Sweden Approves Gender-Based Abortions
Sweden has made it legal for a mother to let her unborn child be aborted if she is not happy with its gender:
Swedish women will be permitted to abort their children based on the sex of the fetus, according to a ruling by Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare.
The ruling was spurred by a request from Kai Wedenberg, head of the clinic where a woman twice requested, and received, an abortion based on sex.
Mr. Wedenberg asked for clarification from health officials after a woman, who already had two girls, requested amniocentesis and to be told the sex of her unborn child. She found out she was pregnant with another girl and asked for an abortion six days later.
The woman then became pregnant again, returned to the clinic and asked for another amniocentesis, which was not performed. Later, at her ultrasound, she asked the nurse to reveal the sex of her fetus, which was a girl. After learning this, the mother requested an abortion later that day and received it later that week.
It is an incredible bad sign of the times: people do no longer respect human life. Having a child was once considered a blessing, no matter its gender. Today, not anymore. Well, not in many countries in which people have forgotten that human beings are the most exceptional and wonderful of all God’s creations.
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“Sweden has made it legal for a mother to let her unborn child be aborted if she is not happy with its gender”
Actually. You know. Life doesn’t begin at conception. You cannot under any circumstance ban abortions because then you might have situations where a woman’s liberty is less important than some humonculus that could fit in the palm of my hand.
“The ruling was spurred by a request from Kai Wedenberg”
It’s Kaj, actually. No one respects our phonotactics and morphology abroad! What’s so difficult with five consonants in a row, nine vowels and a voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative that varies with dialectical context?
“people do no longer respect human life.”
Human life doesn’t begin at conception.
“Well, not in many countries in which people have forgotten that human beings are the most exceptional and wonderful of all God’s creations.”
Hey, hey! Way to extrapolate, Mr. Moralistic Armchair sociologist. I’ll have you know Swedish abortion legislation is more restrictive than in America. Full stop at eighteen weeks. But if the only reason is the gender, then it has been decided that there is nothing to be done about that – it can’t be prevented.
What is considered by the social minister Göran Hägglund (don’t worry about the umlauts, they can’t hurt you), also the head of the Christian Democrats, is to stop medical personnel from bothering to look for the sex of the fetus. That way, parents can’t even find out and the gender of the fetus can’t be the basis of the decision to abort. He says that if the gender is somehow known then the personnel must still inform about it if asked, and a ban would only be circumvented – a social conservative who is willing to cede the obvious and work out a compromise rather than rile and inflame. No wonder his party could ally with the fiscal conservatives in Sweden for a successful alliance (they will probably get my vote next year) that attracted city voters and put an end to the domination of the left block. Hint, hint.
Garland you just dont get it do you.
Well, as I have mentioned before in the regular FAQ page, in order to be certain the sonologists/ sonographer should reassure himself that he actually sees the penis and scrotum in the case of a boy and the labia in the case of a girl. The absence of the penis must not be taken as sufficient evidence of the fetus being a girl. The 3-lines sign which denotes the labia in the fetus is a very valid and accurate indication of the female gender. Most of the time one should be able to tell the sex of the baby by about 20 weeks and very often even at sixteen.
16 to 20 weeks is not CONCEPTION.
But hey if you say something as many times as you did in the above post then you might actually convince someone of your version of events.
Human life doesn’t begin at conception.
That’s scientifically inaccurate, Garland. Any scientist will agree that a human embryo is a separate, living being, albeit one that is at its most primitive form and requires life support from the placental attachment to the mother.
The only legitimate claim you could attempt to make is that such a human being isn’t worthy of legal protection of right to life. That’s the debatable point, not whether or not ‘human life begins at conception.’
Additionally.
Summary Amniotic fluid testosterone levels were determined by the radioimmunoassay technique in 101 samples obtained by amniocentesis between 16 and 18 weeks of gestation from women with increased risk of chromosomal abnormalities.
16-18 weeks is not conception.
“16 to 20 weeks is not CONCEPTION.”
No, I just said that human life cannot exist at conception. That was wrong – I should have said that human *existence* does not begin at conception. A human body with no brain in it can not be considered human.
“The only legitimate claim you could attempt to make is that such a human being isn’t worthy of legal protection of right to life.”
I agree completely – I used the wrong words but meant exactly what you are saying.
Well, if you think a little harder and longer on it, Garland, you’ll also see that your definition of human right to life beginning with brain function is highly ambiguous, and that’s why some people have nonreligious reasons for accepting conception as the beginning point of a continuum that has no definable breaking point between nonpersonhood and personhood. You apparently accept the Swedish model of 18 weeks as morally defensible, presumably because of the brain function at that point, while other people obviously argue that that degree of brain function is negligible compared to what we consider human. Still others say that as long as the fetus is dependent on the mother’s body it is basically nothing more than a parasite. And some cultures don’t believe that even the newborn is worthy of protection of right to life because of its relative lack of sentience, and will permit infanticide (particularly for babies that might be considered a liability to society because of defects.)
So, you know, your bright line isn’t so bright after all.
I saw this piece earlier (and I thought if this appears on Poligazette we’ll hear from Garland since its Sweden). One can also look to China and India as countries with significant “issues” around sex selection abortion. China is facing serious future challendges with a population skewed male.
Isn’t it ironic that a political/social issue deemed as a women’s rights issue can end up KILLING WOMEN!
China and India are most definitely the “leaders” in this trend. I’ve mentioned it often over the last several years, especially in the context of young-male-heavy societies being more inclined to societal violence both internal and external. China is currently up to about a 6/5 male/female birth ratio because of sex-selection abortion, and parts of India are also.
Funny how it doesn’t get much attention until it hits Europe, eh? THIS keeps jumping to mind…
“China is facing serious future challendges with a population skewed male.”
Which is good. The most patriarchal societies should suffer the most.
“Isn’t it ironic that a political/social issue deemed as a women’s rights issue can end up KILLING WOMEN!”
More like sad. Your point being?
Which is good. The most patriarchal societies should suffer the most.
They tend to “suffer” by invading and looting their neighbors. Nice to know you think that’s a good thing.
And for the less dense, let me point out that a male population skew does NOT mean or imply patriarchy, any more than a female skew implies or means matriarchy. Indeed, some of the most patriarchal societies throughout history worked real hard to skew their populations heavily female, for what should be obvious reasons.
“They tend to “suffer” by invading and looting their neighbors. Nice to know you think that’s a good thing.”
That’s only a symptom of the suffering. If they try anything like that we just have to kill them until they stop.
“let me point out that a male population skew does NOT mean or imply patriarchy”
My definition of patriarchal includes misogynist/very limiting and separate gender roles (India and China, but they are only further away on a scale it shares with every other nation on the planet) and in this case the skew comes from a desire to not have girl babies, which in turn comes from misogyny. Which in turn, should be something that makes a society less livable until people figure out why their society is deteriorating. Iran, Japan and Germany have serious birth rate problems because women have the temerity to choose to have few or no children when faced with a ridiculous and constricting notion of motherhood that is incompatible with some other aspects of modern life. Don’t even mention Italy – that’s where machismo gets you.
I say we all stop right now and just appoint Garland God; he seems to have all of the answers!