I have always said that feminism is the dumbest, most incoherent, most violent, and most destabilizing ideology in the history of ideology. Now Great Britain is discovering one of the many reasons why:
Britain’s leading abortion charity has been criticised for encouraging ‘sex-selective’ terminations – amid fears these are on the rise among the country’s Indian women. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which carries out 110,000 terminations a year, suggests that aborting a baby on the basis of sex is not illegal – despite Government advice explicitly stating it is against the law.
Furious campaigners called the advice ‘irresponsible’ and pointed out that many pregnant British-Indian women are under huge pressure to have boys, and may be coerced into having an abortion as soon as a scan reveals a female foetus.
Women of Indian origin are likely to have aborted 400 girls on the basis of their sex in the five years up to 2021, the latest figures reveal.
But Department of Health guidance issued to doctors in 2014 states: ‘Abortion on the grounds of gender alone is illegal. Gender is not itself a lawful ground under the Abortion Act.’
But the BPAS website says: ‘The law is silent on the matter. Reason of foetal sex is not a specified ground for abortion within the Abortion Act, but nor is it specifically prohibited.’ BPAS carries out almost half the abortions in the UK, through drugs it sends by post or surgical procedures at its 55 clinics nationwide.
If women have the right to choose abortion, then they have the right to choose abortion for any reason. The entire concept of the freedom of speech is literally founded upon the undeniable observation of the freedom of thought, which is not a right, but a definitional tautology: one man cannot know what another man thinks.
Human Action was written on the basis of acting man alone knowing the basis for his actions. Or, in this case, her actions.
A society cannot have both a) abortion rights and b) laws against women having abortions for the wrong reasons. Obviously, there is no such thing as a “right” to murder unborn children simply due to the physical location of the child and abortion should be illegal.
But in places where it isn’t, these issues will inevitably arise, as I pointed out nearly 20 years ago. Now, what was once a problem in India is now a problem in the UK thanks to the joys of mass immigration.