Abortion Discriminates' is a four-part series that addresses the often-overlooked reality that abortion at its core is a discriminatory action. At the most basic level abortion discriminates against the pre-born child and its right to life, robbing it of dignity and recognised value. That said, there are other ways in which abortion wilfully and intentionally discriminates on the basis of disability, race, and sex. It is hoped that these 4 articles will provide a useful framework for understanding abortion's discriminatory nature and for facilitating informed dialogue with others, whether pro-life or pro-abortion.
A bitter irony
The Center for Reproductive Rights says:
‘Gender-based discrimination is a deeply rooted societal problem. Where it exists, it should be condemned and addressed by both governments and private actors. The Center for Reproductive Rights has worked for years to advance women’s status as equal participants in society, and to protect women’s fundamental rights, such as the rights to health, self-determination and dignity. We work toward a future in which the sex of a child is not perceived as the fundamental determinant of that child’s status, potential or character.’
It is a bitter irony that the same organisation actively argues against banning sex-selective abortions. The Center calls such bans ‘inappropriate’ and claim they ‘undermine women’s autonomy’ and ‘threaten the health and human rights of women by creating additional barriers to obtaining legal abortions.’
This should be seen as an admission that many currently legal abortions, at least in the US, are in fact sex-selective. Such an admission would be honest. Recent studies have shown sex-selective abortions to be a global problem and in most cases, the aborted babies are female.
Global legislated gendercide
The problem is at critical level in many Asian countries. The United Nations Population Fund claims that there are more that 117 million girls ‘missing’ in Asia as a direct result of sex-selective abortions.
For many decades, India’s sex-selective abortions of preborn girls has ranged from 300,000 to 700,000 each year. This has resulted in massive population disparity between men and women; the New York Times reports that there are 50 million more men than women in the country. This oversupply of men due to abortion is causing other societal unrest and further danger to women and girls.
In China, the world’s leader in sex-selective abortion, it was reported in July that a woman died after aborting 4 pre-born girls in the span of just one year, simply because a son was desired.
Armenia, with a population of just under 3 million, has the third highest rate of sex-selective abortions in the world, causing itself a real demographic crisis. Sex-selective abortion is a recognised problem in other nations of the Caucasus. Despite this, pro-abortion rights organisers slammed legislation combatting sex-selective abortions, saying the laws would put women’s lives at risk. This totally ignores the reality that women’s lives and presence in Armenia are already at risk in the form of sex-selective abortion!
More Western culture societies are also threatened by sex-selective abortions.
As New Zealand prepares for upcoming elections, Labour leader Jacinda Ardern has threatened to decriminalise abortion should her party come into power. Life-affirming and celebrating campaigners have rightly pointed out that decriminalisation:
‘would mean that a woman could seek an abortion for any reason including because the child was the wrong sex. Because sometimes male children are preferred in some cultures, this would be discrimination against women.’
Meanwhile in America, feminist pro-abortion advocates argue that sex-selective abortion bans are terrible for women and unconstitutional.
Christian Concern is not unacquainted with the reality of sex-selective abortions in the UK. In 2012, doctors were filmed agreeing to perform sex-selective abortions. Even though the Criminal Prosecution Service admitted the doctors had broken the law, they failed to prosecute, as they did not believe the case was in the public interest. We supported Aisling Hubert in her attempt to legally challenge the doctors involved. We simultaneously commissioned a ComRes poll that showed more than four in five adults in the UK (84%) agree that 'aborting babies because of their gender should explicitly be banned by law'. The poll also indicated 80% of British adults agreed that 'where it can be proved that an abortion was authorised on grounds of the baby's gender, the doctor authorising that abortion should be prosecuted.' Despite public statistics in her favour, Aisling’s case was lost and left her with massive costs. While thankful for our supporters who helped support Aisling in meeting the costs, we remain grieved at the gross miscarriage of justice.
This year, Wendy Savage, a member of the British Medical Association and an abortionist who has bragged about aborting 10,000+ babies, indicated her belief that any stage sex-selective abortions should be legal under potential decriminalisation legislation. In the past month, British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) CEO, Ann Furedi stated publicly on ITV’s Loose Women that women should be allowed abortions on the basis of gender, shocking other panellists.
Call for an end to gendercide
Abortion, commonly portrayed by pro-abortionists as an essential component of women’s rights, is inarguably discriminatory. In this brief series of articles, we have seen that it discriminates against disability and race, but the most glaring discrimination is that against sex, particularly women. While claiming to uphold women’s rights, abortion clinics routinely single preborn girls out for destruction, removing their fundamental right to life. While feminism claims decriminalised abortion is about helping women, it will unavoidably harm far more women, both in the irreversible loss of pre-born life and through potentially irreparable post-abortion regret and trauma.
This Gender based discrimination – through the abortion of preborn girls – is a deeply rooted societal problem. Where it exists – and it does globally – it should be condemned and opposed, both by governments and the public.
Please join us as we fight to end this evil, discriminatory blight on our society.