Word: fetal
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...viable embryo. But little was known about whether toxins could trigger more insidious defects in the sperm -- problems subtle enough to allow the birth of the child but still harmful enough to produce serious malformations. Perhaps the most disturbing recent report concerns lead, which had been shown to impair fetal growth when mothers were exposed while pregnant. At a meeting last month of the American Public Health Association, Silbergeld reported on a study in which male rats subjected to even low levels of the toxic metal -- comparable to amounts found in the dust and dirt of many inner-city neighborhoods...
...some people, fetal-protection policies are merely a way to avoid making the workplace safe for men and women equally. Feminists also dismiss them as discrimination masquerading as compassion, a disguised way of keeping women out of more lucrative men's jobs. Critics of the fetal-protection policies also point out that toxic substances in the workplace may damage genes in male sperm. "A man or woman working in a plant should be told the dangers and make up their own minds," says Molly Yard, president of the National Organization for Women...
Ironically, it was the Supreme Court's decision creating a right to abortion in Roe v. Wade that also provided some of the legal underpinning for fetal rights. The same ruling recognized a government interest in protecting the fetus during the last trimester of pregnancy. But while judges had a hand in creating fetal rights, courts will never be able to ensure real protection to an unborn child. That will have to come from mothers who take responsibility for the lives they carry within them -- and a nation willing to provide the fetus with real prenatal care...
...many ways to kill baby girls. Feeding them poisonous oleander berries, smothering them in their afterbirth or just not feeding them are among the ancient methods still in use in some rural parts of Asia, where baby boys have always been preferred. Nowadays technology also plays a role: fetal testing procedures, such as amniocentesis and sonograms, are employed by women in China, Korea, India and elsewhere to detect the sex of a fetus. Many mothers will abort a female. "Over the past century science has only quickened the pace of the death of the female child, from the born...
...demographic impact is dramatic: in South Korea, where fetal testing to determine sex is common, male births exceed female births by 14%, in contrast to a worldwide average of 5%. In Guangdong province, the China news agency Xinhua reported, 500,000 bachelors are approaching middle age without hopes of marrying, because they outnumber women ages 30 to 45 by more than 10 to 1. Alarmed by such imbalances, some governments have taken steps to limit the use of amniocentesis as a prelude to female feticide. Asian nations also hoped to influence parents by designating 1990 the Year of the Girl...