Mother of all silences on gender-based abortions

President: All of society is flawed if gender violence is allowed to occur, reads the heading (Irish Examiner, March 12) where Michael D Higgins continues with ‘and if an intolerable silence prevails around this issue’. 

Many of those who campaign for gender equality remain silent on gender-based abortion. Journalist Mara Hvistendahl in her book Unnatural Selection even links the imbalance resulting from such procedures in Eastern Countries to forced marriages and prostitution. Yet presumably to approve such abortions might be seen as an endorsement of gender-based discrimination, while criticism might be seen as a dilution of the feminist mantra ‘It’s a woman’s right to choose’. Hence, in order to avoid the mother of all contradictions, we witness the mother (or for equality’s sake, the father) of all silences.

Rory O’Donovan