Abortion | 05/12/2009 10:00 am

'Gender-Based' Abortions OK in Sweden

By The Staff at wowOwow.com

Women who want to have abortions due to their fetus’ gender are legally allowed to do so, health officials in Sweden said yesterday.

The case arose earlier this year after a woman, who had twice aborted female fetuses, asked doctors to tell her her child’s gender. Unsure of their obligations, the doctors asked the National Board of Health and Welfare for guidance.

That board now says doctors are obligated to perform a patient’s abortive request as long as the woman’s not farther along than 18 weeks, The Local reports.

Read more about: Abortion, Gender-Based Abortion, Health, News, Sweden, women

35 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

There all you women who so favor this abominable act……It’s "you" they are targeting in the womb! and is it any wonder when you are the one’s who so ferverently want this…….A perfect case of backfiring!

By HABIBI on 05/12/2009 10:07 am

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What a sick world this has become. I have only to say OMG

By BarbaraB3 on 05/12/2009 10:20 am

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Now my day is ruined! This sickens me to no-end. How very sad that a couple would do such a thing to their baby because it is the wrong sex! Is this what we are coming to?

By LibraLady on 05/12/2009 10:22 am

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Libra, this is exactly where the United States is headed…..Obama wants to model us after these countries!!

By deberB on 05/12/2009 12:55 pm

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I personally find this disgusting, but also believe that the motives of any woman who would choose this are between her and God. With all of the people in this world who would sell their soul for a healthy child, regardless of gender, it’s a sad commentary on us as a species that we would end the life of an otherwise healthy child, simply because it didn’t fit into our "plans"…when my second child was born, i would’ve LOVED to have had another girl, simply because….I already had all the "accroutrements" for a girl (clothes, bedding, etc.). But my second was a boy, and he has turned out to be one of the great joys of my life…a sweet, happy, loving little boy who is always eager to please, with the sweetest, gentlest soul a person could have, always ready with a hug, a kiss that tastes of cookies and juice, and a story about some new discovery he made. His patience and perseverance is a great complement to his older sisters tenacity and inpaticience, but she, over her 8 years of life, has already given me a treasure trove of wonderful memories, and is herself one of the most inquisitive children I’ve ever met. I think that too many adults view children as a toy, or a pet almost, and forget that they are people too.

By ElizabethNewman on 05/12/2009 10:23 am

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Of course, I guess India and China have it right? No abortions, just kill the little girls whenever you feel the need…

You people who believe a fetus is a human need to get real!

By JohnG on 05/12/2009 10:23 am

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What is a fetus? A growing human and at eighteen weeks can feel pain and has all necessary body parts to be considered male or female. If you don’t want to be pregnant, fine the first trimester is when you do it. But to bring pain on a baby because it’s not the gender you want is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of!

By MyKidsRockN on 05/12/2009 10:30 am

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I do believe that once a fetus reaches the point of being viable w/o drastic measures is a human, yes…and I don’t think I need to "get real"…I have seen a 7 month old fetus on an ultrasound, and it looked just like the baby that came out of me 6 weeks later.

I also think that any baby that is NOT viable is a human in the making….

I don’t think ANYONE on here is advocating infanticide, or murder…quite the opposite. What people on here are crying out against is the utter selfishness that would drive someone to kill a child for no other reason than it’s gender…whether it be before OR after they are born.

By ElizabethNewman on 05/12/2009 10:33 am

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This is just sick! We have become such a selfish society! You know people should just be happy they can freaking get pregnant (man I wanted to use another word). The fact that a doctor "must" perform this instead of being, at least, allowed to refer the "person" to another doctor, is coersion, at best. One should be allowed to bring babies into this world without being forced to take them out. Arghhhhh….

By MyKidsRockN on 05/12/2009 10:28 am

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Ha Bibi~I certainly don’t "favor" abortion, but I do consider myself pro-choice. I don’t pretend to understand or know ALL women’s reason for choosing abortion, and I"m sure that a great many of them choose for it entirely selfish reasons. That said, I have known severa women for whom abortion was the right choice at the time. Abortions has been around even before Christianity, and it’s my fervent belief that a better alternative is to work to eliminate the NEED for them. However, I"m not naive enough to think that abortion will ever totally go way. As long as there are people in the world, there will be people that are selfish, and only concerned with their needs and desires….and that includes people who rape, and take advantage of women, putting them in the position of considering abortion.

By ElizabethNewman on 05/12/2009 10:29 am

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Very wise comment. I however just cannot get on board with a woman’s right to choose because she doesn’t want a little girl (or boy), kind of sick. But to go into your comment- we cannot possibly know what is going on in a woman’s heart, soul, life or mind when she is forced with that choice. I’ve been there done that. Do I regret my choice? Yes. But what is done, is done. At least it was safe and legal (and first trimester) and as I’ve said before, the soul of the would be child was not destroyed, I don’t have that power.

By MyKidsRockN on 05/12/2009 10:34 am

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I think it would be very interesting to see how her community would respond if the name of the woman, who makes a decision to abort based on gender, were publicized! No doubt, it would universally impact the abortion debate.

By LucindaHerbert on 05/12/2009 10:34 am

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I think the community has absolutely no rights in regards to the woman’s choice…

By JohnG on 05/12/2009 10:48 am

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I will say that I do not think there is any benefit in publicly tarring and feathering such a woman. I also don’t think she really "owes" anybody an explanation…it was her choice; a disgusting, despicable one IMHO, but hers just the same.

What I find more scary is the implications this could have….will we become a world that discriminates on the basis of what your parents did/didn’t elect to have "removed" from you genetic makeup….it makes me sound slightly nutty I know, but I can forsee that happening…kids getting bullied because their parents didn’t elect to have the "cancer" gene removed before birth…

It all reminds me of a remark made in the movie Jurassic Park, and I"m paraphrasing….we’ve spent so much time and effort to see if we COULD do it, we haven’t stopped to think if we SHOULD….

By ElizabethNewman on 05/12/2009 11:20 am

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Elizabeth,

I am pro-choice, but personally not in favor of abortions, principally because I am uncertain when the soul actually enters the body. I think it would be so much better if reproductive education were more thorough and widespread. But, I think most of us would have a visceral response to the idea that someone would abort a fetus if the gender didn’t suit them. I find it interesting that the press got ahold of this story in the first place and somehow didn’t get the names of the parties involved. I also wonder, if it did happen, how it would impact this discussion. It’s not about tarring and feathering (which I don’t think would be of value to anybody), it’s about how it suddenly would put a face on a subject that is often faceless. I don’t know if I made myself better understood.

By LucindaHerbert on 05/12/2009 11:46 am