Introduced in the 1970s, ultrasound technology has revolutionized patient care by allowing physicians to hear and see the fetus to evaluate whether it’s growing properly or to detect any potential issues that may present themselves during the pregnancy (Cleveland Clinic, 2022). Recently, it has also become a tool to reveal the sex of the embryo before its birth, and while sex determination and prediction were not new concepts for expecting mothers, the confirmation of the gender had brought a new level to a historical issue. This article explores how the capability to determine fetal sex has historically changed gender biases, leading to demographic imbalances and sprouting ethical debates, thereby intertwining medical advancements with deep-rooted cultural and ethical dilemmas.
Female
infanticide has been around for more than two thousand years, it has been
practiced by males all throughout history, and there are mentions in some
religious books like the Quran that men in pre-islamic Arabia had the habit of
burying their own daughters alive (Lindstedt, 2023). With the rise of
technology, new ways to commit female infanticide have been invented, with the
most recent being with the help of modern medicine.
Sex-selective
abortion (SSA) is the voluntary termination of pregnancy based on the confirmed
gender of the child (Garenne, Hohmann, & Lefevre, 2014). With the
advancement of sex-determination techniques, especially in ultrasound
technology, this practice has surged globally which resulted in an unbalanced
ratio of males to females at birth. This procedure is mostly associated with
patriarchal societies that have preferences for sons over daughters, especially
in countries in East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. This stems
from generations of misogyny and gender inequality. In countries like India,
most families prefer sons so they won’t have to worry about dowry expenses.
With the implementation of the one-child policy in China, families have become
eager to bear boys that will carry on the family line. In the Middle East,
men are the primary inheritors of the family’s wealth, properties and business.
This
has resulted in unbalanced ratios of males to females in these countries.
Studies have shown that in the next twenty years, males of reproductive age in
China and India will be 10% more than females. This means that there will
be fewer marriage opportunities for these excess men in societies where marriage
and building a family are of the utmost importance, this causes low self-esteem
and sexual frustration in men which leads to higher suicide and crime rates.
Realizing this, governments have enforced laws in order to rectify the
situation by banning fetal sex determination and sex-selective abortions, but
so far only South Korea has strongly enforced these laws (Hesketh, Lu, &
Xing, 2011).
Nowadays
there are debates all across the globe on whether abortion is ethical or not,
regardless of its reasons. Some claim to be pro-life, where they view abortion
as the killing of a child, while others claim to be pro-choice, where they
don’t even consider the embryo as ‘life’ and that abortions are an expression
of reproductive rights (Eftekhaari et al., 2015). This raises the question, of why
sex-selective abortions are frowned upon when abortions in themselves are an
expression of rights? Especially when sex-determination technology exists and
doesn’t face the same backlash that SSA receives.
Standing
at the crossroads between healthcare innovation and ethical controversy, we look
back and wonder whether this debate would have existed if ultrasound technology
never did. While we stand and point fingers between medical advancement and
moral conundrums, we fail to see how ultrasound technology has not only granted
us novel perspectives into fetal development but has also opened the doors of
discussion about the boundaries of reproductive autonomy and societal values.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
Cleveland Clinic. (2022, September 28). Ultrasound In Pregnancy:
What To Expect, Purpose & Results. Retrieved from Cleveland Clinic website:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/9704-ultrasound-in-pregnancy
Eftekhaari, T. E., Nejatizadeh, A. A., Rajaei, M., Soleimanian, S.,
Fallahi, S., Ghaffarzadegan, R., & Mahmoudi, F. (2015). Ethical
considerations in sex selection. Journal
of Education and Health Promotion, 4(32),
32. https://doi.org/10.4103/2277-9531.157184
Garenne, M., Hohmann, S., & Lefevre, C. (2014). A framework for
analyzing sex-selective abortion: the example of changing sex ratios in
Southern Caucasus. International Journal
of Women’s Health, 889. https://doi.org/10.2147/ijwh.s66333
Hesketh, T., Lu, L., & Xing, Z. W. (2011). The consequences of
son preference and sex-selective abortion in China and other Asian countries. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 183(12), 1374–1377.
https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.101368
Lindstedt, I. (2023). The Qurʾan and the putative pre-Islamic
practice of female infanticide. Journal
of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1515/jiqsa-2023-0005
){kind=link}
0 Comments