The amendments were aimed at modernising the legislation, and moving abortion out from under the Crimes Act of 1961 and the Contraceptive, Sterilisation Act of 1977.

One of the more fiercely debated points in the Bill related to ‘sex-selective abortion' or the termination of female foetuses.

Opposition to abortion on grounds of sex selection was bipartisan.

Chair of the Abortion Legislation Select Committee, Labour's Ruth Dyson, who voted for the changes, pointed out during third reading of the Bill: "We expressed opposition to any abortion for the purpose of sex selection."

Simeon Brown of the National Party, who voted against the reform in his speech, noted (erroneously, it is worth adding) that "it is shocking that this law allows for discrimination against unborn baby girls purely on the basis of their sex under the guise of a woman's right to choose. Who will defend the rights of these unborn girls?"

In the end, the reform Bill addressed the issue of sex selection in Section 20 F of the amendment: "This Parliament opposes the performance of abortions being sought solely because of a preference for the foetus to be of a particular sex."

The legislation also stipulates that the Director-General of Health should appraise the effects of the law change on sex selection in five years.

Although not explicitly mentioned, the concern with sex-selective abortion is a direct reference to New Zealand's ethnic minority community, especially those from Asia.

In denouncing sex-selective abortion, Ruth Dyson emphasised: "That (sex selection) is not part of New Zealand culture, and we never want it to be".

In some ways, she is right.

Sex selection is widely considered an ‘Asian' problem.

Since the 1980s, researchers have highlighted that sex ratio at birth, or the numbers of boys born compared to girls, in India and China consistently fell below expected normal levels.

The expected normal would be an equal split but instead for every 1000 boys born, there would be 990 or 980 fewer or less in some regions.

Scaled to populations of a billion or more, these shortfalls of girls amounted to millions of girls.

These are Asia's "missing women", a reflection of society's preference for males and undervaluation of girls.

The development of ultra-sound technology in the 1980s was an important turning point.

Until then, unwanted girl children were disposed of after birth (female foeticide) but with in-utero sex identification, abortion became the preferred method of sex selection.

Sex selection is constructed as a poverty issue - the spotlight was on the poor who could not bear the social and financial burdens of a daughter and therefore preferred abortion to the birth of a girl child.

It is now well established that son preference and sex selection cuts across class, occupation, religion, and urban-rural distinctions.

For a long time, sex selection was assumed to be an Asian problem in Asia.

Recent research shows that the practice appears to have migrated with Asians to the UK, Canada, USA, Australia, and Europe.

Although not on the scale seen in Asia, male-favouring sex ratios have been noted in some Asian minority communities from the 1970s onwards.

Sex selection appeared to be practised among first-generation, educated, economically established, urban Asian migrants. In one Canadian study, sex-selective practices were also found among second-generation migrants.

What is clear is that son preference is a strong and enduring sentiment. Continue reading

Dr Mark Hobart, 55, was asked by an Indian married couple to refer them to an abortion clinic after discovering at 19 weeks they were having a girl when they wanted a boy.

"I refused to refer the patient because there was no medical reason to do it and it offended my moral conscience," Dr Hobart told a television channel.

"It's very wrong, I don't know any doctor in Victoria that would be willing to refer a woman that wanted to have an abortion just because of gender at 19 weeks."

The couple found another doctor and obtained an abortion a few days later.

For the last five months, Dr Hobart has faced an investigation from the Medical Board of Australia and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.

The Medical Board of Victoria began an investigation after board members complained that the incident called into question his professional conduct.
Neither the woman nor her husband filed a complaint against him.

By refusing to provide a referral for a patient on moral grounds or refer the matter to another doctor, Dr Hobart admits he has broken the law and could face suspension, conditions on his ability to practice or even be deregistered.

"I've got a conscientious objection to abortion, I've refused to refer in this case a woman for abortion and it appears that I have broken the rules," he said.

"But just because it's the law doesn't mean it's right."

Victoria's Abortion Law Reform Act requires a doctor with a conscientious objection to refer the patient to a practitioner who does not conscientiously object.

Sex-selective abortions are common in parts of the world, particularly in some Asian countries where there is a strong cultural preference for boys over girls. The practice has contributed to severe gender imbalances in some regions.

In Britain, the Director of Public Prosecutions recently declared that the 1967 Abortion Act does not "expressly prohibit gender specific abortions".

Obstetricians in Australia have proposed preventing parents from knowing the sex of unborn babies until it is too late to terminate, to prevent gender-based abortions.

Sources:

Catholic News Agency

Catholic Herald

Herald Sun

Image: Herald Sun

Sme physicians in the city of Beed, India are engaging in the practice, according to India Today, which spoke with Varsha Deshpande of Lek Ladki Abhiyan, an NGO working against the practice. Maharashtra's Public Health Minister Suresh Shetty also admitted to the newspaper that he had heard of reports of the practice taking place. Continue reading

The gender-gap has widened by a million in the last 10 years.

Selective sex selection Indian families where the first child has been a girl, more and more parents with access to prenatal ultrasound testing are sex-selecting their second child. If the child is a female they abort it in the hope that a subsequent pregnancy will yield a boy, said the study, published in The Lancet.

If the first child was a boy, however, there was no drop in the girl-boy ratio for the second child, showing that families - especially those better off and more educated - are far more likely to abort girls if the firstborn is also female.

The increasingly lopsided ratio of girls to boys is larger in wealthy households than poorer ones, the researchers reported.

Between 1980 and 2010, they estimate, four to 12 million girls were aborted because of their sex.

The female shortfall for the zero-to-six age bracket was 6.0 million in 2001, and 4.2 million in 1991.

"Increases in selective abortion of girls are probably because of persistent son preference combined with decreases in fertility," the authors say.

The mean number of children per Indian woman fell from 3.8 in 1990 to 2.6 in 2008.

Selective abortion of female foetuses accounts for two to four per cent of female pregnancies in India, roughly 300,000 to 600,000 per year out of 13.3 to 13.7 million carrying a girl in 2010, the study found.

Declines were much greater in mothers who had gone to school for at least 10 years than in mothers with no education at all. The same trend held true for wealthier households compared to poorer ones.

"The financial incentive for physicians to undertake this illegal activity seems to be far greater than the penalties associated with breaking the law," S.V. Subramanian of the Harvard School of Public Health said in a commentary, also in The Lancet.

In the study, researchers led by Prabhat Jha of the Centre for Global Health at the University of Toronto, analysed census data from 2011 and earlier.

Source

• Straights Times