| Username |
Post |
| Golkhadi |
Posted
on 24-Jun-03 10:02 PM
A son finally
A 40-year-old woman gave birth to a son Sunday after delivering 13 daughters in Dhading. The mother and daughter and doing well at Kalleri village in Kathmandu's neighbouring district, published reports said Jubilant neighbours have been congratulating the Dhungana couple. Eleven of the 13 daughters are living while three have married. nepalnews.com br June 24
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| Golkhadi |
Posted
on 24-Jun-03 10:04 PM
i am surprised that these things still exists in nepal. Surprisingly 40-years old mum is in sound health...WAY TO GO.
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| Master_Of_One_Liners |
Posted
on 24-Jun-03 11:06 PM
The only anomaly here is that a married couple had sex 14 times.
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| SITARA |
Posted
on 25-Jun-03 03:37 AM
"The only anomaly here is that a married couple had sex 14 times." Master of Oneliners
You quote a 2nd grader!
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| lonely |
Posted
on 25-Jun-03 09:17 AM
Sitara Jiu,
"You quote a 2nd grader! ", why did you think so???
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| Nepe |
Posted
on 25-Jun-03 10:18 AM
We are all too well familiar with the preference of parents to have son over daughter in our society. I have a feeling that the situation has improved in the last decade (something among a few good things that have happened in the unprecedentedly chaotic decade of our country !), particulaly in the educated class. Though it is happening in the educated class, it has very little to do with the education (that discrimination is unethical) of the parents. It has much to do with the education our daughters are receiving, or, to be more precise, to the fact that they are taking all sorts of untraditional jobs, both at professional and personal level, and to some extent to the changing life style.
These kinds of observation makes me more and more convinced that the social change is brought about by the factors of economic importance, it does not come from the preaching of moral lessons in isolation.
With this firm conviction in my head, I do not see much usefulness, except for expressing one's displeasure, of the Maoist bashing by our Sajhaites to solve the Maoist problem, but I do not want to regress to that topic here. Here, I wanted to raise a debate on whether the preaching of 'chhora hos wa chhori, santaan- Ishwar ko brdaan' to parents would eliminate the gender discrimination or it needs something else.
Actually, I want to go a step ahead and talk about the gender-based abortion, which is interestingly but not paradoxically prevalent in the same class which shows less gender discrimination than in the past. Talking about the gender based abortion, you might wanna recall the accusation made by then health minister Devkota dactar sap to the maternity clinics few months ago.
To economize in this discussion, I would like to recycle an old thread in which Biswo ji and I had argued about the abortion. I had put forward quite an unorthodox view on the abortion. Here is the link and a portion of the postings,
http://sajha.summitusa.com/openthread.cfm?threadid=3952
Nepe Posted on 17-Mar-02 03:00 PM
All creatures, including human, are robustly programmed by nature to want to have babies. Actually, the instinct of reproduction is one of the fundamental design on which life is based, with which it has sustained billions of years of evolution on earth. Therefore we have the nature's guarantee that humans are never going to lose the reproductive instinct, no matter what. Therefore there is no reason to worry whether those limited cases of the termination of unwanted pregnancies pose threat to human life as a whole. Abortion is a threat to nothing.
Is abortion immoral ? Yes, if it is anything but termination of UNWANTED pregnancies and if it is decided by individual OTHER THAN the woman bearing the fetus. Why the voluntary decision by a woman to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is moral ? Because there can not be a moral standard higher than that which ensures well being of the new life. The first and foremost condition for the well being of a baby is that it should be being WANTED. Wanted not by the Pope or the chairman of the World Hindu Parishad, but by the very person who bears, give birth and raises the baby. Imposing unwanted pregnancy to a woman is immoral and ugly. In retrospect, it destroys the beauty of motherhood. Yes, having no option for terminating unwanted pregnancy destroys the beauty of motherhood.
Should there be a restriction/condition imposed on abortion ?
The only condition that should be imposed is that it should be a case of pregnancy unwanted by the responsible woman. That's all.
What about late pregnancy, should it be a condition ?
No. A decision by a woman to terminate her late pregnancy is itself a proof telling how severely UNWANTED is that pregnancy. Trust the nature. A woman will always feel an emotional bond to the fetus inside her womb. Any decision she makes on the fate of that fetus is the best indicator of what she must be going through. As a rule, there is nobody more trustworthy than the woman herself. Trust her.
