Sweden approves gender-based abortions
posted at 10:46 am on May 13, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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Amanda Carpenter makes this the Hot Button issue at the Washington Times today, and it provides an interesting juxtaposition to a post I wrote last month. Sweden has approved gender-specific abortions, allowing parents to rid themselves of an unwanted daughter in a closely-watched ethics case:
Swedish women will be permitted to abort their children based on the sex of the fetus, according to a ruling by Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare.
The ruling was spurred by a request from Kai Wedenberg, head of the clinic where a woman twice requested, and received, an abortion based on sex.
Mr. Wedenberg asked for clarification from health officials after a woman, who already had two girls, requested amniocentesis and to be told the sex of her unborn child. She found out she was pregnant with another girl and asked for an abortion six days later.
The woman then became pregnant again, returned to the clinic and asked for another amniocentesis, which was not performed. Later, at her ultrasound, she asked the nurse to reveal the sex of her fetus, which was a girl. After learning this, the mother requested an abortion later that day and received it later that week.
Last month, I noted the opposition of the abortion-rights group Center for Reproductive Rights to the same practice in China, where the state’s one-child policy makes gender selection more important for parents. Sweden has no such restrictions; in this case, the woman already had two daughters and wants a son. CRR opposed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, putting their fright over what they call “fetus rights” over their objections to gender-specific infanticide.
At least Sweden remained consistent. Unlike the CRR, their decision reluctantly noted that the woman’s motivation was irrelevant if one accepts that someone can “choose” to end human life as a right. One wonders whether CRR will protest this decision in Sweden as they do in China, extending their intellectual confusion over the nature of “choice” as an absolute right.
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Heartache.
ladyingray on May 13, 2009 at 10:49 AM
That should help them with those birthrate issues…
BadgerHawk on May 13, 2009 at 10:50 AM
Would the judgment have been the same if the motivation was to abort a “gay” child?
Rocks on May 13, 2009 at 10:51 AM
I’m at a loss for words.
darwin on May 13, 2009 at 10:51 AM
I find this incredibly sad. At what stage of the pregnancy can you find out the sex? I believe we could have found out at 15 weeks or so, but we left it a surprise.
Dash on May 13, 2009 at 10:51 AM
Sweden will be in the Umma in 30 years and all of those ‘rights’ will vanish as shari’a law moves in.
Annar on May 13, 2009 at 10:52 AM
I’m not surprised. Next up is DNA testing on fetuses. Any baby not meeting “specs” will be aborted.
AnninCA on May 13, 2009 at 10:53 AM
Why not just sell the swedish girls as sex slaves to arabs? These freaking Europeans don’t have an entrepreneurial bone in their bodies.
JiangxiDad on May 13, 2009 at 10:53 AM
Man I don’t quite think that the Swedish have thought this one through. If they start only having boy babies they will eventually deprive themselves of their greatest natural resource…Hot Swedish Chicks.
Dreadnought223 on May 13, 2009 at 10:54 AM
I think comparison with China is very apt in this case. The socialist welfare state has so squeezed the resources of the productive that they may only end up being able to afford one or two children, so the gender mix can matter almost as much to a Swede as to a Chinese.
It’s still wrong. The only possible way to justify an abortion based on the sex of a child involves horribly nasty sex-linked birth defects—but if a couple carries the genes, they can seek various other technological means to be sure of the sex of their children.
Sekhmet on May 13, 2009 at 10:55 AM
Feminist silence begins…
NOW!
LibTired on May 13, 2009 at 10:55 AM
Listen to the feminist outrage.
The silence is deafening isn’t it?
It’s only twenty years away from the Swedes having to figure out what to do with the surplus of men. China is having the same problem now, but Sweden is obviously slow on the pick-up.
caygeon on May 13, 2009 at 10:55 AM
Next will be:
No blonde hair or blue eyes madam.
Okay, kill it and i’ll try again.
