On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 6:43 AM, Jon Cox <j...@experiments.com> wrote:
> > Shiv, > > > On Thursday 14 Apr 2011 8:43:57 pm Jon Cox wrote: > > > Early detection of gender-linked chromosomal disorders > > > is a sound medical reason for prenatal gender determination. > > ... > > Imagine my amazement when I read the British figures and realised that > maternal > > mortality in Britain was 1/10th that in India and the most frequent > cause of > > maternal death in britain was anaestheic complications during Caesarean > > section. What India and Britain needed were two different things. > > > > My point is not about what allocation of funds makes the > most sense for different countries. Obviously different > regions have distinct challenges & priorities. > > I really want to hear what you have to say about my > central points. I think that criminalizing gender > determination: > > [1] Fails to address the core social forces that > incline people to discriminate against girls. > in the first place. It's tackling the wrong > end of the problem, therefore the same resources > could be put to much better use elsewhere. > It's a dangerous and ineffective distraction. > I recently read this paper : http://www.womenstudies.in/elib/sex_selection/pup_efforts_of_colonial.pdf there is a part in it which is very interesting in that which debunks the "it is our culture" argument -- there were pockets of female infanticide in northern india.. and interestingly enough it was change in taxation and land ownership policy that expanded the practice into many other communities. > > > > [y/n] Invest in the hard work of addressing core > social issues, education, and the promotion > of shifts in attitude on both a local and a > national level. Get to the root(s) of the problem. > the core social gender selection problem is recent (25-30 years old ) ... i think blaming "backward cultural traditions" is the easy way out ...since there was really no mass culture of infanticide / foeticide... the real problem is linked to gender selection and how technology has enabled it. also no one really questions why abortion and sex determinatoin has become so common place in the last 25-30 years ? if you look at a UN agency like the UNFPA (the UN Population Fund ...and other programs run under the behest of the ford foundation , rockefeller foundation etc in the late 70s-early 80s )...it was funded and setup with the motivation of "population control" some of the large projects they funded was the one-child policy in china ...and also funding the indian government during the 70s and early 80s in their population control program -- more interesting (and not really discussed much nowadays) is the fact that these programs in many cases encouraged gender selection (and therefore abortion).... since the goal was population control (if you have a boy first, you will probably not want more kids....when earlier people were trying to have kids until they had a boy). you dont have to look beyond a book like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb which was a best seller in the 70s and influenced funding policy on population control ... if you look at how portable ultrasound machines are marketed - its not really about people wanting to use them to determine gender to ward off some inherited disease ...most of the target market for these machines are people who dont care about such things - they are just interested in the gender. > > [y/n] Attempt to suppress a black market in test kits > that can be made very cheaply, are small, easy > to use, and don't leave any detectable chemical > signature on the woman herself. On top of that, > try to do this in the face of strong demand > (after all, these are people who are willing > to kill their kid because it's a female). > > Most of these home test kits which give instant results ("pee and detect") dont really work very well ... there are others which require you to mail a sample back to a lab which tend to be more accurate. > [y/n] Criminalize what people are going to anyway > if their attitudes are the same, possibly > using test kits that are of low quality > or completely bogus? Optionally, run around > throwing people in jail, causing even more > poverty, misery, and secrecy on top of the > harm done to those who actually aren't out > to kill their child. > > > The bottom line is that I think we couldn't agree more > on the end goal of saving these girls, but we've got > some very different ideas about the likely outcome of > criminalizing prenatal gender testing kits. > > In any event, time will tell. > > > Regards, > -Jon > > >
