Female Gendercide: “The targeting of females for extermination through infanticide, and most often, the aborting of pre-born girls, just because they are girls.”
Gendercide is an issue that, for many, immediately summons thoughts of China, India, and other foreign countries that have or have had such practices. In many countries girls are less desirable than are boys, and so the simple solution is to eliminate them when they are unwanted.
In 2011 there were 117.78 boys born for every 100 girls in China, continuing its streak of having the world’s worst boy-girl ratio. Experts have estimated that by 2020, there will be 24 million more men than women in China. In an attempt to solve this ratio problem, the government has banned ultrasounds for the purpose of knowing the baby’s sex as well as sex-selective abortions. This ban took place in 2005.
On May 31 of this year, the House officially rejected legislation to ban sex-selective abortions. The justification behind this decision is based on the fact that to prohibit such an abortion, women’s rights would be violated (this record is getting old) and doctors could risk losing their jobs if they didn’t report such an incident.
Jamie Smith, a White House spokeswoman, said this:
“The administration opposes gender discrimination in all forms, but the end result of this legislation would be to subject doctors to criminal prosecution if they fail to determine the motivations behind a very personal and private decision. The government should not intrude in medical decisions or private family matters in this way.”
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards made this statement in reference to the bill:
“As the nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health provider and advocate, Planned Parenthood knows all too well that women still face gender discrimination in this country. We oppose sex selection abortion. But this bill does nothing to advance protections against discrimination and instead will have the result of further shaming and stigmatizing women.”
The topic of sex-selective abortion has been a hot one, largely due to the recent videos that have been released by Live Action, an organization that has been actively advocating for millions of girls around the world who are “missing” as a result of abortion. The two videos that have been released thus far have honed in on Planned Parenthood locations in Texas and New York. In each case, the undercover investigator went to PP to seek out an abortion in the event that she was having a girl; and in both cases, the PP counselors worked with the client in order to ensure that the sex-selective abortion would happen.
In response to the videos, Planned Parenthood claimed that they “condemn” the act of sex-selective abortion; however, their goal is to provide “high quality, confidential, nonjudgmental care to all who come into” the health centers. Translation: we condemn gendercide, but if a patient wants to have one, it’s not our place to stop them.
PP’s response also included terminating the employment of the counselor from the center in Texas, and a pledge to retrain all current employees. The counselor from New York (from the second video released), was not terminated, however, because PP claimed that she followed all the necessary policies and procedures for handling such a situation. Planned Parenthood then followed up by claiming that the footage was falsified:
“Recently, opponents of Planned Parenthood conducted hoax patient visits with hidden video cameras and are now using edited videotapes to promote false claims about our organization and patient services,” the statement reads. “In highly unusual and scripted scenarios, hoax patients sought services related to sex selection.”
Never to forego an opportunity to contradict themselves, Planned Parenthood claimed that the videos were edited and as a result portrayed PP in a false way – yet they still found it necessary to fire an employee and retrain current workers. Why would these actions even be necessary if the videos contained false information? But I digress.
These events ultimately bring us back to the same old issue: women’s rights.
Some would argue that gendercide is the ultimate attack on women in that thousands of baby girls are missing today as a result of gender specific abortions. Others claim that this issue has actually been fabricated by anti-abortionists and in reality does not even exist. House Representative Mike Quigley made this statement on the issue:
“Here’s the truth: this is not about women’s equality. PRENDA [Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act] is simply another attempt by choice opponents to obstruct women’s access to reproductive health care.”
Banning sex-selective abortion would really be an underhanded attempt to keep women from having access to reproductive health care.
Banning sex-selective abortion would put doctors at risk for losing their jobs if they did not report related incidents.
Banning sex-selective abortion would infringe on a woman’s right to choose for herself whether or not to abort a child.
Planned Parenthood condemns sex-selective abortion, but will never refuse to perform a sex-selective abortion.
Female Gendercide: “The targeting of females for extermination through infanticide, and most often, the aborting of pre-born girls, just because they are girls.”
What do you think?
Mary Holloman 