A peculiar remedy to a complex problem

Posted Jan 26, 2012 By EMC News

EMC Editorial - An interesting editorial appeared last week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal which argues the sex of fetuses should no longer be revealed to parents in Canada until after 30 weeks of pregnancy, due to the prevalence of female feticide among immigrant populations from countries such as China, India and Korea.

We believe such a ban would be futile due to the increasing prevalence of commercially-available blood tests that can determine a baby's sex with high accuracy, as well as the proximity of the U.S. border to the homes of most Canadians, which can easily be crossed for the purpose of fetal sex determination. While parents' ability to know the sex of their babies before they are born is certainly a luxury as opposed to a medical necessity, we believe it is unfair to deprive everyone of this opportunity simply to institute an ultimately ineffective regulation on a small portion of the population. Punishing all groups equally because of the preferences of the bigoted few is not an effective long-term strategy to deal with this problem.

Furthermore, the CMAJ editorial lends credence to the pro-life argument that it is outright murder to terminate a pregnancy. In a roundabout way, it invites those of us who are pro-choice to think critically about our beliefs.

It seems safe to say that to the majority of Canadians, the idea of having an abortion simply because the baby is female is heartbreaking and wrong. At the same time, many of these same people will argue that it is acceptable to terminate in cases where the fetus is given a high probability of having Down Syndrome or another serious genetic disorder or deformity. From a logical point of view, however, there is little difference between these two situations, particularly considering those living with genetic disorders like Down Syndrome demonstrate the ability to enjoy a high quality of life in many respects.

Therefore, while we find it upsetting that portions of the population are regularly having abortions just because fetus is a girl, it's simply hypocritical to take a pro-life stance in any one case and a pro-choice stance in all others. Abortion is legal in Canada. As a result, we believe the right to terminate a pregnancy without formal, selective judgement from the medical community needs to be respected.