Over the past three decades the world has come to witness an ominous and entirely new form of gender discrimination: sex-selective feticide, implemented through the practice of surgical abortion with the assistance of information gained through prenatal gender determination technology. All around the world, the victims of this new practice are overwhelmingly female ”” in fact, almost universally female. The practice has become so ruthlessly routine in many contemporary societies that it has impacted their very population structures, warping the balance between male and female births and consequently skewing the sex ratios for the rising generation toward a biologically unnatural excess of males. This still-growing international predilection for sex-selective abortion is by now evident in the demographic contours of dozens of countries around the globe ”” and it is sufficiently severe that it has come to alter the overall sex ratio at birth of the entire planet, resulting in millions upon millions of new “missing baby girls” each year. In terms of its sheer toll in human numbers, sex-selective abortion has assumed a scale tantamount to a global war against baby girls….
(New Atlantis) Nicholas Eberstadt–The Global War Against Baby Girls
Posted in * Culture-Watch, Children, Health & Medicine, Life Ethics, Marriage & Family, Men, Science & Technology, Women
This is a very serious problem in India and in China. It may have consequences beyond those two countries. Imagine societies in which large numbers of young men are unable to find suitable wives. Social unrest and violence are possible results.
My wife and I thank God every day that we are the proud great grandparents of a beautiful 18 month old little girl, and she is a real joy to us and the entire family. She is a real blessing and a gift from God. Her name is Keira, and she’s a little angel.
This is one of the most deeply disturbing articles that I have ever read – well written and researched and alarming in the facts that it unearths. Not the least of my horror comes towards the end of the article when it points to Catholic countries as among those now showing signs of gender imbalance (including Italy, BTW). I have always thought that this issue is a prime question to be addressed to those who would argue for ‘A woman’s right to choose.’ The question here is: ‘Does this right include gender-selective abortion?’
Thank you for re-publishing this. Its an issue that is often forgotten in the debate on abortion, and needs to be carefully considered by those who have decided that abortion on demand is a good thing.
In graduate school, I studied (among other things) gender imbalance in social (non-human) species. High levels of “excess” males almost always result in high levels of male-male aggression (in human societies, war) which results in the elimination of the excess males. On the up side (for the females) low female numbers result in higher status of females and an ability to get better “deals” (more resources, assistance etc.) in their relationships with males. So the females that do survive in societies practicing sex-selective abortion are likely to be valued higher — assuming they can survive the wars that will be engaged in by the excess males.