The constantly growing field of medical technology has raised many questions especially pertaining to ethics. The mapping of the human genome, cloning technologies, stem cell research, and of course reproductive technology has caused some very real dilemmas over the role of the human decision in the creation and orientation of new life. Humans are able to accomplish amazing things in science, but at what cost? The ubiquitous nature of reproductive technology has caused a new discipline of reproductive ethics. One such dilemma is that of selective abortion due to sex preference. In this paper I will discuss the ethics of gendercide and sonography’s affect on this practice
Sex-selective abortion is the practice of terminating a pregnancy based on the predicted sex of the fetus. The selective abortion of female fetuses is most common in areas where cultural norms value male children over female children, especially in parts of Taiwan, Korea, China, and India. A 2005 study estimated that over 90 million females were "missing" from the expected population in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan, South Korea and Taiwan alone, and suggested that sex-selective abortion plays a role in this deficit. India eliminates over half a million healthy girl fetuses annually, simply because of their gender.
Amniocentesis and ultrasound techniques are the most common ways for couples to determine the sex of the child before it is born. In the US, such tests are routine and not usually alarming, but in nations such as India and China those tests, and others, have become an issue of debate since the results could mean life or death. Until the 1980’s, people in poor countries could do little about their preference for sons before birth, ...
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Ethics committee of the American Society for medicine. Preconception gender selection for nonmedical reasons.(May 5, 2001)
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Sex Selective Abortion. (2010). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
McLaren accuses doctors of neglecting women who wanted to abort because of the responsibility that came with the operation. All doctors couldn’t legally perform the operation; other professionals and t...
In order to understanding how women have been discriminated against we must know the history behind the most controversial topic in women’s rights, abortion. For decade’s legal scholars, social movement activities, and historians, have agreed whether women actually had rights when it came to abortions and understanding the pro-life feminist reform. In Mary Zeigler, "Women's Rights on the Right: The History and Stakes of Modern Pro-Life Feminism.” Pro-life advocates have argued that “abortions cause more to the woman rather than help them.” (Zeigler233) One of the most popular known cases is Gonzales v. Carhart which attempted to justify abortion restrictions on the very basis of the physical or psychological harms that could or assumed to be caused or produced by the actual procedure.(Zeigler234) However, women protective claims, only one part of larger strategy that this Article calls prolife feminism. The article also identifies potential common ground among those proclaiming to be feminist with different positions on abortions. Both pro-choice and pro-life scholars have written extensively on how to their arguments as forwarding women
Dena Davis in the 5th chapter of “Genetic Dilemmas: Reproductive Technology, Parental Choices, and Children’s Futures” explores the global attitudes, policies, and morality towards determination of sex. She begins with presenting empirical evidence of some preferences held in countries such as India or China where there is a clear desire for male children. This inclination is so deeply held that mothers can be socially and physically harmed when, by pure biological chance, they fail to produce a male child. Davis and others allow sex selection in these cases, purely in the interest of harm reduction of mothers and their daughters born into such a situation. This example is contrasted with so-called “western” societies, where the preference
The term "reproductive rights" has become synonymous with abortion rights, birth control access, and issues surrounding reproductive technologies, yet the struggle for a woman's right to choose when and how to become pregnant often overshadows a woman's right to choose where and how to give birth. The lack of feminist discourse and activism surrounding issues of childbirth may attest to the hegemony in the modern American birth ritual of increasing medical intervention from obstetricians in hospital settings. There are currently several movements to challenge this dominant birth model--prepared childbirth advocates offer education classes and natural childbirth advocates lobby for the rights of midwives and home births--but I refrain from giving either of these movements a feminist label because neither are invested in challenging prevailing gender ideology or the equation of woman with motherhood. This paper will argue that a feminist discourse of childbirth is necessary by using a Foucauldian analysis to chart the current web of power and knowledge in the American hospital delivery room and how it works to deny agency to women in labor, alienating them from their experience. Recognizing that power and knowledge operate on a myriad of levels and tactics, including counter-tactics, I will not limit my focus to the dominant discourse of medical experts, but also explore what I call counter discourses of childbirth, particularly from the prepared childbirth and natural childbirth advocates. Within this discussion, I hope to offer suggestions on a feminist ethic of childbirth that reaffirms women's autonomy during labor, but does not limit them to prevailing codes o...
