You may have heard of the report about ads for ultrasounds in Punjabi newspapers, which promised that the sex of the baby would be told immediately.
Now as you may know, sex selection abortions do occur in communities with origins in South Asian countries.
Now that the ads have been suspended because of the publicity shed on them, Dr. John Stephens, the man responsible for the ads now cries "racism".
“This is targeting,” said Stephens about the debate. “This is racism (against South Asians). This is one particular group of values with access to the media.”
Stephens stressed that his clinic does not provide abortions but prenatal health screening. Sex determination, he says, is only one prenatal service he offers.
He also says:
“Stop calling my clinic sex selection,” he said. “You go and you discriminate against South East Asian women, saying, you’re not allowed to terminate a pregnancy – and it’s called racism.
Let me get this straight.
His lab goes to the trouble to put an ad in a Punjabi newspaper.
Said lab advertizes that sex determination is made immediately.
Which practically every Canadian-born woman would know, so you wouldn't have to tell her that. But maybe less educated women from foreign countries might need to be told.
Said lab knows that sex selection abortions take place because of these sex determinations:
And he's trying to pin this on health screenings?
And then he cries racism???
Does he think we're stupid?
And just who is behind this push for the elimination of sex selection abortion? A bunch of pro-life activists? Why no...
Charan Gill, of Surrey’s Progressive Intercultural Community Services, campaigned 15 years ago to remove fetal sex determination advertisements from South Asian newspapers in Canada. Weeks ago, he contacted local and national radio stations about the presence of sex determination clinic ads in the Ajit Weekly and the Hamdard Weekly, appealing to local businesses to boycott papers who ran them.
“I think there’s a growing movement against the sex selection issue and the aborting of female fetuses,” he said. “This isn’t racism, this is a social ill that should be exposed. People need to stop doing this. These kinds of social ills, social habits, have been there for hundreds of years. It will take some time to eradicate them.
Hm....I wonder what the progressive feminist community would have to say about that. Still, kudos for having the brains to realize this is bad for the community, if not for the baby.
And FYI:
In Canada, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (SOCG) seriously discourages prenatal sex screening. Don Davis, SOGC president, announced this summer: “The SOGC remains firmly against the practice of sex selection through selective abortion.”
But the hardcore feminists think that's wrong. REAL choice involves letting the woman make that decision.
And by the way, Dr. Stephens agrees:
“It’s nobody’s business,” said Stephens about the information obtained in an ultrasound clinic about the sex of a baby. “Any white Canadian woman can have an abortion after 20 weeks, no questions asked.
“It’s not the physician’s role (to interfere or to discourage sex selective abortions). It’s paternalistic.”
Any white woman can have an abortion at 20 weeks?
Why, feminists say otherwise. According to them, we're in a crisis shortage of abortionists.
And oh yeah:
Gill says he and his colleagues will continue to work within the South Asian community, promoting gender equality and discouraging sex selective abortions.
“We are pressing the government,” he said, “lobbying the MPs, telling them to do something about this issue.”
I wish him luck.
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