Saying No To Son Preference

Most women just want healthy babies. Period.

The reality, though, is there’s still evidence of son preference in many countries. We immediately turn our minds to India and China, where sex-selection became so widespread that they’re now figuring out how to rectify extreme gender imbalance. Today, the United Nations favours a ban on all sex-based abortions, but this doesn’t mean that it’s an obsolete practice.

In fact, sex-based abortions are procured in the US. No bill exists outlining the discrimination at the heart of sex-selection. Where there’s no legal document explicitly outlawing the practice, there’s also no real punishment. But US Congressman Trent Franks is pushing for change and he has been since 2009 when he introduced the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act in an attempt to ban abortions based on gender or racial preference. The women seeking abortion would not be prosecuted, but the abortion providers would be “held accountable.”Passing the act may have been unsuccessful in 2009, but he believes in the cause and is not willing to quit.

It’s hard to discern whether a nondiscrimination act will really change the landscape of sex or race-based selection. After all, how does one know if a woman wants an abortion because she prefers a son over a daughter? Do you deny an abortion if a woman has already learned the sex of her baby and, if it’s a girl, refuse? In other words, what does learning the sex of the baby really prove? Maybe she wants to decorate the nursery a certain colour or start buying clothing in preparation. Unless the son preference is vocalized, we simply can’t know the intentions of the pregnant woman. And it would be discriminatory to assume, if they were American Chinese, for example, that they were bringing their cultural preference for boys to the US.

Then there’s the whole issue of race. Again, how can we possibly prove that a woman desires an abortion because she’s discriminating based on race? Other than the case of a woman cheating on her partner with someone of a different race, personal race discrimination could never be determined. And just because a doctor has a mainly black clientele doesn’t mean they are discriminatory, that might simply be the racial makeup of the neighbourhood they live in.

Nonetheless, somehow holding people accountable for discrimination is a noble (and necessary) goal. Since 86 percent of Americans already support a sex-selection ban, according to a 2006 Zogby poll, it may be time to take that next step in prohibiting bias.

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