Georgia L Gilholy is a freelance journalist.
Surely, killing a girl or a woman because she is a girl or a woman is the worst form of sexism? Yet, it is this precise barbarism that Labour MPs Diana Johnson and Stella Creasy are pushing to legalise, via their amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill.
Set to be debated on June 4, the clauses would, among other shocking things, give the legal go-ahead to sex-selective abortion.
At present, abortion for sex-selective reasons is rightly outlawed in England and Wales. However the practice, generally used to abort unborn girls, appears to have exploded under the radar, specially since non-invasive prenatal tests (NIPT) entered general use in 2011.
Multiple journalists have exposed such abuse; doctors in British clinics are agreeing to terminate pregnancies solely based on the sex of the foetus, and the law is simply not being enforced, even when there is evidence of criminality.
Yet in 2013 the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided that it was not “in the public interest” to pursue charges against numerous doctors evidenced to be involved in the abortions of baby girls for being baby girls.
Legalizing sex-selective abortion would likely increase its prevalence – and the UK does not need to wait and see how badly this might turn out on a society-wide scale.
We need only look across the world to China and India. Both countries have a disturbing recent history of sex-selective abortion, which has resulted in severe gender imbalances with far-reaching social and demographic consequences. Estimates suggest there are over 140 million missing women and girls across the world, largely due to sex-selective abortion and female infanticide.
Millions of “missing girls”, whose death sentences were already prompted by a culture in which women and girls are seen as inferior to men, have left behind millions of angry young men with no hope of marriage or family, a toxic combination likely contributing to rising violence which could even increase risk of military conflict.
Kidnappings, abduction, and rapes of women are on the rise in India. The Chinese government’s tight grip on internal statistics makes estimates harder, but some reports tell a similarly bleak story.
In Britain, this is a particular issue in immigrant communities who often hail from cultures like India and Pakistan where the desire for sons is deeply ingrained and reinforced by familial expectations and beliefs. Women in these communities may buy into this sexism, or feel powerless to stop their husbands and relatives pressuring them into aborting baby girls.
These socially pernicious traditions which view women and girls as less than fully human have no place in Britain, and the state must do everything in its power to combat, rather than encourage, such practices. As American demographer Nicholas Eberstadt wrote back in 2011:
“In terms of its sheer toll in human numbers, sex-selective abortion has assumed a scale tantamount to a global war against baby girls.”
Opposition to sex-selective abortion ought to transcend the traditional pro-life or pro-choice divides. Indeed, for most British adults it does, with 89 per cent of the general population and 91 per cent of women telling a 2017 poll that sex-selective abortion must be explicitly banned by the law. By legalizing sex-selective abortion, we risk entrenching gender inequality and setting a dangerous precedent for future generations.
Rather than dismantling existing protections against sex-selective abortion, we must urgently strengthen safeguards and support mechanisms for vulnerable women facing coercion or pressure to undergo such procedures. This includes robust enforcement of laws prohibiting sex-selective abortion, and a complete ban on NIPT being used to determine sex – as Labour previously suggested.
The proposed amendments to legalize sex-selective abortion represent a regressive step that undermines the principles of gender equality and human dignity. We must stand firm against the normalization of sex-based discrimination and work towards a future where every person is valued irrespective of their sex.
