I, too, dislike the idea of making doctors withhold information to patients as a way of trying to limit the number of abortions based on gender alone.
One critic, however, questions the measure’s effectiveness, given that parents can mail order DNA tests that accurately predict fetal sex, and abortion clinics generally do not ask the reason for the procedure. The way to tackle sex selection is by combating the social mores that lead people to want sons and not daughters, rather than by limiting abortion, said Joyce Arthur, co-ordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.
“To restrict people’s freedoms, withholding information in that way, I think is unethical and unnecessary and is not going to prevent anything,” Ms. Arthur said. “It’s a little bit paternalistic and authoritarian.”
I agree that not telling patients won’t really help all that much (while annoying all the other parents out there who simply wish to know the gender of their baby as early as possible just because they’d rather know than not know). And yes, probably the best way to fight sex selection abortion is cultural, not legal. But hey, I wouldn’t mind if abortion clinics asked a few questions before going ahead with the procedure – why do you wish to abort; have you thought about other options; that sort of thing – at the very least make those parents who abort girls for no other reason than they prefer boys fess up semi-publicly. And really, it wouldn’t bother me if we could somehow have rules limiting access to abortion for entirely frivolous reasons – like because the baby is of the “wrong” gender. I am far from convinced this is possible and/or realistic, but if it were I wouldn’t be against it.
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Andrea adds: Well gosh, I didn’t know Joyce Arthur was all about freedom of information. I look forward to her advocacy in favour of doctors telling patients about the development of their children in detail then, at every stage. Information about what happens in an abortion (stirrups, suction, piece body parts back together after the fact to ensure that all have been removed)… You know, freedom of information.
When Joyce Arthur advocates for freedom of information for women it will be a sunny day in Canada indeed. It’s just that she really doesn’t want that, so it’s a bit rich to claim it here.
A blanket law restricting what doctors tell is unnecessary, as doctors are very aware when someone is wondering about the gender because they want to kill off their baby girl. It would require not a law, but a doctor telling parents I won’t support your nefarious intentions here, and here’s why. That would require doctors who don’t enforce an abortion culture in other areas. (They shouldn’t be the arbiters of what constitutes “a good abortion.” Here we have an attempt for the pot to call the kettle black. “We don’t like your cultural reasons for killing. We do, however, like our cultural reasons for killing.”)
All abortions are bad news.








I oppose this measure on the grounds of fetal personhood. A parent has the right to know the gender of her child.
And even from a woman’s point of view: shouldn’t you have the right to know who’s inside you?
Suzanne, inside of you is a baby, and that’s all that you need to know.
There used to be a day, not too long ago, that other information was not available.
Babies were simply born as girls or boys.
I took some pleasure in the Joyce Arthur article, simply becuase it placed her nearer the slippery slope of abortion logic than most things I’ve read of hers.
I took less pleasure from the first comment posted here, with all due respect to the idea of fetal personhood.
Often I hear the word “right” used in place of the word “priviledge”. It always makes me think of conversations I had with my parents during my terribly turbulent teenage years – my Dad told me that a “right” is something that needs to be protected for all because it will keep you alive, free of torture, and allowed to think what you will.
Priviledge is entirely different, it is only given to some, and has no real impact on one’s survival or freedom of thought.
I “know” that I’m having another girl in few days (my husband and I have a boy and a girl now). If this is my “right”, this knowledge, then shouldn’t there be some recourse if the sonographer happened to be incorrect? Or shouldn’t my friends whose babies didn’t cooperate during their ultrasounds be allowed to go for state-paid ultrasounds until they know for sure? I find that idea to be both extreme and a bit ridiculous.
I have the right to prenatal care and a highly trained medical team. Everything else is a priviledge.
Knowing the gender of your child isn’t a right. Neither us aborting them on those or any other grounds.
(And speaking from second-hand experience so far, if the sonographer was wrong, life doesn’t stop…most people love their kids regardless of pink or blue…)
A right doesn’t preclude error. For instance, people have a right to an education, but if your school provides a bad education, has your right been violated? I don’t think so.
I think you have the right to information about yourself and your children. If a health care professional knows something about you, you have the right to that information because it concerns your self. I would think that’s elementary.
That being said, I don’t think one is ENTITLED to that kind of information. If the health care professional knows, they should tell you. If they don’t wish to co-operate and it’s not essential to your care, and they haven’t figured it out, then they aren’t obligated to find out for you, no more than I am entitled to have them find out anything else about my anatomy.
Joyce Arthur and others like her are all in favor of withholding information from women that might tip the woman’s decision away from abortion. But if we withhold the gender from the woman, so that she won’t abort a girl, all of a suddent they’re jumping up and down, screaming about a woman’s right to know. Funny, they want an abortionist’s right to prevent a woman from seeing an ultrasound before an abortion, even when the woman WANTS to see it. What happened to a woman’s right to know then?