Sex-selective abortion

[Anakin McFly]

I get kind of pro-life-y when it comes to how millions of foetuses are aborted solely because they're female, to the point that places like China and India have heavily male-skewed sex ratios.

Does the feminism of not wanting to abort female babies just for being female cancel out the unfeminism of wanting to regulate what women do with their bodies? What if the latter decisions are influenced by patriarchal culture? (But then again, the patriarchy is everywhere, so what decisions aren't?)

Or is the important issue not abortions themselves, but the reasons for those abortions, where there can be both ethical and unethical reasons to get one? But that just has the potential to get really nitpicky.

Or is this a wholly valid moral concern, but a discussion that should be led by women and not by men trying to stick their noses into things that rarely concern them?

[Dr_Liszt]

Those places are extremely sexist.

I can't blame Indian parents for doing that. So the solution is go there and brainwash them into thinking women are humans too. Then the world will get better.

[Anakin McFly]

Next question - isn't that solution colonialist and racist to assume that (white) Westerners know best about these sorts of things and should impose their worldviews on other countries?

[phe_de]

I am pro-choice. Meaning: It should be the pregnant woman's choice alone whether she aborts or not.

If she believes that being a woman in India sucks, and she therefore chooses to abort her female fetus, then so be it.
But if her husband or someone else pressures the woman to abort a child she'd not abort if it was her decision, then it's not ok. But in these sexist societies, usually husbands and in-laws have ways to pressure the woman.

Eventually societies with a heavy sexist imbalance will implode. If these societies were sexist, then good riddance.

About the colonialism and racism thing: Non-discrimination based on gender is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. All members of the United Nations signed them, India included. So allowing India to be excempt from human rights is equal to saying that Indians are not human.

[Dr_Liszt]

I don't know. Imposing things usually backfire really bad with colonialism.

The best way would be incentivising people. Via government help, subsidies, that sort of thing a lot of people are against because "waaah my taxes are going to the poor". The Western world could help via scholarships for women, or giving stuff away to the parents that will have these children. The killings and abortion of girls in India is mostly due to economic reasons.

I have no idea what could work in China.

[Dr_Liszt]

Also, there are few schools on gender equality in India. So they are fighting against this in a way. You have to consider India is a very unequal country, so colonization will just make matter worse since inequality, oppression and instability increases. The whole "We are going to fix things up" is completely ignorant.

[Cassius Clay]

If Western countries believe it's their duty to interfere with other countries based on morality(human rights issues, etc), then they should not have a problem with other countries invading them for the similar reasons. No country has the moral high-ground for that kind of one-sided bs. America is a clusterfuck of human rights violations, yet we have the audacity to be talking about "fixing" other countries' situations(which is typically a cover for colonizing).

[sikax]

Colonization is only natural. Imagine you live in a dark, dusty shitty little closet in an otherwise beautiful mansion. Other people live in other nice rooms, and you have a shitty room. It's cramped and there are mangy goats in your closet, but some other guy has a big comfy bed and hot running water. Mmmm, sounds good. So you invent a weapon that he doesn't have, go to his room and kill him. Now that room is yours.

Do that for several hundred years, ruin every room in the house with your greed and bloodlust, and then condemn the remaining tenants for living in a shitty house.

[Cassius Clay]

But it's generally the most powerful/richest members of the society that push colonizing/imperialistic efforts because of their own greed. Not poor desperate people living in shitty closets.

And I like goats.

[sikax]

Fifteenth century Europe is the shitty closet, the nice rooms are nice places like India and East Africa and North America. Yeah it was the rich people in Europe deciding to go out and conquer things, but in general the place was a shithole. A rich European, though, just had the least shit-covered corner of the closet. That's the idea. Still a shitty closet. And then the greed snowballed. Or shitballed.

[Dr_Liszt]

The solution is obviously let the goats rule the world.

[Ptolemy_Banana]

Next question - isn't that solution colonialist and racist to assume that (white) Westerners know best about these sorts of things and should impose their worldviews on other countries?

Not if they're right.

[Cassius Clay]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e42475.htm

[Anakin McFly]

I keep encountering people online who decry the horrible bigotry and violations of human rights in other countries and claim it's proof that white people shouldn't have given them independence. They're not exactly being shining beacons of progress.

I like turtles more than goats.

[Dr_Liszt]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e42475.htm

Oh yeah, I heard about that one. Obama the little hypocrite. To think I defend him sometimes.