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SKorea court rules parents may know baby's sex

South Korea's top court ruled Thursday that parents have the right to know the sex of their unborn babies, sparking concerns the decision might result in more sex-selection abortions.
The Constitutional Court overturned a law that prohibited doctors from informing parents of the sex of the foetus, which it said was "out of step with social changes" and in breach of the rights of medical workers.

South Korea introduced the law in 1987 in order to help prevent abortions to select the sex of the child, which had led to an alarming demographic imbalance in favour of sons over daughters.

Two petitions were filed with the court challenging the law, including one by a doctor who was suspended for six months after informing parents of the sex of their foetus.

"I am concerned that the court's decision could bring sex-selection abortions back into fashion," said Koo Young-Moo, a professor of medical ethics at Ulsan University.

The country has curbed the trend of aborting females, in part with an awareness campaign called "Love Your Daughter." But Koo said this was also partly due to other wider social changes.

"Many married couples choose to have only one baby, regardless of the baby's sex, or none at all," he said.

© 2008 AFP
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Posted by thinking 07/31/08 10:55
Rank: 1/5 after 5 votes
Strange..... liberals keep telling us that a foetus is not human, so abortion, and embryonic stem cell experiments are ok and none of my business. So if a foetus is not human, so who cares if a non human female is killed? Why should it bother liberals that someone chooses to kill a female non entity...

However to pro-lifer's like me, a baby is human and so deserves respect whether female, male, sick, or healthy, or unborn...

So to liberals out there.... using liberal logic why is it wrong to kill a female non entity, and why should government interfere with the choice of a mother in deciding what non-entity sex they want to carry? For us pro-lifers the answer is simple%u2026. A human is a human, no matter what there stage of development.
Posted by ShadowRam 07/31/08 11:23
Rank: 4/5 after 5 votes
Why the assumption that it was liberals who made the 'you can't know the sex of your fetus' law?

Human is a Human is true. But what's more important?

1) Destroy the life of already developed useful parent, and bring into the world an unwanted child?

or

2) Abort a mass of undeveloped useless tissue?

Its more a crime to lose an elder that has accumulated a life time of experiences than it is to lose a fetus...
Posted by thinking 07/31/08 12:33
Rank: 1/5 after 4 votes
Which is worse.... murdering a 112 year old man... or killing a new born.... or killing a unborn child ready to be delivered... or killing a unborn child a month away from being delivered... or killing a child 6 months from being delivered...

What about killing a month old child that is not wanted? What about if a woman just had a child then realizes that the father is a creep and that he left her, so she no longer want the child to be alive? Why cant she kill the child so she can get on with her life? What is wrong about a mother killing her newborn daughter because the ultasound said the baby should be a boy (rare I know, but it does happen), shouldn't the mothers happyness count more than this not yet fully developed child?

When it comes to the abortion debate, those that are pro-abortion, have the weakest arguments... a human is a human, whether or not they are fully developed or not.
Posted by ShadowRam 07/31/08 14:46
Rank: 4/5 after 5 votes
Murdering the 112 yr old man is worse..
Life is sacred, but I argue your definition of what is life.

A new born is only the potential for life.
Just because some chemicals cause it to move doesn't mean its a valuable life.

Nor does the fact that just because its a newer life does it make it more valuable.

Life is valuable for its accumulated experiences and evolutionary prospects

You better get used to the idea of designer babies, body augmentation and genetic manipulation, and this will include shedding of perceived lesser potentials.

(Keep in mind, women are not lesser, and I personally don't agree at all with people in this article that selectively abort due to sex alone, its just plain ignorant, but I am Pro-Choice...)

Just because we are the first life that we know of that has the capability to selectively change our selfs doesn't make it un-natural nor wrong.

My generation.. (I'm 28) and my children will have the greatest dilemma in history of our species, as the fundamental question of 'What is human' will be the #1 concern as new technologies enter our world.

So you'll have to shed all that "Pro-Life no matter what state the life is in", religious, and soul crap and learn to deal with it...

Because religion and 'souls' are the only arguments of Pro-Life'ers have....

I've already come to terms that my daughter may at some point date a clone. You should get over it
Posted by thinking 07/31/08 16:13
Rank: 1/5 after 4 votes
Shadowram.

Your not pro-choice, your pro-abortion.

