Tag Archives: Abortion

News

Wife-sharing: the consequences of sex-selection abortions in India

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Map of India
Map of India

From Reuters India, disturbing news.

Excerpt:

When Munni arrived in this fertile, sugarcane-growing region of north India as a young bride years ago, little did she imagine she would be forced into having sex and bearing children with her husband’s two brothers who had failed to find wives.

“My husband and his parents said I had to share myself with his brothers,” said the woman in her mid-40s, dressed in a yellow sari, sitting in a village community centre in Baghpat district in Uttar Pradesh.

“They took me whenever they wanted — day or night. When I resisted, they beat me with anything at hand,” said Munni, who had managed to leave her home after three months only on the pretext of visiting a doctor.

“Sometimes they threw me out and made me sleep outside or they poured kerosene over me and burned me.”

[…]Social workers say decades of aborting female babies in a deeply patriarchal culture has led to a decline in the population of women in some parts of India, like Baghpat, and in turn has resulted in rising incidents of rape, human trafficking and the emergence of “wife-sharing” amongst brothers.

Aid workers say the practice of female foeticide has flourished among several communities across the country because of a traditional preference for sons, who are seen as old-age security.

“We are already seeing the terrible impacts of falling numbers of females in some communities,” says Bhagyashri Dengle, executive director of children’s charity Plan India.

“We have to take this as a warning sign and we have to do something about it or we’ll have a situation where women will constantly be at risk of kidnap, rape and much, much worse.”

[…]According to India’s 2011 census, there are only 858 women to every 1,000 men in Baghpat district, compared to the national sex ratio of 940.

Child sex ratios in Baghpat are even more skewed and on the decline with 837 girls in 2011 compared to 850 in 2001 — a trend mirrored across districts in states such as Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

“In every village, there are at least five or six bachelors who can’t find a wife. In some, there are up to three or four unmarried men in one family. It’s a serious problem,” says Shri Chand, 75, a retired police constable.

The majority of the East Indians I know support abortion, which implies support for sex-selection abortions.

But there’s more to the problem than just abortion… I think there’s a problem of missing romantic love. In the Western, we are more influenced by the Judeo-Christian values. In the Judeo-Christian ethic, there is a strong tradition of men falling in love and then taking the lead to woo a women and then providing for her. Obviously, a man would be stupid to marry a woman who didn’t want to work hard or help him, but I don’t think there is anything in the tradition about dowries and such.

Take a look at the clip below from King Lear, where the King disowns his virtuous daughter Cordelia for refusing to flatter him in front of his guests. She is being courted by the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy, and now she has no dowry. What are France and Burgundy going to do? Let’s see.

Quote:

  • King of France. Is it but this- a tardiness in nature
    Which often leaves the history unspoke
    That it intends to do? My Lord of Burgundy,
    What say you to the lady? Love’s not love
    When it is mingled with regards that stands
    Aloof from th’ entire point. Will you have her?
    She is herself a dowry.
  • Duke of Burgundy. Royal Lear,
    Give but that portion which yourself propos’d,
    And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
    Duchess of Burgundy.
  • Lear. Nothing! I have sworn; I am firm.
  • Duke of Burgundy. I am sorry then you have so lost a father
    That you must lose a husband.
  • Cordelia. Peace be with Burgundy!
    Since that respects of fortune are his love,
    I shall not be his wife.
  • King of France. Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;
    Most choice, forsaken; and most lov’d, despis’d!
    Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.
    Be it lawful I take up what’s cast away.
    Gods, gods! ’tis strange that from their cold’st neglect
    My love should kindle to inflam’d respect.
    Thy dow’rless daughter, King, thrown to my chance,
    Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France.
    Not all the dukes in wat’rish Burgundy
    Can buy this unpriz’d precious maid of me.
    Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind.
    Thou losest here, a better where to find.

And the whole story shows the consequences of the King’s stupidity. So Shakespeare is telling us that Lear is a fool, and France has wisdom.

