Canada is haven for parents seeking sex-selective abortions

Canada is haven for parents seeking sex-selective abortions: medical journal

MONTREAL — An editorial in a major Canadian medical journal Monday urges doctors to conceal the gender of a fetus from all pregnant women until 30 weeks to prevent sex-selective abortion by Asian immigrants.

A separate article in the same issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal warns that Canada has become “a haven for parents who would terminate female fetuses in favor of having sons” due to advanced prenatal testing and easy access to abortion.

“Female feticide happens in India and China by the millions, but it also happens in North America in numbers large enough to distort the male to female ratio in some ethnic groups,” said the editorial by interim editor-in-chief Rajendra Kale.

While few studies have been done to assess how frequent the practice may be among immigrant communities in Canada, the editorial points to research that suggests sex-selection is more common among immigrants from India, China, Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines who already have at least one daughter.

It cites U.S. census data from 2000 that shows male-biased sex ratios among U.S.-born children of Asian parents, and a study of 65 Indian women in the U.S. from 2004-2009 that showed 89% of them terminated pregnancies with female fetuses.

Kale told AFP he believes that several hundred sex-selective abortions take place in Canada each year.

“Should female feticide in Canada be ignored because it is a small problem localized to minority ethnic groups? No,” said the editorial written by Kale, a Mumbai-born neurologist.

“The solution is to postpone the disclosure of medically irrelevant information to women until after about 30 weeks of pregnancy.”

Canada in 2004 outlawed fertility practices that would increase the likelihood that an embryo will be a certain sex, or that would identify an in-vitro embryo by sex for any reason other than to diagnose a sex-linked disorder or disease.

Kale said the Canadian medical establishment needs to go further, and make express rulings that would ban fetal sex disclosure before seven months, when it is too late for an abortion.

He added that doctors should nevertheless “avoid painting all Asians with the same broad brush and doing injustice to those who are against sex selection,” but called for collective cooperation by women of all races.

“The execution of a ‘disclose sex only after 30 weeks’ policy would require the understanding and willingness of women of all ethnicities to make a temporary compromise,” he wrote. “Postponing the transmission of such information is a small price to pay to save thousands of girls in Canada.”

The Canadian Medical Association, the country’s largest doctors’ group with 70,000 members, stressed that editorial viewpoints are not necessarily those of the CMA.

Kale’s controversial proposal was welcomed by conservative groups but opposed by the pro-choice advocates who warned that the debate extends much further than sex-selective abortion in minority groups.

“We would absolutely approve of such a ban,” said Gwendolyn Landolt, national vice-president of REAL Women of Canada. “Is it a right to know the gender of your child if you are going to use this information to kill it?”

Alexia Conradi, head of the pro-choice Women’s Federation of Quebec, agreed that abortive sex-selection is “unacceptable,” but questioned the motivation of those who support formal measures to prevent it.

“You have to wonder if the act of withholding information is a good thing when the matter is being raised by conservatives in the U.S. and Canada whose goal is to quietly roll back abortion rights.”

According to Jessica Arons of the left-wing Washington think-tank the Center for American Progress, the issue raises difficult questions for women’s advocates.

“Any types of restrictions on abortion are met with skepticism by the pro-choice community generally,” she said.“ A more appropriate intervention with sex-selection is to do more education, especially if we are talking about son preference, rather than seek to limit women’s choices or access to information.”

Medical ethicist Sam Packer told AFP that any proposal to curb women’s right to information would face steep opposition in the United States.

“It is a slippery slope,” said Packer, ethics chair at New York’s North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. “To respect other people’s cultural and religious views is why we started this country,” he added.

Sex-selective abortion seekers flocking to Canada: medical journal | News | National Post

It is not like an abortion is free for a foreigner. Why they don't just go for IVF/PGD technique to select the sex is beyond me. Not that I understand the homo-erotic fixation on having male children in the first place.

Seriously, if there were 75% males and 25% females, half of all men would need to be gay in order for there to be a partner for every person. Half of all men are not homosexual. Who wishes a life of loneliness on their own children?

I fail to understand how this will make a difference: "A more appropriate intervention with sex-selection is to do more education, especially if we are talking about son preference, rather than seek to limit women’s choices or access to information"

What will the education be ... girls are as valuable as boys? Can education undo culteral beliefs?

I think the simple answer is to not reveal fetal gender until after abortion-for-medical-reasons has been decided, or even until the moment that the baby is born. We wouldn't want men to revert to cavemen where they kill each other off in order to own the female so they can produce nothing but sons. Furthermore, what difference does it make to know the gender of the child before birth?

Especially in a country where women are just as valuable ( or nearly) as men are anyway. The only thing I can see is if they want to have a male kid in Canada and then ship the lil critter home.

A woman can legally request an abortion at any time. We have no laws preventing this in Canada. When the Abortion law was struck down, no govt passed a new abortion law.

Sex selection has been ongoing in North America, Asia for quite some time. Estimates are that based upon stats, 100 million or more abortions were done due to the sex being female. No other reason than the baby being female.

Next - Twins - We have in Canada, and it is not uncommon selective abortions of 1 of the twins. Yes it happens in the land of Maple Sugar. Many state the cost of twins, financial burden as the reason for the abortion.

Geezus, are the other half?

For humans, the sex ratio for live births is 105 males to 100 females. Males are less hardy and the ratio approaches 1 as the weak die.. Why would people opt to select males knowing their inherent weakness?

Spade, my thoughts on the other half line.

For rational people it should be able to. Look at the evidence. Here a girl child is not a "burden" as they are percieved in some asian countries. They can do pretty much anything a man can without help from a man.

You guys are looking way too into this.

Maybe the dads just wanna play some ball?

I have no doubt that there is truth to the hypotheses posed in the reports but how can we quantify this in order to justify action, which would probably be a violation of parental rights? To be blunt: I don't think we can. Gender identification of fetuses is a Pandora's Box that has already been opened, and if people want to misuse that knowledge, they will find a way to obtain it. Or they will do as was suggested by some studies in the past in rural China: girls in these areas/cultures will be "less hardy" and "more accident prone"...

So we are letting immigrants into the country who will be causing a gender imbalance in our cities. Very unwise. Why are we taking in immigrants again? We have the Toronto 18, honour killlings, and now this.

Immigrants do not create jobs in a slow economy, they merely come to fill jobs in a booming economy, which is now over. Immigrants do nothing for exports which create many good jobs. Export growth to India and China are flat, 75% of our exports go to one country, the USA. No change in 25 years. How global!!! Good job immigrant multicults!!!

The benefits of immigration are now in the ivory tower, not main street. Ergo, immigration should be sharply reduced to less than 50,000 per year.

It's called genocide when an entire group of people is systematically eliminated.

What are all the boys going to do when there are not enough females ... kill each other?

Immigrants never created jobs. They always sucked jobs away from Canadians. The big difference is that some immigrants are willing to work for it ... to get that higher rung on the ladder, while the Canadian may take it for granted. The immigrant gets ahead faster because he is more desperate ... and the Canadian gov't and taxpayers pay for the immigrants extended family of wife, children, parents, inlaws, cousins and who knows how many others that claim Canadian citizenship while committing crimes in other countrires ... ah, the price of immigrants.

Because the medical profession can't control selective abortion in Canada, they want to make information about the sex of fetus in pregnancy a secret. The price of being politically correct seems to be getting a little high.