In "Why Women Have a Right to Sex-selective Abortion" (2013), Ditum reverses the argument against abortion that it is anti-female because it can lead to abortion of female foetuses more than to abortion of male foetuses. Ditum argues that this means that sex-selective abortion must be accepted as a sufficient reason for an abortion since it is necessary for women to be have the right to make such decisions to counter the sexism that continues to prevail in many societies, if not in Britain, where she asserts that a woman should be able to have legal abortion irrespective of her reason for requesting it.
As you might have guessed from my title, I was very sure that Ditum knew that her ideas would be shocking to many people. They are likely to shock not only those who already oppose abortion but also many who favour legal abortion, who will dislike the idea that a woman might seek an abortion for a reason that seems either trivial or wrong, and many of the 1,425 comments that readers have written responding to her ideas (much as we respond to the ideas of each other on this blog) do show this: a lot of the commentators begin by saying that they agree that women do have a right to seek an abortion, and that safe, professional abortion should be legal on request, but then go on to say that they dislike Ditum's ideas, which take further an argument made Ann Furedi, the head of British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which is Britain's largest provider of abortions. Furedi recently argued in an online forum that even under current British law, abortion for birth control or sex-selection appeared to be legal (Pleasance, 2013). This idea upset many, and the result were calls by outraged politicians and others for an urgent review of the legislation.
But just because people like Furedi and now Ditum present arguments that many find shocking does not make them wrong: unless their arguments can be answered and refuted, rational and moral people must accept those arguments appear to be correct. Similarly, when people first started to suggest that perhaps slavery was wrong, the reaction among conservative traditionalists who wanted the traditional culture to continue was outraged shock: they rightly pointed out that there had always been slavery, that the ancient Greeks and Romans had slaves, that the Christian Bible endorsed slavery and so on. And these conservative supporters of traditional culture were morally wrong. Their ideas were immoral, and they could not rationally or morally support them. So they went to war. Thankfully, they lost and the ugly old tradition of human slavery ended in the US, after which that progressive move was exported to other nations.
And I suspect that Furedi and Ditum are right, but perhaps with some qualifications. Women do have a moral right to abortion for any reason before the foetus becomes a human being, perhaps even beyond that point, and laws against this right must therefore be unjust. However, even though it cannot be justly made illegal, I do think that there is something undesirable about using abortion to select the sex of a child. Or am I just prejudiced and not reasoning clearly?
But I am sure that a bit of pot stirring is a good thing. How else can long inherited errors be corrected?
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Reference
Pleasance, C. (2013, September 17). 'You CAN abort a baby because of its sex': Outrage at comments by boss of Britain's biggest terminations clinic. Mail Online. Retrieved September 23, 2013 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2424111/You-CAN-abort-baby-sex-Outrage-comments-boss-Britains-biggest-terminations-clinic.html
I do not agree with both Furedi and Ditum. Argument in abortion is quite similar to making use of guinea pigs for scientific experiments. The ones who gain profit always claim that this kind of actions should be legal or even morally acceptable. In my view, it is not fair. Fetuses or guinea pigs cannot fight for themselves since they are not even able to speak. They are just like pity victims.
ReplyDeleteMaybe one of the reason that our world keep experiencing dreadfully tragedies is because we, humen, let this kind of immoral actions to occur.
Thank you Yui. I'm glad someone has disagreed with me. Now, I have support my idea. And I must also answer the good supporting reason you have given.
DeleteOr perhaps someone else would like to support Ditum and Furedi on this highly controversial issue?
Guinea pigs reminds me of pigs.
DeleteIs it morally acceptable to kill and eat pigs, dogs, chickens, snakes, cows and the other animals that many humans enjoy for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
Is using animals for food any better or any worse than using them for scientific research or killing them for any other reason?
Peter,
ReplyDeleteyou also trigger what have already resided in my mind. There is a belief in Buddhism that all creatures in this world have ever been your family. They might have been your father, mother, brothers, sisters, children, and so on. It is considered cruelty that we eat the meats of our family's members. There is also one famous Thai scientist who has invented the landing system of the space craft to Mars, Dr. Art-Ong Jumsai Na Ayudhya, who proposes the assumption based on the length of humen's intestines that we are actually herbivores, not omnivores as scientific communities understand. Our intestines are quite long as same as herbivores while carnivores have short intestines since they have to excrete the meats as soon as possible otherwise the waste will become fearfully toxic to their bodies. Dr. Art-Ong claims that nowadays people suffer from weird and severe illness because they behave contradictory to their actual nature or in this case they what they should not eat.
I myself also try to be a vegetarian but still need quite a considerable time to change my habit.
Yui raises two issues here:
Delete1. Should Buddhists normally be vegetarian, choosing not to eat meat? Since buying meat in a supermarket or ordering it at a restaurant does cause other animals to be killed, it seems to me that the First Precept of Buddhism does mean that Buddhists today, although perhaps less so in the past, should not eat meat and thereby cause animals to be killed.
2. Irrespective of any religious teaching, should we all be vegetarian on either moral or health grounds?
What are your views on these questions, which I suspect are relevant to most, if not all, of our daily lives?
For the first issue, since it is longer than 2,600 years after the Lord Buddha has enlightened, his instructions are distorted in many ways. A lot of Buddhist sects are created. Hence, you can expect to see different versions of beliefs which claim to be Buddhism.
ReplyDeleteFor the second issue, eating only vegetables is also alternative remedy to cancer since meat is much more favorable to cancer unlike vegetables that do not make the infectious tumor to grow.