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"A cautionary glimpse into the social problems sexism and gender discrimination can produce" is a better thread le
Google, Microsoft pull sex ads after India legal threat
As technology improves, and we can learn more and more about what traits our potential offspring might/might not have.....selective abortion is inevitable. Child gonna be gay? Abort it. Want a boy? Abort the girls. Brown eyes? Sorry. Girl from the Midwest gets knocked up by a foreign black guy? Ooops, that happened; good thing abortion was illegal, huh?Internet giants Google and Microsoft have pulled adverts for sex selection products and other services considered illegal in India after being threatened with legal action, activists said Thursday. India's Supreme Court had last month asked the two companies plus Yahoo to respond to a complaint that they were illegally advertising do-it-yourself kits and expensive genetic techniques to find out an unborn baby's gender.
Activists said the products -- which have not been scientifically proven to be accurate or safe -- damage efforts to stem mass abortions of girls because of a traditional preference for boys in India.
"Sponsored links in Google have come down considerably. They have disappeared from Microsoft India search," activist Sabu George, who filed the pe ion, told AFP.
A random search for "gender selection" on Yahoo, however, produces links to resources and clinics offering to help people choose the gender of their child.
Yahoo India was not immediately available for comment.
There are 927 females for every 1,000 males in India compared to the worldwide average of 1,050 females. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) says India loses 7,000 girls daily through abortion.
Google said it will "review the pe ion carefully."
"In India, we do not allow ads for the promotion of pre-natal gender determination or pre-conception sex selection. We take local laws extremely seriously," the company said in a statement.
India -- the world's second most populous country -- has the highest number of births, with 27 million children born every year, making it a lucrative market for gender selection products.
"As of now, not a single product has been scientifically proven but they will become accurate sooner than later," said Puneet Bedi, a gynaecology consultant at New Delhi's Apollo hospital.
"Eventually, they will be misused for sex determination," Bedi told AFP.
Most Indians prefer sons, who are typically regarded as breadwinners, while girls are seen as a burden because of the matrimonial dowry demanded by a groom's family and the fact that their earnings go to their husband's family.
Currently, the most popular way to know the gender of a foetus is through an ultrasound test, which costs as little as five dollars, and is banned in India for that purpose.
Activists say abortions of female foetuses shot up dramatically in the 1990s once ultrasound tests became widely available and affordable in India.
"What ultrasound did for female foeticide in the 1990s, these new products have the potential to do in the next few decades. We have to be one step ahead of them," said activist George.
No estimates were available for the number of Indians using gender determination products.
"If the advertisements are there, people must be buying them," George told AFP.
In a similar legal row in Britain, Google agreed this week to change its policy on abortion-related advertisements by religious groups after a pro-life Christian group challenged the company in court for refusing its advert.
"This is an important issue of free speech and religious liberty," the Christian Ins ute said in a statement on its website after the legal proceedings were "settled on amicable terms."
"A cautionary glimpse into the social problems sexism and gender discrimination can produce" is a better thread le
Those are ALREADY illegal.
not in India
80% of woman that get abortions suffer from PTSD.
And by saying to "cautionary", I wasn't referring to India, was I?
I tried to point out traits that Americans might be inclined to select.
If you don't see any issue here, great.
Abortion = Good, couldn't possibly create any problems EVER. You're in lock-step.
I get it.
Cmon 101, the thread le is misleading at best.
We dont live in the same culture as India/China where having boys is BY FAR more preferable.
I mean, with doing no research whatsoever, I am guessing people prefer boys because they have certain advantages in their society that woman do not.
Couple of guesses: land ownership, inheritance, better job placement, etc.
I can understand the thread le if you put:
A cautionary glimpse into the social problems abortion can produce in patriarchal societies.
DR;
Didn't think it was that out of line, might need to reassess.
My point that I was trying to make wasn't JUST about Girls. As we learn to understand DNA more and more, and to decipher which genes go with what, OUR society, though not patriarchal, does have traits it prefers:
Heterosexuality; Athletic Build, Intelligence, Blue Eyes, etc....
With abortion on demand being the rule of the day, and tests for which traits YOU like being readily available at some point in the relatively near future....I see an ethical dilemna. The stats in India suggest that selective abortion affects the population as a whole somewhat dramatically. We might not choose for the same things, but given the choice, many, IMO, will choose.
I'm still waiting on the requisite conservative finger-wagging thread on the social problems out-of-wedlock pregnancies can produce. Funny how that was suddenly transformed into a private family matter when it happened to Republican family.
who knows what your ill-conceived ramblings attempted to point out.
ah, the old strawman argument. How long has it been since you trotted that out? a day?Abortion = Good, couldn't possibly create any problems EVER. You're in lock-step.
I get it.
Out of wedlock pregnancies have been shown to produce children that are at a significant disadvantage socially. It is astonishing, given the evidence, that in practice, our nation's policy is to encourage them. Additionally, marriages of necessity, especially at a young age, seldom succeed. It is unfortunate Bristol Palin is having to make this particular Hobson's choice.
Do you want to discuss this more refined "rambling", or do you just want to lob bombs?
I think it's fair that a bunch of men can decide what a women can do to her body.
I think you made this part up, or at least it was never mentioned in the article you used in support of your impending moral decay hypothesis. The article deals with gender selection and not "trait" selection.tests for which traits YOU like being readily available at some point in the relatively near future.
Last edited by Oh, Gee!!; 09-18-2008 at 10:12 AM.
Hmmm, now that is much more compelling argument...if the technology is there some day to choose those specific traits you mentioned (I dont think they are....yet), then I am not entirely sure I disagree with your opinion.
