Category: Sex Selection Abortions

In the United States, Medical World News reports a study in which 99 mothers were informed of the sex of their children.  53% of these pre-borns were boys and 46% were girls. Of this number, only one mother elected to kill her boy, while 29 elected to kill their girls.

Medical World News, with December 1, 1975, 45

Randy Alcorn “Pro-life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments” (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2000)

This is an old reference, but it shows the sex selection abortions have been taking place for a long time.

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In an article on sex-selection abortion:

“As Mara Hvistendahl points out in her excellent book “Unnatural Selection,” birth ratios for Asian-Americans of varying socioeconomic statuses and citizenship status (both citizens and recent immigrants) have skewed sex ratios that get only worse with subsequent pregnancies, a sign that women will abort to have boys even away from China’s barbaric one-child policy. “

Rachael Larimore “How far apart we are on abortion” The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA) June 2, 2012

This shows that sex selection abortions, despite what pro-choice activists say, do take place in the United States. Note: Sex selection abortions are by definition late term abortions because the gender of a fetus cannot be discerned until the 18-20th week, at the earliest.

 

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On a pro-choice site for clinic workers, a worker told the following story:

“Last week, a recent immigrant from an Asian country (I won’t say which) came to our clinic for an abortion. I was the abortion counselor that day. She was in her second trimester and wanted to know if we could figure out the sex of the fetus. This isn’t a completely strange question, but I don’t get asked that often.

Because she was less than 18 weeks and because we don’t perform diagnostic ultrasounds, I explained we wouldn’t be able to identify the sex. I let her know that usually diagnostic ultrasounds to determine the sex are done between 18-22 weeks and that if she had a physician/midwife, she could schedule an ultrasound with them at that time (as it is standard practice).

She wasn’t willing to wait at least another month to have an abortion. You know the drill: she’d have to travel out of state; the cost would be much higher; she’d have to spend time away from home; someone would have to watch her small daughter while she left the area (and explain why she needed a babysitter); and her husband would have to get a lot of time off work.

We don’t ask patients why they want to have an abortion. Really, it’s none of our business. Still, lots of women offer their reasons when we ask if they’re sure of their decision, if they have support, etc.

The woman from last week calmly offered she didn’t want to have a girl.

Look, I’m about as pro-choice as they come. As long as it is a patient’s own decision to have an abortion, I’m cool with it regardless of the circumstances or gestation. I’ll admit though, it took me a slight second to register what the patient was telling me. My brain hitched.

I nodded at her and she explained herself, though she didn’t owe me any explanation at all.

In her country (like in many), girls do not have as many opportunities as boys and are considered a burden. She and her family plan to go back to their country soon and they wouldn’t be able to afford another girl (it costs a lot of money to have girls marry/dowries).

There’s been some national controversy about this (like, in May); even the pro-choicers didn’t want to really talk about sex selection abortion occurring. The reality is, though: it does.”

“Sex Selection” The Abortioneers Blog August 16, 2012

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When legislation came before Congress that would’ve banned abortions done because the baby is the “wrong” gender, pro-choicers fell over themselves to say that this never happens. However, a number of abortionists and clinic workers have documented incidents where it has.

Sallie Tisdale, a pro-choice clinic worker, said the following in her article in Harpers magazine:

“Always couples would abort a girl and keep a boy… An 18-year-old woman with three daughters brought her husband to the interview. He glared first at me, then at his wife, as he sank lower and lower in the chair, picking his teeth with a toothpick. He interrupted conversation with his wife to ask if I could tell whether the baby would be a boy or girl. I told him I could not. “Good,” he replied in a slow and strangely malevolent voice, “because if it was a boy I’d wring her neck.”

Sallie Tisdale “We Do Abortions Here” Harpers, October 1987

Tisdale was pro-choice and working in a clinic at the time she said this in her article. Therefore, there is no pro-life bias here.

Quoted in Rachel M MacNair, PhD. Achieving Peace in the Abortion War (New York: iUniverse, 2009) 55

 

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When pro-lifers proposed a law protecting unborn baby girls from being aborted solely because they were girls, pro-choice groups fell all over themselves saying that this never happens. They claimed that sex selection abortions were a myth. However, a number of abortionists and clinic workers have come forward saying they encountered people who aborted for just this reason. In one  study, the following quote appeared :

“I was devastated upon learning my second child was another girl during the ultrasound. The family name dies with my husband. He told me that I was useless. He did not want this child and I was to get an abortion. He left us when I refused, taking all our money and the car.”