It’s coming!
faol on May 13, 2009 at 10:56 AM
Really doesn’t matter … all abortion will stop must Sweden becomes an Islamic state and all Swedes are forcibly converted to Islam.
darwin on May 13, 2009 at 10:57 AM
It’s a brave new world…
Asher on May 13, 2009 at 10:57 AM
It’s like you and me are one person.
LibTired on May 13, 2009 at 10:58 AM
The heads of abortion supporting liberals will explode once fetal testing gets to the point of detecting behavioral tendencies that may have genetic bases like homosexuality. What happens when women start aborting their gay children as unwanted?
Kenrod on May 13, 2009 at 10:58 AM
will stop
mustonce SwedenMust proof read.
darwin on May 13, 2009 at 10:58 AM
What is this world coming to???? How sad.
deidre on May 13, 2009 at 10:58 AM
I’m so sick to death of women thinking of babies as their property, to murder at will.
vapig on May 13, 2009 at 10:59 AM
Now let’s fast forward 50 years & see how the population dynamics have played out.
What will the ratios of men to women be?
Go ahead you moronic Europeans- end up with a skewed population. See how this affects your already negative reproductive rates.
Dear God in heaven what in the he!! is wrong with people?!
Badger40 on May 13, 2009 at 11:00 AM
Once you enshrine a “right” for limited reasons, it gets harder and harder to deny for any and all reasons.
Designer babies, coming to a womb near you.
cs89 on May 13, 2009 at 11:00 AM
If you want a son, why not adopt one for a guarantee. Stop using your body as a gas chamber in Auschwitz for girls.
ThackerAgency on May 13, 2009 at 11:00 AM
The fact that most babies aborted in America are black hasn’t caused the Democrats to care – I doubt that would either.
gwelf on May 13, 2009 at 11:00 AM
FIFY
WashJeff on May 13, 2009 at 11:00 AM
I fear for this world.
I fear for the world my children will live in.
Can I be honest?
When I look at what’s happening
And what is down the road
I consider not bringing a child into this world.
blatantblue on May 13, 2009 at 11:01 AM
Yeah, I’m sure eugenics is going to be all the rage again.
Will the world ever learn?
Badger40 on May 13, 2009 at 11:01 AM
Anyone else have a strange desire to watch Gattaca right about now?
teke184 on May 13, 2009 at 11:02 AM
You must’ve missed the article that said there is no gay gene. Study of identical twins confirmed it. Gay is a choice – not a condition.
vapig on May 13, 2009 at 11:03 AM
O.K. Some one will have to say it:
When Sweden comes up with a screening solution that can eliminate/abort liberal thought, I’ll be all for it!
Rovin on May 13, 2009 at 11:03 AM
Surely to appease the new immigrants who are notoriously against the girl child.
promachus on May 13, 2009 at 11:03 AM
Ghouls.
BuckeyeSam on May 13, 2009 at 11:04 AM
Horrible, but ultimately self correcting.
ElectricPhase on May 13, 2009 at 11:04 AM
HAH! That’s it! That movie popped immediately popped into my head and I couldn’t remember the name of it. Thanks!
vapig on May 13, 2009 at 11:04 AM
Why exactly is a coat hanger worse than the instruments the abortionist uses? Is it the metal/plastic issue, a green thing?
JiangxiDad on May 13, 2009 at 11:04 AM
This is why, as a gay person, I’ve been opposed to abortion. I knew this was coming. I’m always saddened that more gays aren’t anti-abortion because of selective abortions weeding out potentially gay humans. (I have no doubt being gay is genetic).
SouthernGent on May 13, 2009 at 11:05 AM
Dear Lord, help us!
What an evil, evil (yet strangely consistent) decision.
