Abortion | 05/12/2009 10:00 am
'Gender-Based' Abortions OK in Sweden
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.























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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.
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!
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.
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….
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.