Solomon's Selection

This has got to be one of the thorniest of issues for any woman committed to the belief that women should be able to control the issue of their bodies - unconditionally - to contemplate and deal with.

I would say with confidence that even committed feminists who believe in unrestricted abortions would view with utter dismay any abortion that takes place in the third trimester. In the best of all possible worlds, all abortions, should they be seen to be required, should take place as early in the gestation period as possible. There does exist unspoken guidelines beyond which threshhold acquiescence is withheld.

That having been said a real spanner has been thrown in the works of abortion permissiveness. In the social revolution that took place with the gradual, then accelerated rise of feminism and female entitlement equal to that of men, the prevailing patriarchal zeitgeist omnipresent everywhere in the world with few exceptions (historically, Asia Minor's Amazons, Margaret Mead's Samoa) was overturned by women's rage at their socially inferior status.

Men dictated the social and cultural mores of society and enshrined them in law, just as they dominated in politics, business, the professions and the arts. And the society that men formulated in their positions of superior power were female repressive, dominating, and paternalistic. The laws that were enacted for society reflected male determination; among them a religious-social-cultural-based proscription on abortion.

So here's the paradox; the feminist-oriented modern Western world that feminism won for themselves with its relaxed attitudes toward abortion rights had little effect on eastern and Middle-east cultures and traditions that favoured male issue over female. With the mass migration of emigrants and refugees from those countries to the West, an underground of foeticide and infanticide based on gender-preference swept both the East and the West.

Creating a massive deficit in countries like India and China, of females, creating an overabundance of young males with few prospects of gaining for themselves a life partner. In India that resulted mostly from dowry entitlements and population control; in China mostly population control, with dowry entitlements thrown in for good measure. And with the migration of both populations to the West, came the culture of gender selection.

With new techniques of identifying gender in utero simplifying an ages-old tradition, the very least that can be said for amniocentesis is that the decision to abort is quick and relatively early, so no longer need baby- and infant-girls be murdered in the name of gender selection. But the very issue of gender selection favouring males and sacrificing females is hugely distasteful. For the criteria are mostly those of a patriarchal society's values, resulting in the devaluation of females.

Setting aside the issue of massive numbers of female foetuses being aborted yearly, mostly to ethnic groups, philosophically when considering the situation, comparisons are made with the decision to abort foetuses whom tests have indicated are abnormal, that babies will be prevented from being born with genetic degenerative diseases or conditions that will guarantee a distorted life of pain and suffering.

Can the two values be compared? According to those who claim to value and cherish all life, regardless of how physically or mentally compromised, or even destined to live very short and nasty lives, all life is precious and should be preserved. And those who have the misfortune to give birth to children with Down Syndrome or any other incapacities must be resigned to ushering them into the world and nurturing them to the end of their days.

Pretty unpalatable to those who can't agree and will not agree because this does not accord with their values. Their choice is not to burden themselves and society with such offspring. So, does society, and the medical community have an obligation and the right, in recognition of countless abortions based on the criteria of gender-selection alone, to insist that something be done to stop this practice? Other than mounting the defence of education, perhaps not.

For to do otherwise is an infringement on the rights of women so hard-gained, to control their bodies and the issue of their bodies. It may not represent the most desirable solution to a dreadfully difficult conundrum, but it does achieve an uneasy balance, and perhaps, for this nuanced problem it is the best we can possibly offer.