Abortion and gender selection

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We are not the same species as a cat, dog, monkey, etc.

Fact of the matter is abortion is just plain wrong, a person may be different than someone else, so what? A kid may be born blind, I knew a kid that was legally blind that was in Aerospace Engineering, having a disability doesn't mean someone is an invalid.

I dislike referring to this as gender selection - I prefer to say sex selection.

I propose this - educate women and couples on how to improve their chances of conceiving a particular sex.
Ignoring genetic factors and general sperm quality, using methods such as Shettles would give women a 85-90% chance of conceiving a boy, use other methods such as altering vaginal pH, orgasm vs no orgasm, shallow vs deep penetration, etc. and chances are increased. It's not exact, however it is a high enough advantage that there is a chance women could use such methods to choose male over female.

Does this then make this issue more comfortable?
I don't think so...

Even as someone who is pro-choice the idea of aborting based on sex makes me uncomfortable, I'd choose sex selection before conception over abortion used for sex selection...but either way it's not ideal. The issue isn't that abortions are available for this purpose, but that females are worth so much less than males that women are choosing to use abortions for this purpose.

Last edited by Bloodheart on 12 Jun 2011, 5:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Cats, dogs and monkeys aren't the same species...but, like us, they are all animals.


Fact of the matter is that's your opinion, not a fact.

Doesn't change the fact that if abortion was illegal in the first place this entire conversation would be moot because it would be illegal to abort children because they happened to be a girl or happened to be a boy.

This isn't the case though, so your point is moot aswell.

You just wish it was moot, fact of the matter is what I said is true.

It's been a while since I read Shettles' book, but my recollection is that he only claims about a 60% success rate. It might reduce the number of abortions since there would be fewer of the "undesired" sex to abort, but couples who wanted to abort girls would still abort the remaining girls.

Me, I take solace in the fact that evolutionarily, the couples who have children of the societally unpreferred sex will be rewarded with a stronger genetic contribution to posterity.

Depends on what source you go by - I'm going by statistics given by Toni Weschler, or Wikipedia put it at between 75-90% effectiveness - depending on which sex you're aiming for, boys obviously easier to achieve than girls, I'd certainly put it at above 60% success rate and again you add the other methods they will aid in effectiveness too.

It would lower the number of abortions - but then you've still got the problem that females are inferior and being rooted out in one way or another, either way you've got girls not being allowed to be born.



True...but then with humans evolution is a pointless concept, strong or weak counts for little, other than potential genetic f$ck-ups that may see a child left with poor health or disability - a. environmental factors play just as big a part in this so alas those who don't choose to abort/prevent birth of societally unprepared sex babies may still lose out, and b. that takes us to a discussion about the worth of disabled children and if they should then be aborted.

It's 4.13am and my head is confused - hoping that made some sort of sense

Have they now?
A billion female fetuses are not worth one male sentient slaughtered in war.

As society evolves, morality must evolve with it, and mandated abortion becomes far less of a moral quandary if the alternative is not aborted fetuses, but starving children, women, and men.

"As society evolves, morality must evolve with it"

If, again, you so define "morality". Sounds to me more like "social policy"

But we will find out if society ever starts to evolve.

Human selection and social policy topic

1. Abortion is a private matter, between a woman and her health care practitioner. The sex of the fetus is revealed by ultrasound, and then the woman decides. Other testing may reveal fetal anomalies. Again, the woman decides.

2. In many countries, women are devalued, with terrible consequences, including rape, murder, newborn death, disfiguration, genital mutilation, unequal and minimal education opportunities, sexual enslavement. (For disabled women, there is absolutely no escape at all.)

The second statement is something not private and must be addressed. Then perhaps sexual (not gender) selection via abortion would not be the issue being debated here.

It is quite interesting that cultural devaluation of females is only trotted-out by abortion opponents when it involves aborting one sex of fetuses over another,
this by people who would render pregnant women state-owned breeding sows.

Aborting girls for being girls? This is more a cultural issue, I doubt in the US for example, if there are cases like this, to be significant, in any case, I favor abortion for whatever reason, that may include gender preference as well as to avoid having a child with disabilities.

Why is that? "Sex" is such a loaded word.

In this case, though, as the original article notes, it is illegal to abort children for purposes of sex selection; people just do it anyway. Evidently the culture there is such that people don't have a problem with breaking the laws on this issue.


Because an ultrasound can only tell you the fetus' physical sex, not the fetus' potential future psychological gender identification, which is not necessarily the same.

'Gender' has cultural connotations, whereas 'sex' is simply the physical parts one is born with. 'Sex' is a more accurate term in this case.