Are Sex-Selection Abortions A Reality in the US?

 AfterAbortion.org  recently posts that although China and India are already known offenders of sex-selection motivated abortions, it seems that other European countries and even the US are beginning to show data that indicates that the practice is beginning to take hold here as well.

It seems that some immigrant women, once they find that they are carrying female infants, may be forced by "old-school" husbands to abort infants of the "weaker" sex.

Read on....

Not Just China and India: Sex Selection Abortions Spreading Around the World

Experts Say Selection Abortions Are Increasing
in the U.S. and Europe

Efforts to expose and combat gendercide and sex-selection abortion have mostly focused on countries such as India and China. But now experts are reporting that this problem is spreading in Europe and the U.S., too.

According to a recent article by Elena Ralli at New Europe Online:

According to a recent study by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in Albania, 112 boys are born for every 100 girls, while in Kosovo and Montenegro the figures stand at 110 and 109 boys per 100 girls respectively. …
In countries like Albania and Macedonia these EU laws [against sex selection abortion] are being ignored since female births keep on decreasing[;] however, women’s rights activists also see a trend towards gender selection in EU member states as well.As a result, Danish media have indicated the existence of “abortion tourism” to Sweden, where terminating a pregnancy is legal until the 18th week. Moreover, studies from Norway and Britain suggest a gender imbalance among immigrants from Asian cultures, especially among second and third children.
In a November 2011 resolution, the Council of Europe voiced its concern over the rising trend of prenatal gender selection. But the EU has no legal say on the matter since abortion law is decided and adopted by individual states alone. As a result, EU cannot press for improvements in candidate nations either.

And in an article at National Review, population control expert Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, offers some shocking information on sex selection abortions in the United States:

[Dr. Sunita Puri],  who practices in the Bay Area, wanted to find out why so many immigrant Indian women in the United States were so eager to find out the sex of their unborn children, and why so many of them choose abortion when they found out they were carrying a girl.
What she discovered over the course of 65 interviews conducted over several years profoundly shocked her. Fully 89 percent of the women carrying girls opted for an abortion, and nearly half had previously aborted girls.
Puri’s report, published in Social Science and Medicine this last April, makes for grim reading. Women told Puri of their guilt over their sex-selection abortions, how they felt that they were unable to “save” their daughters. Even the women who turned out to be carrying boys this time around could not shake their remorse over having earlier aborted daughters in this deadly game of reproductive roulette.
They also made clear that they were not free actors when it came to reproductive “choice.” Many, when it was learned that they were carrying girls, became the victims of family violence. Some — in an effort to make them miscarry — had been slapped and shoved around by angry husbands and in-laws, or even kicked in the stomach. Others were denied food, water, and rest in order to coerce them into aborting their unwanted girl babies.

Mosher also sited research showing that sex-selection abortion “is widely practiced among certain Asian-American communities:”
Jason Abrevaya of the University of Texas analyzed U.S. birth data and found unusually high boy-birth percentages after 1980 among later children (most notably third and fourth children) born to Chinese and Asian-Indian mothers. Moreover, using maternally linked data from California, he found that Asian-Indian mothers are significantly more likely both to have a terminated pregnancy and to give birth to a son when they have previously only given birth to girls.
Columbia University economists Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund also found clear evidence of sex-selective abortions in what they called “son-biased sex ratios,” that is, a higher ratio of boys to girls than would occur in nature. Looking at the sex ratio at birth among U.S.-born children of Chinese, Korean, and Asian-Indian parents, they found that first-borns showed normal sex ratios at birth. But if the first child was a girl, the sex ratio jumped to 117, and if the first two children were girls, then the sex ratio jumped to 151. That is to say, for every 151 boys, there were only 100 hundred surviving girls. The rest had been eliminated.

Read more at :  http://afterabortion.org/2013/not-just-china-and-india-sex-selection-abortions-spreading-around-the-world/

Does the Military Support Abortion?

A recent article published on After Abortion.com sites that the Senate recently voted to authorize insurance coverage for abortions for women in the  military who become pregnant through rape or incest.



Studies have shown that only 50% of women who get pregnant by rape choose to have abortions, but pro-lifers fear that with insurance coverage military women may feel pressured to do so.


Check out the article and decide for yourself.

