silly idea on that basis alone let alone the ethics.

I don't see that it's understandable in this country. It's not like third world countries where boys are needed to help the family survive.

It's a bad reason for getting rid of a baby.

It's no worse than all the other reasons, and understandable.

I haven't read the article very carefully yet but I would have thought getting rid of girl babies would upset the balance of the sexes! I suppose random abortion would not be so likely to do that.