Religious_Zealot on May 13, 2009 at 11:05 AM
Mark Steyn talks about what populations are aiming toward their own extinction in his great book “America Alone“.
kurtzz3 on May 13, 2009 at 11:05 AM
And the world waxes worse and worse.
pugwriter on May 13, 2009 at 11:06 AM
Same recourse needed there as here – close the schools. Kids don’t get ruined until you send them to school.
vapig on May 13, 2009 at 11:06 AM
No words.
unwashed minion on May 13, 2009 at 11:06 AM
I’ve told my son not to have children. The entire world is going to hell in a hand basket and believe me, you don’t want the added stress of wondering what is going to happen to your child.
ladyingray on May 13, 2009 at 11:06 AM
As someone who is going through the adoption process, this article makes me cry. There are those out here who would go down on their knees if they could take the daughter you don’t want.
sherry on May 13, 2009 at 11:07 AM
Gay fetuses will be part of a protected class of unabortables. Since they are self-sufficient but unlikely to produce children of their own, they will be labeled carbon neutral and societally productive.
Special needs children, OTOH, not so productive, and will require a lot of rides to and from special places, not to mention bus trips. As a double whammy carbon and healthcare burden, they will be terminated.
Liberalism! Love it, or love it more!
LibTired on May 13, 2009 at 11:07 AM
I’m overwhelmed with sadness reading this. What a way to start my morning.
jennifernaz on May 13, 2009 at 11:09 AM
For those considering not bringing children into this world, please reconsider. It’s your children we need to be brought into this world to combat evil like this. Don’t let them win the next generation.
yogi41 on May 13, 2009 at 11:09 AM
Not sure you meant to say it, but it sounds like you’re not actually opposed to abortion of others, only abortion of suspected gay babies.
JiangxiDad on May 13, 2009 at 11:10 AM
I just do understand how some can say there are people of good will on both sides of the abortion issue.
Kjeil on May 13, 2009 at 11:10 AM
The irony of the gay activists marching along side the pro lifers will be rich.
caygeon on May 13, 2009 at 11:10 AM
I would not be opposed to putting such parents asleep forever.
RandyChandler on May 13, 2009 at 11:10 AM
I feel which way the wind is blowing. I don’t want to bring a child into the hellhole the world will be
But on the other hand
The resistance will need members.
blatantblue on May 13, 2009 at 11:10 AM
Uh, but wasn’t oblaima’s first act as president to sign an executive order lifting the ban on the use of federal dollars (you money and mine) to prop up non-governmental groups providing abortions worldwide?
rat fink. Now my money is going to infanticide….
jbh45 on May 13, 2009 at 11:12 AM
how much longer will God let the world continue before He steps and does away with evil?
therightscoop on May 13, 2009 at 11:12 AM
Then go and save one who will be otherwise consumed by it. There’s no escape from the human condition!!
JiangxiDad on May 13, 2009 at 11:13 AM
Insanity. But on pro-choice grounds, there can be no objection. The idiocy of leftism.
ddrintn on May 13, 2009 at 11:13 AM
It’s funny how post-modern liberalism meets dark ages tribalism.
What next? Ritual human sacrifice in the name of human rights?
Aristotle on May 13, 2009 at 11:13 AM
Eugenics is on its way back as will be forced sterilization.
“believe it”
sven10077 on May 13, 2009 at 11:14 AM
I think homosexuality is likely an extremely complex interaction between genetics, the environment both inside and outside the womb, and subsequent life experiences. I’m really rather agnostic on the origins of homosexuality anyway.
I just know that sexuality is very deeply rooted in the human psyche, and is probably not truly changeable. It can be overridden consciously, but not really changed without damage to other parts of the psyche. If we need to go around changing peoples’ sexuality, possibly really effing their minds up in the process, I say let’s screw with the with pedos and rapists. Gays by and large are harmless and law-abiding.
Sekhmet on May 13, 2009 at 11:15 AM
The wheels of logic came off the pro-abortion bus long ago.
We live in a time when we can lawfully put our children to death if we find them momentarily inconvenient. Our president opposes measures to try to save them if the children don’t cooperate in their destruction.
The fact CRR tries to split ethical hairs about nuances like killing more little girls than little boys because girls are relatively less convenient than boys: it’s sort of like being concerned about the use of lead-based paint at Auschwitz.
