Optional page text here. The Beast's Lair: Feminism and India Abortion.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Feminism and India Abortion.

The Burr in the Burgh has written a helpful article over this particular news story.

The issue here is Indian women discovering the gender of their baby and then having abortions if that gender is female. The feminist movement should be outraged that women would be killing babies based solely on that baby being a female. Yet, a strong stance of the feminist movement is that abortion rights are all but demanded for release of full economic and social dependence on men. I think you can see the dilemma here.

posted by PhilipMeade.com at 3:45 AM

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think most feminists are outraged by this. But you have to understand the reasons for this issue (and for the root of the outrage), which is the subjugation of women in India. Women have all types of restrictions on being able to work, being able to go out in public alone, etc. etc. So, what you have is a male-dominated society that subjugates females. They are treated as second-class citizens (and, for example, since females can't support their parents in old age, as expected of children in India), it is causing those kind of terrible choices (i.e. they want a male heir so they don't have to be impoverised in old age). But in my mind you can't be distracted by the abortion issue...everybody has their own beliefs about that, but it is the underlying root of the problem that must be addressed, then the killing of female fetuses will be a non-issue....if the issue was really tied to abortion, we would have this same issue here in the US.

February 19, 2007 1:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

TO Rexwilder:

They are treated as "second-class citizens" by whose standards? Our western Americanized understanding of how women should be treated? I agree with you of course, but I don't think that response answers the question. After all, for better or for worse, that is the society they live in, that is just their way of life.

February 19, 2007 8:49 PM  

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