Great Bong informs me that there is this new cutting edge show called Satyameva Jayate, and the great Aamir Khan is the host. Celebrities were tweeting how cool it is that Aamir Khan picked up the mantle to slay the dragons of social injustices. I had to check it out. Since I am too cheap to pay for Cable and I don’t get Star Plus, I checked it out on Youtube. Great bong indeed sums it up quite well. Indeed, this is a show aimed at the middle class guilt, just like how cool it is to support Anna Hazare’s movement without actually going into the deeper issues. After watching the show — which began with issue of female foeticide, I have a few questions for Aamir Khan, the producers and all the people gasping at how great it is that Aamir has brought this issue to the fore.
1. Are you against abortion in general or just the issue of sex selection?
2. If you are pro-choice (a Woman’s right to choose — which is the most secular response, then you consider foeticide to be fine, but just not the female fetuses when the sex is already known.
3. If you are pro-life, then all abortion should be wrong, in which case the issue is not sex selection, but abortion in general.
4. How should contraception be perceived? In the course of the show, you invoked god and said he/she wouldn’t accept this kind of interference( I’m paraphrasing) from us. Isn’t Contraception the same thing? Aren’t we interfering by somehow altering the master plan?
5. An issue raised was that there will be a shortage of girls for men to get married( or it’s already happening). Why should I care? What’s the role of an individual in society? Making sure future supply of girls to the next generations so everything stays balanced? Why?
My intent is not to promote abortions based on gender selection, not I am a hardcore pro-lifer. But I think there is a lot more to it than sex selection bad, accepting god’s will good kind of reasoning. I am trying to understand the principle behind it and why the force of the state should come down hard on the Ultrasound clinics or doctors. I am having a hard time understanding the cognitive dissonance of people who say Abortion is fine( it’s killing embryos) but selected embryos getting a special status as children.
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