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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
LeCastor, Franklin, and others seem to conclude that abortion as sex selection must be condoned if abortion is to be accepted at all, and that we must therefore accept abortion-as-genocide just as we accept and fight for a woman's right to choose in general.
There is a grain of truth in LeCastor's statement: "If a fetus has no right to life, it has no right to life, no matter why the abortion happens." On an individual basis, perhaps. If I were talking to an individual woman who made the decision to abort her female fetus because of the social and cultural pressures to have a male child, or for fear of the life a female child would likely face, I might have sympathy for that individual decision. However, the social and cultural conditions themselves, and suffering and gender imbalance that result from these conditions, are deplorable. The issue here, as I see it, is not whether or not we must accept a woman's right to have an abortion in this or any other situation. Indeed, attempts at regulating abortion as sex selection seem to have failed here. The issue is clearly that something must be done to make being and having a girl as much of a blessing as being or having a boy.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
