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Sex Selective Abortion in the US

When it comes to sex selection and gendercide, many people in the United States think of China, India, and other cultures known to prefer boys over girls. Studies show however that this unethical, oppressive and horrific practice is happening right here in our own backyard and the ripple effect is destroying girls, and by doing so increasing the practice of sex trafficking and gender based violence. Sex-selective abortion is defined as “an abortion undertaken for the purpose of eliminating a child of an undesired sex.” A Nobel Prize-winning economist and Harvard Professor; Amartya Sen has previously estimated that as early as 1990 ; 100 million girls were missing worldwide due to sex-selective abortion, female infanticide, and other such gender-biased practices. With the current advancements in assisted reproductive technology prenatal sex selection is becoming more common than ever before, and while the practice is still somewhat controversial in the medical community and very costly many women in America are employing these new and available sex-selective techniques in their reproductive decisions.

Some women use the technology during the process of IVF, in a mis-guided effort to prevent illness to a potential daughter. Women who are genetic carriers of certain diseases and genetic mutations that may only be passed down genetically to female offspring; choose to have only sons in an effort to spare the child any significant health concerns. We as pro-life advocates however know that while many women truly believe they are doing this with no ill intent it is still a horrific violation of not only human rights but gender equality as well. The ASRM (American Society for Reproductive Medicine) even discourages any PGD{prenatal genetic diagnosis} for non-medical sex selection being used because it creates an incredibly complicated ethical dilemma amongst medical providers, an imbalance in the sex ratio within a given society and poses unnecessary and serious medical risks to patients undergoing treatment for non-medically specified ART. Even one of the biggest supporters of abortion rights in the US, the ACOG {The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists} spoke out publicly in 2007 against sex-selection for family planning purposes [sex-selective abortion practices] “The Committee concludes that the ethical objection to sex selection based solely on family balancing or personal preference holds, regardless of the timing of the selection (i.e., preconception or post conception) or the stage of development of the embryo or fetus, because such requests may ultimately support sexist practices.”

Sex-selective abortion however represents one of the most violent forms of discrimination against women today. Through this horrific practice, self-selective abortion is victimizing two women at one time: mother and daughter. Many women are forced or coerced into having sex-selective abortions, and their daughters suffer the fatal consequences. When pro-life advocates attempted to pass PRENDA (Prenatal Non Discrimation Act) a law that would have banned the abortion of babies solely because they were girls, pro-choice activists managed to kill the bill. The pro-abortion community went absolutely nuts trying to defend the horrific practice of sex selective abortions; including the President of the largest abortion provider in the US; Planned Parenthood. Numerous times Cecile Richards has made empty statements regarding her and PP “opposition to sex-selective abortions” YET in multiple undercover operations performed at Planned Parenthood Clinics across the country; one of the largest investigative pro-life organizations; Live Action obtained video footage of not only counselors at clinics endorsing this practice, but also footage of these counselors teaching women how to de-fraud insurance companies into getting elective ultrasounds for the sole purpose of sex determination with the intent of terminating the pregnancy if tests confirm the unborn child is a girl. In an attempt to pass PRENDA; pro-life legislators highlighted no fewer than six studies that shows sex selective abortions are taking place in the United States in abortion clinics throughout the country. Planned Parenthood opposes laws that would allow a woman the chance to see her baby on the ultrasound screen before an abortion.

Former Planned Parenthood workers have stated that they were regularly instructed to turn the ultrasound screen away from abortion patients and encourage them not to look at images of their unborn child for fear that the mother may be “dissuaded against moving forward with the termination”. YET when commenting on the morality of using ultrasound pictures to determine whether an unborn baby is a girl or boy in order to abort based on her gender, a Planned Parenthood Director in Lancaster County, PA said “The information about a woman’s pregnancy has to be made available to her. We can’t legislate what a man or a woman will do with medical information. Physicians with problems with the way a patient will use information they give them should let the patient know so they can go elsewhere”. Planned Parenthood continuously OPPOSES women’s access to ultrasound technology if it means she may be dissuaded from abortion, but SUPPORTS the use of ultrasound technology if its purpose is to determine whether a baby should be aborted. This blatant pro-abortion bias truly shows where Planned Parenthood’s priorities lie. This incredible bias and hypocrisy is even further perpetuated by Cecile Richards who this weekend took to Twitter in support of International Women’s Day with this tweet https://twitter.com/CecileRichards/status/574681402836389890

Although studies have shown that 9 out of 10 Americans oppose sex-selective abortions, abortions based on gender are neither illegal nor uncommon in our country. In fact; almost every time a potential bill has been passed an effort to permanently ban sex-selective abortions the pro-abortion community has meticulously lobbied against it and while other industrialized countries have either restrictions or a ban on sex-selection, the United States does not – despite our continuous condemnation of other countries that permit the abhorrent practice. It is time that we as pro-life women stand up for our unborn daughters and turn the hypocritical words of Cecile Richards into words of ACTION within the pro-life community; ”Working toward gender equality and human rights for ALL.”

 

Please visit our website www.RightToLifeCA.org for more information on the work we are doing within our community to help stop the abhorrent practice of abortion. For more information on Live Action’s Undercover Investigations or how you can help protect a nation of women from gendercide please visit www.ProtectOurGirls.com or www.LiveAction.org

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