But you must admit the thread le doesnt really put forth that particular idea....it may in content, but not in le.
BTW, I didnt think the le was "out of line"
In comparison to the slung around here thats passed off as news or fact, the worst you could do was unintentionally/intentionally slant a thread le.
Just look at the front page of this forum, its like a "Whose team are you on ANYWAY?" slogan, line-by-line.
Yeah.
Although voting for McCain; kind of hoping Obama wins.
Would make debating in here much easier.
Find ANY bad news, cut and paste the article; blame it on Obama.
Since Bush is really the first President to deal with wide-spread internet use/blogs/etc... I think we might not ever have another popular president. We'll see.
Bush was MASSIVELY POPULAR. It's crazy how you guys deny how much in love you were over him.
Who denies? 101?
Youre way off base with that statement.
It's endemic. All over the place. Republicans everywhere are pretending they don't know the guy and he was always a middling president at best.
Ignoring the massive, massive, massive cult of personality you built up around him.
Man, I dont know. Bush seems more like an anomoly in Presidential history in more ways than popularity.
The guy would have been villified in this time or another all the same, IMO.
Besides the way he handled 9/11 (after leaving kindergarten), what redeeming thing has he done? How was the country before in comparison to what it is after?
No, it isnt fair to pin all this crap on Bush in particular, because he isnt a dictator (though, in his own words, he said it'd be easier if he were) thats sets national policy on his word alone.
I will remember one of his quotes, nearly word for word, after he won re-election in 2004 with gains in both houses of Congress....
In his very smug, Bushy way he said "I have gained a lot of political capital. I intend on spending it."
In other administrations of the past, blame could be spread around because Dems controlled this branch, while Reps controlled this other branch.
Dude had 6 years of the White House, Senate and House...AND appointed 2 (3?) Supreme Court Justices!
What do we have to show for it (again, just talking about one party having this much control)?
A tanking economy, a foreign war with an ever-changing set of objectives for victory much less the reason for entry (Powell), No Child Left Behind, MedicareD, a tax-cut which hasnt done (for business or personal) and the most important IMO, a country as divided idealogically as I could imagine to the point of hatred.
I admit the last point is subjective, but the others are not.
Another subjective opinion that I dont think anyone would argue is, our international standing. He sapped 60+ years of good will and charity in 8 short years by being a cowboy and a buffoon with his flippant foreign policy.
No no....Bush is/was a mockery of the office in everyway imaginable, IMO. Not because he's a Republican, but because he is an idiot. Bush being elected made me hate the Democratic party more than anything else. These are the ing hacks who couldnt put a candidate next to Bush that the American people thought would be better!
Better than what?! The guy who cant pronounce nuclear?! The guy who has drunk-drivings and known cocaine abuse in his past?! How in some weird alternate universe, this draft-dodging buffoon somehow came out of an argument with a veteran of Vietnam smelling like the patriot on stage?!
Dems are out of touch completely. Reps just abused what was given them. We the People deserve this entire symphony of discord, and I hate humanity much more than I did before.
I hate everyone equally
You can't tear that out of me
No segregation -separation
Just me in my world of enemies
If we reach a point where technology allows people to selectively abort based on child preference then we are free to vocally condemn such actions and shun anyone who does such a thing. I think you overestimate the number of women who would do this, though. You're typically pretty far enough along in a pregnancy that everyone knows you're pregnant before you find out the gender of the fetus. I don't feel like we're anywhere near a point as a society where a woman might show up to work one day and her coworkers would say, "Hey, I thought you were pregnant," and she'd replay, "Eh, I was, but it was going to be a girl/gay/re ed/left-handed so we decided to try again."
Both Bush's were "massively popular" after national crisis or war brought us together; they were both less than popular after that.
However, I compare Bush to Carter, and their relative unpopularity
Carter certainly wasn't popular, but his favorability was better than G.W.'s. If you compare unemployment (nearly double), inflation (through the roof), interest rates (QUADRUPLE!!!) - the things that actually affect the average American, throw in the hostage crisis he seemingly didn't, or couldn't, do anything about - , even had his own big old corporate bailout with Chrysler - Carter should have had abysmal numbers -worse than Bush's.
Those economic indicators, relatively, are pretty good for G.w. (jobs, inflation, interest rates), and yet he is pilloried as, quite possibly, the WORST president in history. If you ask the question, "Can you remember a worse economic time?" I'm betting most people would answer "no". The war is even polling "better", but Bush's numbers remain in the toilet. That might have to do with the doulbe whammy of liberals AND conservatives being unhappy with him, and answering the favoribility question from different sides.
But I think it's even more than that.
Now, I am not defending Bush with this post, just pointing out a disconnect between the actual state of things, and his historically low popularity - and drawing a possible correlation to the speed with which information and ideas can spread now, vs. then. I was called three weeks ago and asked if I approved of the job Bush was doing. I answered, "No". Go ahead and flame me for my theory, but we don't need another Bush Bashing thread.
I hope you're right. I'm afraid I have less faith in humanity. I think they'll be able to tell traits before a woman has to admit she's pregnant. We ain't looking for a package, we're looking at chromosomes.
You put that together very quickly. You stated you point well - and it makes perfect sense. You are right.
I'm betting, in 4 years, we'll be able to do the exact same thing, with a different littany, to the new president.
For both Bush and Carter, you state conditions of the moment (the economy, how the war is going, etc.), but you left out current polls showing that roughly 80% of Americans don't like the direction this country is headed; a look to the future.
You underestimate Bush's extraordinarily negative effect on people's confidence about this county's future.
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