Practical Ethics

Of Mothers and Fetuses and Abortionists

Two recent articles highlight the powerful influence that language has over the way people think. Word choice is at the centre of an article about USA ‘abortionist’ Warren Hern . He hates the word abortionist: ‘the opponents of abortion have turned it into a degrading and demeaning word that has the same negative connotations as the most despicable racial epithet’.

But the author argues that it is the right word, an accurate word, and our discomfort with it is only a measure of how poisoned the language of abortion has become. The article does not refer to Hern by his name but uses the poisoned word, the ‘abortionist’, ignoring both the normal convention referring to people the way they want plus Hern’s abhorrence of the word. This produces an accusatory tone that suggests that the author is antagonistic towards Hern, although other that name calling the author does not seem unsupportive of him. Perhaps the author is expressing his mixed feelings. 

Will Down syndrome disappear?

There are concerns about the impact of the improving accuracy and availability of low risk cheap prenatal tests such as for Down syndrome (DS). Introduction of a noninvasive maternal serum test is expected that might provide a definitive diagnosis of DS in the first trimester at no risk to the fetus. The authors report that the tests should be virtually universally available and allow privacy of decision making. The authors ask whether the new tests will decrease the birth incidence of DS even further. Indeed, might there be no more DS children born? If so, is that a problem?

Prenatal sex selection – When prenatal testing can threaten social harmony

China has an imbalance in the sex ratio resulting from selective abortion of female fetuses. Predictions that it may result in social disharmony are eventuating sooner than expected - but the problem is different to the one that was anticipated. Stolen girls have become increasingly valuable commodities in a cruel trade. A 2½ girl is feared kidnapped after she went to the shop around the corner. She vanished; her heartbroken mother and father fear she was kidnapped (1).

As many as 20,000 children and young women are reported kidnapped every year. This is said to be increasing. Only a handful of cases are solved. Many girls are bought by farmers who want wives for their young sons when they come of age, or by men who want a child bride without a dowry. Police raided one village & found that babies were being raised for sale and families were acting as brokers for other peasants who wanted to sell off “surplus” infants (1). 

Abortion for Fetal Abnormality?

Abortion remains a crime for most Australians. Laws are inconsistent between states. In contrast, long ago the UK Abortion Act 1967 repealed and replaced its antiquated legal statutes on which much of Australian abortion law is still based.

The government in the state of Victoria asked the Law Reform Commission to provide legislative options to decriminalize abortion. Law reform is expected later this year.

Legal Abortion Time-Limits: Arbitrary Limits Harm Women

By Dr. Lachlan de Crespigny, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Melbourne

The vote by the British parliament to keep the upper legal limit on abortion at 24 weeks was headline news around the world. An article in The Economist (1) considers that the British were spared America's abortion wars partly because Britain is less religious than America, but also because abortion laws are made in Parliament, where shades of grey can be debated, not in the courts, where black or white usually prevails.

Interestingly much of the debate was about ‘viability’ - the minimum gestational age at which a newborn is said to be capable of surviving with modern intensive care facilities. This is a simple across-the-board week count. But the survival rate of newborns also depends on many other factors, including where they are born (2, 3), fetal health including the presence or absence of an abnormality (which remains lawful where the child will be ‘seriously handicapped’), plus the condition of the newborn. While around half or so of 24 week newborns in Britain may survive, many or most of the abortions at around that gestation are of problem, or unhealthy, pregnancies.