Women's Rights
Yesterday was International Women’s Day. I wanted to post this today since it’s important to talk about this on more than one day.
Frequent readers of the Scene will know that I care seriously about women’s issues and women’s rights.
The expression women’s rights is often reduced to reproductive rights, which are important, but are only a subset of these. I would argue that another important part of women’s rights are human rights. Women’s human rights — to property, to personal integrity — are often trampled because they are women, and protecting these rights everywhere for a start would take us a long way to where we want to go.
One of the most important of human rights is the right to life. Sex-selective abortion is thought to have caused the death of at least 100 million baby girls.
I hope you’ll forgive me for thinking that one reason we don’t hear as much about this as we should is that many well-intentioned women’s rights activists are afraid that talking about this tragedy will expose abortion as, well, what it is.
And yet it’s hard for me to think of a more terrible tragedy. How much more vibrant, rich and beautiful would the world be with another 100 million girls and women?
One day, we will all have a lot of explaining to do.
The reason to abort, and there are many in addition to the one you mention, are all equal. If abortion is, for you, justified for one reason then it is for all. The life of the unborn child either has intrinsic value or it does not. If it does not then the reason for ending it is morally irrelevant. I do not believe well-intentioned women’s rights activists that support abortion struggle with this idea, or overly concern themselves with individual reasons for aborting.
— steve walsh · Mar 9, 06:18 PM · #
Steve: Then why, on the few occasions they mention the issue, do they deplore it?
— PEG · Mar 9, 07:08 PM · #
Are you suggesting that the existence of sex-selective abortion invalidates other abortions?
— Freddie · Mar 9, 08:21 PM · #
If they support abortion, choice, if you like, for any that chose it, but express strong objections to sex-selective abortions, then I would say their thinking is incoherent or accuse them of political correctness. On what basis do they reject sex-selection as a valid reason for abortion? And do they object only because it often favors male babies over female babies (fetuses)? Is inconvenience, to one’s professional career, financial, or marital circumstances, a valid justification for abortion and sex-selection is not? If so, why?
— steve walsh · Mar 9, 09:02 PM · #
Freddie: I’m not sure what you mean by “invalidates.” Other abortions also result in dead babies, so in that sense they’re equally valid.
I do believe more people should be more concerned about sex-selective abortion.
And I do believe more people should look harder at the consequences of readily available abortions and whether those consequences are compatible with a just and liberal society.
steve: These are all very good points, but then again I never thought the pro-choice argument was coherent, as you put it, to begin with.
— PEG · Mar 9, 09:30 PM · #
I must admit to ambivalence on the topic of abortion, I might even accuse myself of incoherence. While sympathetic to the notion of a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body, I find abhorrent the notion that a woman would choose to abort because of the gender of the baby or because of one of the other inconveniences I note above. As I say, if you judge that the unborn child has no rights that supersede the mother’s, nor any overarching intrinsic value, then any reason to abort is good enough. I just cannot bring myself to accept that concept.
— steve walsh · Mar 10, 12:01 AM · #
“How much more vibrant, rich and beautiful would the world be with another 100 million girls and women?”
This is excessively condescending.
— bcg · Mar 10, 02:11 AM · #
If you are opposed to all abortions, why be emotionally manipulative and talk about sex-selective abortion?
And, I assure you, no— you are not in favor of “women’s rights” if you are opposed to reproductive rights.
— Freddie · Mar 10, 03:45 AM · #
Freddie rote: “And, I assure you, no— you are not in favor of “women’s rights” if you are opposed to reproductive rights.”
I’ll bet Freddie is using a very special definition of “reproductive rights”. But the term is probably good for emotional manipulation.
— The Reticulator · Mar 10, 04:27 AM · #
PEG is spot on — the truth is that many women, often due to pressure from men, choose to abort a baby because it is a girl. Period. So of course it makes sense to talk about sex-selective abortion because it actually happens in the real world and contributes to the overall problem of abortion.
Of course, all abortion is wrong and inimical to human rights properly understood. The fact that crazy Fred shows up and tries to pretend he is more ‘womyn’ than the crazies who refer to “reproductive rights” (what a silly term for killing another human being!) is just icing on the cake.
