Sex-Selection Abortion and Pro-Abortion Feminists: Caught on the Horns of a Dilemma
"Feminists believe in equal representation of women in the professions, among them business, the academy and government. The termination of a woman from a professional position, because she is a woman, is an unconscionable relic of a sexist past.
"How much more problematic is the termination of a woman's life because she is a woman? Yet this is the very essence of sex-selective abortion, a practice the legality of which one can expect the pro-choice movement to fight tooth and nail to uphold."
From "Sex-Selective Abortion is Sexist," by Peter Johnston, which appeared in the Yale Daily News this morning.
Yesterday Oklahoma, that incubator of pro-life legislation, took an important, if preliminary step in enacting HB 1595, a comprehensive abortion-reporting measure. Oklahomans for Life's principle legislative priority for this session, the bill, in essence, tells the abortion industry to put up, or shut up.
Under the provisions of HB 1595, Oklahomans will know how prevalent abortion is in their state; the reasons for them; and complications. Compliance with existing abortion statutes would also be monitored.
But today I'd like to focus on the final provision: prohibiting abortions performed for the purpose of sex-selection. I'm using Peter Johnston's terrific essay in today's Yale Daily News as the jumping off point (www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/27954).
Talk about being caught on the horns of a dilemma. The Feminist Establishment--as opposed to genuine feminists--has pledged its undying fealty to abortion on demand for any reason, for no reason, or in spite of reason. What to do when unborn female babies are aborted precisely BECAUSE they are female?
"So-called 'pro-choice' feminists will show their true colors if they oppose sex selection abortion bans,' said NRLC State Legislative Director Mary Spaulding Balch, "since the world knows 'sex selection' is code for 'search and destroy' unborn females."
And show their true colors they assuredly do. Although they mumble about how this oughtn't to happen, they then procede to fight like mad to prohibit abortions that target unborn females.
Johnston keenly understands the cultural impact of a serious engagement with a topic that pro-abortion feminists consider taboo: "Public debate surrounding sex-selective abortion will reveal the uncomfortable truth that the pro-choice movement is not nearly as feminist as Americans think or women deserve."
There are public opinion polls and there are public opinion polls. But there is constancy to how Americans respond to a proposed ban on sex-selection abortions: overwhelming majorities support it. (Johnston cites a 2006 poll that found that 86 percent of Americans support such a ban.) "And Oklahoma House Bill 1595 passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, 93 to 4," Johnston writes. "So the pro-choice movement will turn, as it always has, to the undemocratic courts in the hope that they will enforce the ideology of autonomy to which Americans do not subscribe."
Bless his heart for trying, Johnston even offers an olive branch to pro-abortion President Barack Obama, asking him to join in an effort to ban sex-selection abortions. Fat chance of that.
"'DNA Gender Test Kits' can show the sex of an unborn child seven weeks after conception," said Tony Lauinger, Oklahomans for Life chairman and Vice President of National Right to Life. "We don't want parents interested in 'designer' babies to screen their children and then resort to abortion because the child is the 'wrong' sex."
Oklahoma is a VERY pro-life state, often on the cutting edge of pro-life initiatives. Let's hope and pray the measure passes the state Senate and is signed by the governor.
Contact: Dave Andrusko
Source: National Right to Life
Source URL: http://www.nrlc.org
Publish Date: February 26, 2009
Link to this article:
http://www.ifrl.org/ifrl/news/090227_5.htm