Two of the most popular technologies used today for sex selection are, in vitro fertilization (IVF) and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) (Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, 2015). IVF involves combining the egg cells and the sperm cells outside the uterus. Once fertilized, the egg is then implanted back into the women’s uterus or stored for future use.
For many years there have been attempts at progression in the area of pre-birth selection of gender but nothing was really successful until about the 1970’s. Beginning in the 1970’s gender selection methods were rarely used and ...
Over the duration of the last century, abortion in the Western hemisphere has become a largely controversial topic that affects every human being. In the United States, at current rates, one in three women will have had an abortion by the time they reach the age of 45. The questions surrounding the laws are of moral, social, and medical dilemmas that rely upon the most fundamental principles of ethics and philosophy. At the center of the argument is the not so clear cut lines dictating what life is, or is not, and where a fetus finds itself amongst its meaning. In an effort to answer the question, lawmakers are establishing public policies dictating what a woman may or may not do with consideration to her reproductive rights. The drawback, however, is that there is no agreement upon when life begins and at which point one crosses the line from unalienable rights to murder.
Sex selection is when one uses medical techniques to conceive the preferred gender. This practice brings up questions about sex discrimination, stereotypes, reproductive autonomy, and ethics of choosing children with certain traits. In the U.S, many organizations are against sex selection but have yet taken a position. Sex selection is connected with the idea of a certain gender being superior. People think of gender as categories, either boy or girl, not as a fluid. Some say allowing sex selection is another way to allow abortions; while others say it is better to choose the gender then kill the child all together. Clinics allow sex selection for the first or only child. More common is using sex selection for family balancing. In America, family balancing is used so parents can have a balanced amount of gender. In China, family balancing is used to fix the dominance of males from using sex selection for males in an overloaded
Abortion, defined as the intentional termination of a pregnancy, is one of the most highly debated liberties of all time. Approximately one to three million abortions are performed each year. Women receive abortions for reasons such as rape, teen pregnancy, and health concerns. Unfortunately, it is a liberty that some still wish to eradicate due to religious beliefs and misconceptions. Abortion should remain a legal option for women because illegal abortions result in far more fatalities, religion does not serve as grounds for a law, and most importantly, there is no conclusive evidence that a fetus is equal to a human being.
Steinbock, Bonnie, Alex J. London, and John D. Arras. "’Rights- Based’ Approaches." Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine. Contemporary Readings in Bioethics. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 23. Print.
Rubin, J. P. (1974). The eye of the beholder: Parents' views on sex of newborns. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 512-519.
“The Rights of Pregnant Women.” NARAL Pro-Choice America. 24 March 2004. <http://www.naral.org/Issues/pregnantwomen/> {unrestricted; internet publication}
With every new technology that is born, there must be many questions as to whether this technology is beneficial or harmful as well as analyze who is affects. This especially holds true in dealing with the technology of artificial insemination. With the cultural mainstreaming of artificial insemination, there have been many articles written discussing the ethics of such decisions. Most of these articles are written by feminist authors with the purpose of discussing the impact of this new technology on women and how it affects their roles as mothers in society.
Female foeticide has become a disgraceful and shocking reality of this nation. For centuries, families across many parts of India have look upon the male child as the superlative of the two sexes. A male child is seen as a blessing in the Indian society and since years people have made lavish offerings and numerous prayers in hopes for getting a son. These beliefs continue to remain even though times have changed and now much of the inequality is reducing. The Indian society recognizes a insightful faith in every individual’s right to life and dignity but this rights are dishonored when it comes to women and children in this society. A difference in a society’s ideal values and its reality is defined as a social
In the early days most pregnant women would rely on their grandmother’s silly predictions or other old wives tales to predict whether their unborn baby was a boy or a girl. However, women had no way of knowing the sex of their baby until the actual moment of birth. The idea of gender determination has always been a challenge, and to this day one still cannot fully understand the concept of gender determination. However, with the use of modern day technology and much research, experts have found ways to determine the sex of unborn fetus.