God save us from our iniquity.
Pavel on May 13, 2009 at 11:15 AM
Soon, very soon. Possibly in our lifetime.
jbh45 on May 13, 2009 at 11:15 AM
The slippery slope.
saiga on May 13, 2009 at 11:15 AM
Teach your children. Discipline them. Make sure they see others as more important than themselves. That is the basic principle that we are losing (have lost?) and that is the basic principle that will sustain our rebirth–if it comes.
pugwriter on May 13, 2009 at 11:15 AM
I’m furious that Sweden is depriving us of hot swedish babes!
lorien1973 on May 13, 2009 at 11:16 AM
I wonder how long it will be before we can sterilize non-whites?
saiga on May 13, 2009 at 11:17 AM
“woman who already had 2 girls”
er, when you already have 2 daughters, the chances that the 3rd will be a daughter also jumps to like ~80% — it’s called “that’s life,” and apparently the swedes want to make themselves exempt from such reality …
/profoundly saddening
Buckaroo on May 13, 2009 at 11:17 AM
This is just further evidence that life has diminshed value in so-called ‘progressive’ societies.
chalons on May 13, 2009 at 11:17 AM
Stories like this are merely the rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic, it’s hard for me at least to get too upset.
As others have said, once the inevitable conquest of Europe by the jihad is over, there won’t be any more abortions. Or gays for that matter, or science, or freedom, or any of the trappings of Western civilization for good or ill. Twenty five, thirty years, it’s right around the corner.
Rebar on May 13, 2009 at 11:19 AM
We don’t honestly discuss the abortion issue in this country. President Obama says it is above his pay grade. Citizens are content to leave the issue to judges. A “clump” of cells with a unique dna is a human being, not a hang nail or a scab.
Angry Dumbo on May 13, 2009 at 11:19 AM
Just another head of livestock on the socialist vote farm. Keep the slop flowing in the trough!.
saiga on May 13, 2009 at 11:20 AM
Look, right now I’m sitting beside my 4 year old with Down syndrome. 90% of kids like him are aborted now. Finding a child with DS in a school is a real rarity now. Imagine what the classrooms will look like in a few years in Sweden. Less girls sports teams, less plays that include female roles, less successful female students, less female mentors and down the road, less women means less need for women’s rights….
caygeon on May 13, 2009 at 11:21 AM
While I don’t believe it’s quite time for the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse (although you never know), I wouldn’t be surprised to learn they are in the barn saddling up.
vapig on May 13, 2009 at 11:21 AM
This lady and this policy would make Hitler proud. Eugenics, how can the left wing be so heartless?
kirkill on May 13, 2009 at 11:22 AM
I could make the case that if you encouraged and embraced the miracle of birth—taught your children the strong moral principals that you both believe in, (and kept them out of public education/indoctrination), they may very well be our future leaders that save us all from the “hell in the handbasket”
Rovin on May 13, 2009 at 11:22 AM
Not sure you meant to say it, but it sounds like you’re not actually opposed to abortion of others, only abortion of suspected gay babies.
JiangxiDad on May 13, 2009 at 11:10 AM
Just look for the best dressed fetus. GAY.
faol on May 13, 2009 at 11:22 AM
Not to mention that gays tend to cloak their side of the gay marriage debate in the robe of civil rights. This is especially tone deaf given their support of politicians who deny those rights of an entire class of humans.
CDeb on May 13, 2009 at 11:22 AM
I thank God every day, repeatedly, for the blessing of my daughter. She has already made the world better just by being. I pity those who do not rejoice in life. And my heart is filled with sorrow for those lost. God’s arms must be full.
publiuspen on May 13, 2009 at 11:23 AM
Frankenstein comes to mind.
kirkill on May 13, 2009 at 11:23 AM
As the father of an adopted daughter, I say you are one billion percent correct.