Paying for Abortions Harmful to Military Women Who Become Pregnant Through Rape

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Amy at Elliot Institute

Women Who’ve Been There Call for Better Support, Not Abortion

Abortion advocates are applauding a Senate vote to authorize insurance coverage for abortions for women in the military who become pregnant through rape or incest.
But many women who’ve been there — including the members of the Ad Hoc Committee of Women Pregnant By Sexual Assault (WPSA) — say that abortion will harm, not help, women who become pregnant through sexual assault.
The group says that covering abortion fosters the expectation that women who become pregnant through sexual assault want and need abortions, despite research showing that only half of women in such situations have abortions and that many believe abortion only causes additional problems.
If abortion is seen as the solution, women who become pregnant through rape will be more likely to be pressured to abort, face discrimination or disbelief about their stories and have difficulty finding the support they need.
The book Victims and Victors, based on one of the only surveys ever done of women who became pregnant through rape or incest, includes the story of a woman who was pressured to abort by medical personnel and family members after becoming pregnant through rape while her husband was in the military:

Abortion was very strongly encouraged by the military medical personnel, as well as by my husband and family. My husband said, ‘Abortion now,’ while I was still in the hospital. He called my parents, who agreed with him. I was told I was emotionally unable to make the decision, so my husband would make if for me. I checked myself out of the hospital to escape a forced abortion. I could not rationalize how the violent act committed against me gave me the right to commit a violent act against an innocent child …

Continue reading at:  http://afterabortion.org/2012/paying-for-abortions-harmful-to-military-women-who-become-pregnant-through-rape/

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Ireland Abortion Laws: What do you think of the case of Savita Halappanavar

The recent case of Savita Halappanavar, a dentist who apparently died from blood poisoning due, in part from, some say, because she was unable to get an abortion in Ireland has blown up the Pro Life/Pro Choice debate.

According to some reports, Halappanavar was already carrying a 17 week old baby who had died in her womb, and hospitals were still unable to perform the process to remove the fetus. Other reports say the baby still had a heartbeat at the time of the termination request.

In any case, it calls attention to the Pro Life/Pro Choice debate and the situation in Ireland where some pro choice groups complain that women must go to the UK to get abortions in the cases of rape, incest or other tragic circumstances. 

Whatever your stance, read on about this interesting and controversial case.. tell us what you think.

 (From the BC Catholic Paper)

Pro-lifers warn against snap judgments regarding Ireland abortion case

Thursday, 22 November 2012 08:06

Following the death of a pregnant women in Ireland who was denied an abortion, pro-life voices are advising careful examination of the circumstances rather than abortion advocacy.

Debate over Irish abortion law has been heated since news broke of Savita Halappanavar, a 17-week pregnant woman who died in a Galway hospital on Oct. 28.

Halappanavar's autopsy has revealed that she died of blood poisoning and E. coli ESBL, an antibiotic-resistant strain of the bacterium.



“Instead of jumping to the conclusions that Halappanavar needed an abortion and that Ireland needs to legalize the killing of the youngest of its kind, the reasonable approach would be to get to the bottom of what Halappanavar’s condition was and examine how it was, or was not, responded to,” wrote Stephanie Gray, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform Nov. 20.



E. coli ESBL has recently spread throughout the U.K., causing urinary tract infections which can develop into blood poisoning.



“The presence of E. coli ESBL is particularly problematic if Halappanavar was given antibiotics to fight an infection that was resistant to those very antibiotics,” Gray said.

Both the Irish health department and University Hospital Galway are making independent inquiries into the circumstances of Halappanavar's death.

On Oct. 20, she went to the hospital suffering severe back pain and there found she was miscarrying. She then requested an abortion, but was told medical staff would not make such a move as long as her daughter had a heartbeat.



Prasa, the child, died four days later, and after another three days Savita succumbed to blood poisoning and E. coli ESBL.



“We have yet to hear from the hospital and the medical professionals involved as to what precisely happened, but with this report of her dying from E. coli ESBL one wonders how killing Halappanavar’s baby Prasa would have killed the E. coli,” Gray noted.


read more: http://bcc.rcav.org/canadian/2172-pro-lifers-warn-against-snap-judgments-regarding-ireland-abortion-case-


Note: The above article is from a Catholic newspaper. Other new sources may report the story differently.

Rape and Abortion: The Real Statistics May Surprise You

There has been a lot of talk in the news lately about rape and subsequent pregnancies.  Although there is really no dispute that rape is a traumatizing and violent event, abortion is not the choice of every victim whose rape results in an unwanted pregnancy.

Afterabortion.org recently printed this article that focuses on the misinformation about the choices rape victims make when faced with pregnancies. I think you'll find it interesting.

“Rape hurt my mother, but abortion devastated her.”