In the West, we believe in love and romance. That doesn’t mean we don’t believe in prudence, chastity, self-control and wisdom when courting, because crazy love is frowned upon in Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet), Dickens (Great Expectations), and Austen (Sense and Sensibility). Not to mention Samson and Delilah in the Bible. It just means that we think that women have value even if all they have is goodness and wisdom. I could go on about what Western literature says about how men and women should get along, but it’s nothing like what goes on in India. Now, if you can marry a rich version of Cordelia, then I do recommend doing that. Especially if it’s a self-made fortune.

News

Canadian Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal on infanticide case

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From Life Site News.

Excerpt:

The Supreme Court of Canada declined last Thursday to hear an appeal in the case of a mother who smothered two of her children. The decision means that a Canadian mother can continue to plead to the lesser charge of “infanticide” rather than “murder” when she ends the life of her newborn child.

The mother in the case, referred to as “L.B,” was 15 years old when in 1998 she smothered her 6-week-old son Alexander. She smothered another one of her children, 10-week-old son Cameron, in 2002.

[…]In a statement to the police, L.B. testified that 6-week-old Alexander’s crying made her “angry.” When he would not stop crying, she placed him in his crib, covered him entirely with blankets and a plastic cover, left the room, and began listening to music. She admitted that she was “very confused” but insisted that she “wanted to help Alexander feel better.”

L.B. also testified to police that on the day she killed her 10-week-old son Cameron, she was “very upset” and feared that she would do her child harm. Police heard how L.B. “wanted Cameron to die,” since she believed it was “the right thing to do.” As Cameron slowly suffocated, she told her son that he was “going to a better place.”

Here’s the prosecutor:

Jennifer Woollcombe, acting for the Crown, appealed Justice Herold’s 2008 decision, arguing that L.B’s “infanticide defence” was based on antiquated laws that were created to give juries an alternative to the death penalty for mentally unstable mothers who killed their children. The Crown argued that the “infanticide defence” constitutes an “unacceptable devaluation of the worth of a newborn child.”

“The trial judge found that these murders were planned and deliberate. There is no principled reason for acquitting her of murder. She made a choice to kill while her husband was at home, called an ex-boyfriend rather than 911 after killing him, maintained a facade that the babies died of SIDS, and accepted and sought out sympathy and attention.”

“The respondent intentionally killed two babies,” said the Crown brief during the mother’s trial, as reported in the Globe and Mail.

Recall the horrifying story about the recent slap-on-the-wrist handed down to the Edmonton woman who strangled her own baby. What is wrong with Canada on the life issue?

News

Planned Parenthood loses fight for $397,000 in taxpayer-funding

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Good news from Life News.

The Planned Parenthood abortion business has lost its battle to keep a $397,000 taxpayer-funded contract in Memphis, Tennessee after pro-life advocates contacted members of the county commission requesting that the grant be given to someone else.

Shelby County Health Department director Yvonne Madlock had announced in September that , after significant lobbying from pro-life advocates, Christ Community Health Services would receive the $397,000 contract with the county for family planning rather than Planned Parenthood. Then, in a 6-4 party-line vote, the Shelby County Commission decided to postpone its decision and allow Planned Parenthood more time to make its case that it should continue receiving the tax money.

Now, the Shelby County Commission voted 9-4 on Monday to give Christ Community Health Services the family planning contract instead of renewing it with Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region. However, the Memphis Commercial newspaper reportsthat the abortion business has a pending bid protest with the county government.

[…]The money comes from the Title X family planning grants states are given by the federal government and Davidson County, the location of Nashville, made the decision earlier this year to move the recipient of its funding elsewhere from the Planned Parenthood abortion business. Because Shelby County was the lone holdout, pro-life advocates focused their efforts on persuading the county government to de-fund Planned Parenthood.

So, it sounds like things are not quite settled yet. But still – good news so far.

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