What about gender based abortion prevalent in North India and now being practiced in Nepal too ?
It seems there is (in this thread as well as at the national debate in the country !! ) an unanimous opposition to the practice of abortion of female fetus. Therefore, prepare yourself, what I am going to say is going to shock all of you.
I think if it fulfils the only condition for abortion I proposed above, i.e., it is UNWANTED by the PREGNANT WOMAN HERSELF, then nobody has right to force her to give birth to the unwanted fetus. I know upon this statement, all proponents of equal right/respect to women will jump on me. Let me tell you this- I am a hardcore supporter of equal right/respect to women. and I think the freedom to choose the gender of a baby is the only natural way to eliminate discrimination against women in our society. Before you point out the self-contradiction of my statement and/or you think I must be insane, let me explain my theory.
Women are oppressed and discriminated in all stages of their lives in our society. The story begins right from their birth. Daughters are discriminated by parents, because they are UNWANTED. Imagine what would be the situation if they were somehow WANTED. Of course, they would not be discriminated and would enjoy all the care, love and respect that a WANTED son is entitled to. Therefore UNWANTEDNESS has a causative relation to the discrimination. Therefore, if you want to eliminate discrimination against a born girl child, don't force the mother to keep an unwanted female fetus. Only when a parent really wants to have a daughter, then only you can be sure she gets everything a child should get.
cont....
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| Nepe |
Posted
on 25-Jun-03 10:20 AM
Now the scary thing is what if ALL or, let's be realistic, majority of the parents decided to have sons only. Wouldn't an unbalanced ratio of men to women be problematic ? May be so for men, but not for women. For women, that will be the best time in the whole history of mankind except for those primitive maternal societies at the beginning of human civilization. Scarce number will make women valuable, wanted and respected for the first time in our society. Problem of dowry, property rights, equal opportunity will be vanished and we will be reading them as a history. We will be talking then about discrimination against men, abortion of male fetus, dowry from groom's parents etc. The entire game will be played by an opposite rule. That will be a golden era for women. Okay, let's not go that far. But certainly, at one point during such process, the society will come to an equilibrium of equal importance of men and women. And that too in a very natural way, without uttering a single word to educate conservative parents of our society. Think about it.
Biswo Posted on 17-Mar-02 07:38 PM
Nepeji
I don't doubt that you are supporter of equal right to women. But to prove a point,
you are allowing death of an unborn child(as you did by decriminalizing late
pregnancy abortion) which is too harsh. You know what, that's too insane an
experiment to prove obvious worthiness of women.(I also disagree when you
emphasize North India and Nepal in your point, China these days is facing acute
problem of aborition of baby girl after finding out gender. The latest I heard from
China was when the government meted out 18 years jail sentence to a doctor who
helped abort the child, the harshest yet!)
Crime and punishment is a system. We need to increase awareness while without
jeopardising the system. My point only.
Nepe Posted on 18-Mar-02 12:33 PM
Biswoji,
I agree with you that the abortion of late pregnancy is too harsh. In a normal condition, it is a horrible thing to do. My recommendation for decriminalization was based on my assumption that a woman who decides to do such a horrible thing should be in a horrible situation, and it will be a horrible thing on our part to force her to remain in that horrible situation and have horribly unwanted baby. May be my assumption is imperfect. If there are chances of abuse of legality of abortion, they should be prevented by all means. But care should be taken to define the 'abuse'. Abuse of the 'abuse' has more chances than the actual abuse of the abortion in a conservative society like ours. Your citation of 18 years of jail sentence to a Chinese abortion doctor is an example of the abuse of 'abuse' in my view.
Thank you for adding the reference of China to the problem of abortion of female fetus. I think this problem is mostly a result of one child policy of China. Correct me if I am wrong. In any case, I think that opposition to gender based abortion is less of a voice for emancipation of women and more of a manifestation of our prejudice against women. We need to draw a really big picture to see this.
If I have to say my view on abortion, population and related theme in a sentence, I would say, I want to see this world full of wanted and loved children. If that brings a crisis, then only we should resort to having unwanted children.
The end
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| Hellbound |
Posted
on 25-Jun-03 10:51 AM
Jeeeeez,
Can't you be little short and precise!
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| Nepe |
Posted
on 25-Jun-03 11:37 AM
No, your highness. I was too lazy to rewrite the cut and paste part. Perhaps I should have put the link only. Will keep in mind for future.
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