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Amy at Elliot Institute

This comment was recently posted to our web site:

My mother was raped at age 16. Her parents forced her to have an abortion. She stopped going to church, dropped out of high school and became depressed. Her young adulthood was during WWII and she had a problem with relationships. She eventually married my father after only a two week courtship and she told him what a horrible woman she was because of the abortion.
They vowed to have as many children as possible. God sent them ten children and she lost one to miscarriage; she mourned the lost baby along with her aborted child. When she was pregnant with me, her third child in four years, the doctor told her she wasn’t really pregnant and that he would remove some tissue. She knew what he meant and got another doctor.
I told my dad how blessed I was that mom knew what he meant and he then told me, 60 years later, that the reason she knew was because of the rape and subsequent abortion. She took this secret to her grave and I would have never known except my dad was praising me for getting involved in the pro-life movement through 40 Days for Life.
I was almost not here along with my four children and six grandchildren. My dad told me she mourned that aborted child her whole life and she never forgot and never received healing. My mother died at age 67 and I was told her secret when I was 60.
Rape hurt my mother, but abortion devastated her.

Stories like these are why women who have experienced a pregnancy resulting from sexual assault have created The Ad Hoc Committee of Women Pregnant by Sexual Assault (WPSA).
For the last eight years, WPSA has been petitioning Congress and state legislators to hold hearings at which women who have actually been pregnant following rape or incest could tell their stories and talk about what they and other women facing such a situation really want and need.
We collected stories and surveys from nearly 200 women who experienced a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest for the publication of our book  Victims and Victors: Speaking Out About Their Pregnancies,Abortions,and Children Resulting from Sexual Assault. Most who aborted told us that abortion only added to their trauma and was not a good solution. Further, many reported having been pressured to abort by others.

Read more at :  http://afterabortion.org/2012/rape-hurt-abortion-devestated/

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Dirty Little Secret? Abortion Death Rates Covered Up

According to a recent article from the Elliot Institute, although the Centers for Disease Control are charged with the responsibility to keep track of deaths due to abortions, as they are other important health related data, they fall far short of their duty for unknown reasons.

Needed as all data is needed for future reference and research, keeping accurate records of deaths caused by abortions would tell researchers information that might give women better guidance on the safety of the abortion process as opposed to giving birth in higher-risk pregnancies.

Read the article below:

“Invisible” Abortion Deaths

Posted on September 19, 2012 by EI

One of our past posts included the stories of five women in Maryland who died as a result of abortion, and whose deaths were never counted as abortion-related in any official statistics. Here’s a link to an article about another “invisible death” on the RealChoice blog — that of 17-year-old Latachie Veal, who died in Texas on Nov. 2, 1991, as a result of abortion:

Legend has it that the Centers for Disease Control keep track of abortion deaths. The case of Latachie Veal should lay that legend to rest.
Latachie was 17 years old, and 22 weeks pregnant, when Robert Dale Crist performed an abortion on her at Houston’s West Loop Clinic November 2, 1991. According to Latachie’s family, she bled heavily at the clinic, and cried out to the staff for help. They told her that her symptoms were normal, and sent her home. Several hours later, Latachie stopped breathing. Her brother-in-law called 911 while her sister did CPR, to no avail. Latachie was dead on arrival at Ben Taub Hospital.

As the article goes on to point out, Latachie’s death was never reported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). This is despite the fact that Latachie’s family sued Crist and the story was picked up by both mainstream media outlets and pro-life organizations. Further, Crist apparently discussed the case at a seminar attended by the person whose job it was to tally abortion deaths for the CDC:

Continue reading here: 

What do you think?

Is Abortion a Result of an Abusive Relationship?

According to a recent study done by the Guttmacher Institute, which is a non profit organization with concerns about abortion rights and reproductive health, many cultural and economic conditions are prevalent amongst women who have abortions.

It is much more likely that women who have abortions are from a lower economic class and have suffered relationship problems or disruptive events in their lives, such as losing a job or getting a divorce.

Seven percent of the women studied also reported that the men that they became pregnant by were abusive either physically or emotionally.

See the whole article here:  "Abortion seekers 'seven times' more likely to be abused"

What does this tell us?  Social services, especially for low income single women are important in the prevention of pregnancy or abortions, not only post-pregnancy, but pre-pregnancy.  Obviously, counseling services are necessary in depressed areas to help women, who are often the matriarch of the family and responsible for the financial and emotional support of the family unit, cope with the stress and everyday challenges they face. Perhaps when given tools to use that are practical for their lifestyles and circumstances and can address some behavioral and cultural issues that can reduce numbers of unwanted or terminated pregnancies in the future. 

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