I know there are abortion advocates who facepalm every time she writes something. Anybody with an elementary education in logic can see the fallacies in her arguments.
But women are the ones having sex-selection abortions, which means Warawa is accusing women of violence and gendercide -- and courtesy of MP Stella Ambler -- "atrocities." Ending discrimination against women does not start with making nasty accusations against them. Yes, sex selection can be a sexist act, but it's nonsensical to protect women from discrimination by restricting their rights.
There were no accusations.
She is reading into what Warawa said and putting words into his mouth.
But even if he had said anything about women voluntarily having feticidal abortion, it's not sexist to say so if it's true.
If women are perpetuating a sexist practice that has highly negative repercussions on the community, then we should stop them.
And of course, she goes on about "restricting rights". Which M408 does not do.
They have to raise the spectre of "restricting rights" even though there is no threat because then they would have to agree with us.
And they would rather remain silent in the face of evil than say pro-lifers are right.
In India, laws against sex-selection abortion cause women to resort to unsafe and illegal abortion to avoid having a girl, and some may even face abuse and violence from their families if they bear a girl.
The law has nothing to do with it.
China has also banned sex-selection abortion, but if there are women hurt or dying from septic abortions, it's probably a marginal phenomenon. Why? Because China has a decent healthcare system. Healthcare in India is often inaccessible.
As blogger Jane Cawthorne explains, having an abortion for reasons of sex selection is not much different than having one for financial reasons, or because the baby will be disabled. The answer is not to coerce a woman into giving birth to an unwanted girl just "to make some sort of anti-sexist point." Instead, we must strive to "make the world a place where little girls are as wanted as little boys, where the systemic discrimination of women is a thing of the past."And in the meanwhile, society should continue to suffer the negative ramifications of that policy, the very real crime problems that result from it.
But of course, M408 does not do anything to coerce anyone to have a baby. It is merely saying what Niki Ashton and Libby Davies have already said: "it has no place in our society."
That`s all that M408 says. But feminists won't stand on principle. For them, abortion politics is about feminist power, not women's equality.