– Anita

Chaille O’Neal “Never forgotten: The lasting impact of birth trauma” International Journal of Childbirth Education March 1, 2001

Abortions because of the gender of the child are by definition late-term abortions because an ultrasound can only see the gender of the child in the second trimester.

Here is a picture of an unborn baby at 16 weeks

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In  an article in the American Medical News, the author discusses how certain abortions are hard on the abortion providers:

“One of the most vexing problems providers face is their feelings about procedures done for reasons that make them – or others – uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s “sex selection” – the patient wants a boy and is carrying a girl.”

Diane M Gianelli, “Abortion Providers Share Inner Conflicts” American Medical News, July 12, 1993

Some women do abort when they are carrying a girl instead of a boy. When opposing a Bill that would address this, Planned Parenthood insisted that this does not happen, but many abortion providers have admitted that it does.

Sex selection abortions, are, by definition, late-term abortions – they cannot be performed until an ultrasound can identify whether the baby is a boy or girl, in the second trimester.

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Pro-Choice people like to say that abortions are never done because the baby is the wrong gender. Legislation that sought to protect unborn baby girls from being aborted just because they were girls failed in Congress. Pro-choicers adamantly opposed this law. Despite  their professed concern about women, they are not worried about unborn women– to these champions of “women’s rights” is perfectly acceptable for an abortion to be done solely because the parents want a boy when their unborn baby is a girl.

Kelly Clinger is a sidewalk counselor (a person who intervenes in the clinic and tries to convince women to have their babies instead of aborting them) who witnessed a woman five months pregnant with twins who went to get an abortion at Orlando Women’s Center.

Orlando Women’s Center performs abortions up to 28 weeks – see this ad in the local paper

this is what an unborn baby looks like at 20 weeks (five months)

The woman, whose name has been withheld, was aborting her babies solely because they were girls and she wanted boys. The reason for her abortion came out as she talked to the sidewalk counselors.

Offers of financial help, free housing, and offers to adopt the babies poured in as soon as this picture when viral. Unfortunately, despite so many people’s prayers and offers of help, this woman aborted her baby girls. See a picture of what babies look like at 20 weeks after they are aborted

Unfortunately, there are no significant legal barriers preventing women from getting abortions all the way up to birth anywhere in the United States. Many states have no laws on the books at all. Other states have laws with health exceptions, but health has been defined so broadly by the Supreme Court (in Doe versus Bolton) that any emotional distress can qualify as a health risk. Often, all the woman has to do is convince the abortionist, who clearly has a vested interest in her choice, that her emotional health would be compromised by giving birth and she can have the abortion legally. Minor physical conditions like heart burn can also be used to justify late-term abortion. Sometimes a little bit of paperwork is needed – other times not.

Many pro-choicers are uncomfortable with late-term abortions and have no idea that they are even legal. Other pro-choice activists maintain that they are only done for the direst of medical reasons – but this is a myth. While some late-term abortions are done because the baby has a defect (often down syndrome or similar condition) the majority are done for elective reasons. According to a survey in the Journal of Perspectives of Sexual and Reproductive Health, these are the reasons why women have late-term abortions:

45% had trouble finding abortion provider

37% unsure of date of last menstrual period

68% had no pregnancy symptoms

58% Didn’t comfirm pregnancy until in second trimester

30% had difficulty deciding on abortion

31% had previous second trimester abortion

Did not cite a single case of fetal abnormality

“Second Trimester Abortion: Logistics and Lack of Symptoms are Factors” Perspectives of Sexual and Reproductive Health Volume 38 No 2, June 2006

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Do women ever get abortions because the baby is the wrong gender? one abortionist recounts a story:

“In one case, a woman who was in her late thirties, well educated, and a professional person with healthy children requested an abortion for the reason that the fetus was male…The fetus was normal but it was male…

Even though I had begun by being totally opposed to an abortion for this reason, she persuaded me that, in her mind, abortion was the only choice she could accept for this pregnancy for her own mental health as well as the welfare of her family.

The lesson from this anecdote is that we, as abortion-service providers, cannot place moral judgments on the motives or actions of out patients.”

Warren Hern Abortion Practice (Philadelphia: J Lippincott, 1990) Chapter 3, Pg 85

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