CDeb on May 13, 2009 at 11:23 AM
This makes me weep inside…
What next, aborting based on color of your eyes, athletic ability, sexual orientation…
I read somewhere that 9 out of 10 children are aborted when it is found out they have Down’s Syndrome…
Can noone in the pro choice world see this and have a problem with this???
God help us
momof2 on May 13, 2009 at 11:26 AM
Uh, yeah, because it’s so intellectual… Maybe in 10 years it will again be fashionable to abort based on skin color…
Upstater85 on May 13, 2009 at 11:27 AM
What was the original motivation for abortion? Ah, an inconvenient fact for pro-Choicers…
Upstater85 on May 13, 2009 at 11:28 AM
The sign of things to come. Once a person accepts the supremacy of choice over life then why that choice is made is irrelevant.
dpierson on May 13, 2009 at 11:29 AM
I think if more smart women actually voiced their opinion, you’d find them equally disgusted by what the programmed handmaidens of the left have done for women. It is nice to find kindred spirits.
caygeon on May 13, 2009 at 11:29 AM
So, what we’re talking about here, is preserving the rights of women to discriminate against… women.
manwithblackhat on May 13, 2009 at 11:29 AM
Abort the child because its not the sex you wanted?
That is fu*king outrageous.
Dave Rywall on May 13, 2009 at 11:30 AM
…I’d believe your description. What’s so smart about staying silent?
manwithblackhat on May 13, 2009 at 11:30 AM
I just today heard a news report about a woman who “aborted” her baby in a microwave oven, but she is going to be prosecuted for murder because the baby was one month old. If only it had been murdered a month ago in her womb,she would be free of any responsibility for that child. I believe that there is a direct correlation between abortion, and infanticide.
TruthToBeTold on May 13, 2009 at 11:30 AM
And the value of innocent human life decreases yet one more notch.
TheUnrepentantGeek on May 13, 2009 at 11:30 AM
You must’ve missed their (libs/womens groups) outrage over Sarah Palin’s decision to keep her baby Trig when they found out he was a Downs baby.
vapig on May 13, 2009 at 11:31 AM
not to make light of this issue, but too bad conservatism is not genetic, then the liberals would be literally aborting themselves out of existence
Chiasmos on May 13, 2009 at 11:31 AM
I don’t know that those tests are so reliable, and some of them have risks. Wouldn’t it make more sense just to carry the fetus to term, deliver it, and then shoot it in the head if you didn’t like what you got?
morganfrost on May 13, 2009 at 11:32 AM
No…I worded it poorly. I am very pro-life.
SouthernGent on May 13, 2009 at 11:32 AM
Hey, nothing wrong with designer babies, in and of themselves. Its the “discard until you get it right” part that is the issue.
Science fictionally speaking, would you really object to women having the ability to design the genetics of their offspring, and insure that nearly 100% of initiated embryos are born, instead of the paltry 20% or so we have now?
Count to 10 on May 13, 2009 at 11:32 AM
FIFY
CDeb on May 13, 2009 at 11:33 AM
Indeed. They already are obtaining special rights protecting them from some crimes, so why not special protection from the crime of abortion?
jgapinoy on May 13, 2009 at 11:34 AM
Swedish abortion clinics should start running a special deal:
“Free sterilization with every abortion!”
I find it interesting these women think of their uterus as a vending machine.
Heralder on May 13, 2009 at 11:35 AM
They aren’t – even now. I worked with a woman who wanted to know the sex of her baby. They were told she was having a girl. They decorated the nursery and bought all girlie stuff. Then Jacob arrived…..
vapig on May 13, 2009 at 11:35 AM
More so than aborting because of any other personal choice reason?
Count to 10 on May 13, 2009 at 11:36 AM
For those who might not know, the answer is eugenics.
Margeret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was very racist.
jgapinoy on May 13, 2009 at 11:36 AM
How long before, “Let’s Be like Europe!”?
- The Cat
P.S. How many abortions have been used to hide infidelity?
MirCat on May 13, 2009 at 11:37 AM
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