Sex-Selective Abortion Bans

Sex-selective abortion bans are restrictions based on the racist and xenophobic stereotype that Asian and Pacific Islander communities prefer male children over female children. Not only is it a gross mischaracterization of complex global gender inequality issues, it assumes that Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) people having abortions cannot be trusted to make their own decisions and need legislators and medical providers to interrogate their reasons for an abortion.

Not to mention, it’s not even backed up by facts. The most recent research on AAPI sex ratios as birth in the U.S. shows that they’re actually having more girls on average than white Americans are, and opinion polling of AAPIs shows no preference for sons or daughters. 

While in some countries terminating a pregnancy on the basis of sex has occurred, anti-abortion politicians making laws about it in the United States is racist and xenophobic because they’re ‘othering’ AAPI people and assuming that they will attempt to practice these same stereotyped behaviors based on exactly no evidence. There is no evidence backing up any of these arguments, but that hasn’t stopped anti-abortion lawmakers from trying to pass legislation that—while cloaked in the language of ‘nondiscrimination’—targets East Asian and South Asian people who want abortions and it seeks to deny us access by forcing providers to interrogate our reasons for our abortions. If enacted, this policy forces abortion providers to racially profile their own patients and violate their 14th Amendment rights. Meaning, if a person seeking an abortion discloses to their provider that the reason for their abortion is somehow related to the sex of the fetus, the abortion would be denied. What is scary is if a patient makes an offhand or misinterpreted remark, a provider could deny them their abortion. These laws turn us into suspects in the exam room. Moreover, it is not a solution to gender inequality in the United States or around the world. It’s just more racial profiling in our exam rooms.

Additionally, the very idea of sex-selective abortions and having a preference for a child of a particular sex perpetuates the narrow gender binary and isn’t how people may identify their gender as they grow older. It is true that some people hope for a child of a particular sex while others don’t give it much thought.

Sometimes we want to plan our family can often be determined by the experiences we’ve had in our own lives. Sometimes we have a specific idea of how we’ll become pregnant, the way our pregnancy will go, and the gender of our child. While gender is a social construct, the sex assigned to our pregnancy can and does trigger emotional responses in some of us who’ve survived sexual assault or experienced abuse from caretakers.

For a survivor, it can be traumatizing to be told the sex of our pregnancy aligns with our abuser whether they were involved in the pregnancy or not. If we grew up in homes where we weren’t provided for or loved, it may cause us to be intimidated by a specific gender during pregnancy, and we may question the possibility of repeating history. Some of us may also hope to complete our family with a specific gender based on these ideals, and feeling so-called “gender disappointment” during pregnancy is something that happens. What is scary is that vocalizing those feelings could be misinterpreted by a provider and we could be denied healthcare because of these laws.

We should think about the impact of placing our own expectations and the limitations of the gender binary on our current and future children. And, when talking about these xenophobic abortion bans it’s important to remember how the language we use has the ability to perpetuate transphobia and gender inequality.