You call people who kill unborn girls ignorant. If you were pro-choice then the decision to kill an unborn girl is neither right nor wrong, and certainly isn't ignorant. It is a choice.

I find it interesting that you place different value on different people. According to you, an old man is worth more than a newborn. (Pro-lifers consider both equally valued) If you ever have another child, please tell the younger, "I value my eldest more than you, because your younger."

Giving different groups of people different values is just what the natzis and slave owners did. They considered Jews and slaves less human than they considered themselves, so in their eyes they could use and kill them as they pleased without remorse. You consider unborn children as sub-human, therefore you believe you can kill them and use them without remorse.

When does human life begin? Only convoluted delusional pro-abortionist logic denies the scientific evidence that it begins at conception.. Yes, there are a lot of accidents when egg and sperm unite in which the human life does not make it to birth. But just as you wouldn%u2019t say that a person who gets cancer or dies via accident before reaching adulthood wasn%u2019t human, you can%u2019t say that a person who dies before being fully formed wasn%u2019t human.

Why do I have to shed my pro-life stance? I actually believe your child will be like the children natzi's and slave owners who came to repudiate the logic that allowed their parents to dehumanize other humans and came to terms with the full humanity of Jews and Slaves, I believe it is the next generation who will come to view with distain how people refused the scientific evidence that life begins at conception.
Posted by ShadowRam 08/01/08 11:44
Rank: 4.2/5 after 5 votes
Yes, I do believe there are different values to different lives. Why> Because I do not believe all life is equal, because all life is not equal, and can not be equal, otherwise Natural Selection and Evolution would not exist.

If you could first Prove why you All life is equal, and then maybe you have an argrument.

No I'm not a Nazi, and just because someone believes that not all life is equal does not make them a Nazi. My views on the value of life has nothing to do with Race, Sex, Color, geographically location, nor even thier IQ.

Pro-Choice is allowing people to choose.
I support people how want to have the choice to change thier body, or change/select their offspring,

Choice is the new evolutionary step for us.

Pro-Life is Pro-NoChoice, and serves nothing but to try and force people to do things that are thought to be the right choice by people who are blinded my ignorance.

So like I said, first prove why you all life is equal.
Posted by thinking 08/03/08 23:37
Not rated yet.
I would like to ask you a question first. What is wrong with the majority of a country saying that one race has less worth than another? Nazi's thought Jews had less worth, so how can you be consistant and still say they were wrong? Majority opinion rules,right?

You think, just like the Nazi's did that the disabled are less valuable than abled bodied. (if not your being inconsistant)
You think older people are worth more than younger. (as per your coments above)

If you had two kids, the older one able bodied, and the younger one disabled, would you love the younger less? If you would doesn't that make you an awful parent?

Could you be truthful enough when you see your disabled child to tell them you consider them less vauable than the older and that you love them less? Since you only have one child right now, look at him/her, and tell them, if you werent perfect, I would have killed you. Your love is conditional on the child being wanted and being perfect.

Why can I say all life is equal? Because I'm not God. Nothing gives me the right to say that a Jew, Old man, young child, crippled person, mentally handycapted, is less valuable than another person? Nothing! What gives you the right? Just your opinion. Thats why your view is so wrong and dangerous.

Different people value different things. One values the older, others value the younger, one values the beutiful, the other the strong. The Nazi didn't value the Jews, you don't value the young. Pro-life values all life equally. You and other pro-abortionists have the opinion that younger, the weak, and disabled are less valuable and can be terminated without a thought. How inhuman your belief system is.
Posted by xen_uno 08/04/08 00:05
Rank: 3.5/5 after 2 votes
It's a necessary evil as far as I'm concerned. Technology is able to save what mother nature would have mercifully terminated in moderate to extreme cases of abnormality. I don't think any woman would ever take the decision to abort lightly. It's the quality of life that's the consideration, not the quantity, for both mother & child. The mother's wishes overrule any "rights" of the fetus while still unborn. It may be inhuman and cruel but that's life.
Posted by Grave 08/15/08 05:04
Not rated yet.
bringing nazi comparisons into discussion is stupid (godwin's law, reductio ad hitlerum).
quite pathetic attempts at "guilt by association" (a form of association fallacy which illogically attempts to shift culpability from a villain to an idea regardless of who is espousing it and why)