|
Edited on Sun Mar-29-09 03:42 PM by Boojatta
I didn't propose that a couple would first put their baby up for adoption and later, after they had "gotten rid of" their baby, indicate that they wanted to adopt.
The relationship between parent and child is quite close, much closer than the relationship between landlord and tenant. However, a person who wishes to rent out a room in his or her home is entitled to exclude people based on gender and to advertise that exclusion. There's no exemption for close relatives. The landlord's adult son or adult daughter has no right under the law to be considered as a potential tenant. If the landlord excludes all women, then a daughter is excluded and if the landlord excludes all men, then a son is excluded.
Given that parents usually don't function as absentee landlords, but actually live in the same shelter that they provide for their children, a parent automatically has, in addition to a variety of other roles, a role just like that of someone who is renting out a spare room in his or her home. The differences are that babies don't pay rent (because parents are obligated to provide shelter) and that babies don't have any choice regarding where they will live.
It strikes me as odd that a person in the role of landlord would have more choice than a person in the role of parent.
Another fact is that in some parts of the world a woman who is expecting a girl is more likely to have an abortion than a woman who is expecting a boy. In those parts of the world, the eventual gender imbalance among adults will have a variety of harmful effects and won't be balanced by any conceivable benefits. I would expect that in kinder, gentler communities there might be preferences for the gender of the baby, but that the preferences would balance each other out, not creating any overall imbalance between the number of baby girls and the number of baby boys. The preferences could be accommodated by the kinder, gentler approach of adoption rather than abortion.
|