Sex selective abortion is the practice of aborting girl fetuses simply because they are not the desired gender of the parents.
They’re not something that just occur in distant foreign countries either. They are happening here in Canada too.
Stats show over 80% of Canadians agree that there should be policies and/or laws to deter from the practice. It’s similar to when Canadians were shown to be mostly in favour of acknowledging a woman’s unborn child as a victim of the crime when she was murdered.
In both cases there was a clear majority: Canadians – who mostly identified as being ‘pro-choice’ – agreed that something more needs to be done.
But the scenario is framed much differently by the powers that be.
Like a picture of a model on the cover of a magazine whose ‘flaws’ are corrected in print, this majority continues to be edited out, and it results in our standards being defined by something other than what is real.
What is the desired affect of removing these scars and stretch marks from our view? And what is the unintended consequence?
When they say its OK to bully a woman
In 2017, when MP Rachel Thomas (nee Harder) was chosen as chair for the Status of Woman Committee the members of rival political parties walked out in protest.
She once had the audacity to argue in favour of meaningfully recognizing a woman’s choice when that woman was murdered. But it would have meant acknowledging the existence of the unborn child. And that was unacceptable to them.
She also had the gall to suggest that conversations about violence against women and girls should include the ones being disproportionately targeted in the womb. Again, not allowed.
In other words, she had threatened the sanctity of their perfect picture by suggesting the scars and the stretch marks should not be removed from public perception, but instead, incorporated. Her opponents were repulsed. To them, being pro-woman meant pretending these things did not exist.
In the end, the unsightly sentiment of the average Canadian that Harder had tried to echo was just too much to tolerate.
She was forced out of the position and a woman more suitable to them was chosen for the job.
What is happening today
MP Cathay Wagantall, champion of Cassie and Molly’s Law, is again shining a light on that which is being edited out of the frame.
Like Harder, she shares the position that sex selective abortion is something that needs to be considered in principled conversations of gender equality.
Wagantall has introduced Bill C-233 which would prevent medical practitioners from performing an abortion sought solely on the grounds of a child’s genetic sex.
It would serve to address the problem of unequal sex ratios at birth as they have been recognized by the World Health Organization, United Nations Women, and United Nations Children’s Fund.
The petition calling on Parliament to pass a Criminal Code prohibition of sex-selective abortion can be found and signed by clicking here.
The question of tomorrow…
There is an unmistakable tendency of politicians and media to shape these issues into an ultimatum for Canadians – ‘If you don’t ignore them, abortion will become illegal.’
It should be obvious to anyone capable of intellectual honesty that this does not have to be the case. Correlation is not equal to causation. But by editing out this sentiment of Canadians from the picture, it becomes easier to justify never honestly measuring a difference.
What remains is a powerful weapon of politics. But who is using it on who?
Erin O’Toole as the new leader of the Conservative Party has a difficult decision to make: Continue to represent that sentiment of average Canadians in this regard, or conform to the media friendly absolutism of his political rivals.
One would be a show of rare integrity and celebrated, albeit quietly, by those not hypnotized by subsidy shaped headlines, but the other… the other promises to spare him, in his bid for the role of Prime Minister, the worst of the “spin cycle” that our less than objective media offers.
By cropping out the unsightly majority the weapon is sharpened.
By leaving them in, the weapon is also sharpened.
But what picture is reality? And what will we become if no one is left to speak for it?
Gender abortion is murder.