— Jeff Singer · Mar 10, 05:07 AM · #
I don’t really get the argument here. I’ll leave the implicit assumption that a fetus necessarily has a right to life alone. I mean, even if I grant the assumption that sex selective abortion is a grave injustice against women, it doesn’t remotely suggest that the problem reduces to the simple act of sex selective abortion. A culture that values women as worth less than men will result in sex selective abortion. Lamenting the outcome is understandable, but why focus on the outcome when the source of the problem is pretty much the definition of why feminism exists? I mean, I know why YOU focus on the outcome. Because you don’t like abortion. But I don’t see why that should magically become the raison d’être for women’s rights groups.
I mean, could make an equally crappy concern trolling post like this that involves libertarians, prohibition, the right to life, and drunk driving. I’d even put in some horseshit like: “But we can’t talk about drunk driving like that because it would expose what freedom truly means.”
— Console · Mar 10, 07:11 AM · #
bcg: I suppose I can understand why someone would view it that way, but I assure you that’s not how I see it.
steve: Yep. A reason why I wrote this post is because I believe most people, at least in the US, are also ambivalent about abortion. Most people may not believe all abortions are wrong, but I would venture that a majority believe some abortions are wrong. And sex-selective abortions are among the most awful kind.
It’s weird that when you make a pro-life argument, pro-choicers will often bring up the most sympathy-inducing edge case, the 14-year-old-raped-by-her-father-whose-life-is-in-danger. But point out the most gut-churning edge case (a 100 million edge case) of abortion and all of a sudden you’re mounting an unfair attack.
Console:
I actually agree with all this. But it doesn’t mean the outcome can’t be pointed out.
A thought experiment, however: how would you feel about a country where rape was legal but where women’s rights groups said we shouldn’t change the law but focus on a culture that leads to so much rape. What would you think of that argument? Do you think such a country, all else being equal, could have more, or less rape, if rape was outlawed?
Freddie: Sigh… This is why we can’t have nice things. The abortion litmus test deprives women’s rights advocates of potential allies. It also doesn’t make any sense.
My grandmother started her own law firm in the 1950s. To give you perspective, in France, until 1962, women could not have their own bank accounts without a written authorization from their father or husband (because a woman either belongs to a father or a husband, right?). And in the 1950s she was not only a practicing lawyer but a business owner. And she happens to be pro-life.
The idea that you can’t be feminist and pro-life is patently false.
I’m not trying to be emotionally manipulative. I’m trying to point people’s attention a specific tragedy which doesn’t get enough attention.
And yes, I am also trying to make a point about abortion in general. But it’s incidental.
I’m also trying to make alliances. Surely disagreeing about some things doesn’t mean disagreeing about all things. I’m genuinely interested, in good faith, in working with pro-choice women’s groups to denounce sex-selective abortion more loudly.
I’m also trying to point out a specific problem. It is a specific problem, with its own issues. It’s worth looking at separately.
“If you are against all deficit spending, why are you talking about just defense spending/taxes/entitlements?” I don’t know, because reforming defense spending/taxes/entitlements is a specific thing that warrants separate examination even though it is part of a bigger problem?
— PEG · Mar 10, 09:05 AM · #
Just an additional clarification. I’m making the following points:
- Sex-selective abortion is an awful tragedy.
- We don’t hear enough about sex-selective abortion.
- Sex-selective abortion highlights shows that readily-available abortion has negative social consequences that pro-choice and women’s rights supporters should pay more attention to.
These points are related, but they’re separate. You don’t have to agree to all of them to agree with one or two of them.
— PEG · Mar 10, 11:12 AM · #
All those points are wrong.
- Sex-selective abortion is not any kind of “tragedy”, and it doesn’t kill “100 million baby girls.”
- Pro-life trolls such as yourself harp endlessly about sex-selective abortion, so we’re hearing plenty about it.
- Sex-selective abortion doesn’t highlight anything except the continued perception that women are less valuable as human beings than men, and the notion that a woman can’t make a decision about what human beings are allowed to take up residence inside her body contributes to that devaluation.
Therefore sex-selective abortion is, in part, the responsibility of pro-life advocates, not pro-choice feminists. Pro-choice feminism eliminates sex-selective abortion not by eliminating abortion (which is akin to treating colds by outlawing sneezing), but by increasing the perceived value of women.
— Ch3t · Mar 15, 05:47 PM · #
Great post.
— Joules · Mar 15, 08:01 PM · #