Why are sex-selective abortions so offensive, if abortion itself isn’t?

A British ethicist caused international outrage when she argued that women should be allowed to have abortions because the child they’re carrying is the “wrong” sex. Professor Wendy Savage, a member of the British Medical Association ethics committee, is an abortionist herself. Savage claims it’s not gender discrimination to abort a baby because of his or her sex.

A 2014 study found that there were fewer girls being born than statistically expected. That, along with exposés from undercover journalists that found abortionists agreeing to carry out gender-based abortions, caused the Department of Health to reiterate that it is illegal to have an abortion based on gender. Some NHS hospitals have refused to inform parents of their baby’s sex at all in an effort to prevent these abortions from happening.

Savage claimed that these abortions are a “myth” but believes that women should be allowed to abort based on gender if they so choose. “Because of this sort of anxiety some places won’t tell the woman the sex of the foetus, which is outrageous,” Savage said. “It’s her body and her foetus, so she should have that information. … If a woman does not want to have a foetus who is one sex or the other, forcing her [to go through with the pregnancy] is not going to be good for the eventual child, and it’s not going to be good for [the mother’s] mental health.”

She also argued that women should be allowed to order abortion pills online, without having to see a doctor, and that women should be allowed to have abortions at any stage in pregnancy. Currently, abortions are banned in the United Kingdom after 24 weeks.

The United Nations, interestingly enough, disagrees with Savage’s contention that sex-selective abortion is a myth. According to U.N. estimates, over 100 million girls have been killed simply because they are girls. And while much of this discrimination takes place in countries like India and China, it’s an issue that hits home in places like Britain and the United States as well. A Live Action undercover investigation also found abortion staffers across the United States who were willing to encourage women to go through with abortions because they were carrying the “wrong” sex:

Part 5: North Carolina abortion clinics facilitate the killing of a girl, just because she's a girl.

While gendercide is horrific, of course, there’s a problem with the outrage surrounding Savage’s remarks, along with Britain’s scrambling to prevent gender-based abortions from happening.

No baby should be singled out for death due to his gender, but no baby should be singled out for death at all. If it is wrong to kill babies because of their gender, then why is it less wrong to kill them for another reason? What makes some abortions acceptable and others unacceptable?

The fact of the matter is that all abortions are wrong, regardless of why they happen. If people are so horrified by the idea of babies being aborted for their gender, then they should step back and rethink their support of abortion in general.

Abortion is not empowering; on the contrary, many times it happens because women feel desperate and scared, as if they had no other option. And it doesn’t matter why it happens; every single time, it takes the life of an innocent human being, and each of these lives deserves to be protected, no matter what.