Abortion vs. Right To Choose (specifically, to choose gender)

[Wolfman]

A rather interesting and complex topic. In China, because of the strong preference for male children over female children, it is illegal for a doctor to reveal the gender of a child before it is born, in order to prevent deliberate abortion of females. This is a serious problem in countries like China and India, where the male/female ratio is terribly skewed. This doesn't prevent people trying to find out their baby's gender, and a great many doctors will take an under-the-table 'donation' to reveal that information.

However, a doctor in Canada is now proposing that Canadian doctors should likewise refuse to reveal the gender of babies (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/health-news/withholding-sex-of-fetus-could-curb-female-feticide-in-canada-doctor/article2304046/) when doing an ultrasound. His argument:
The practice of aborting a female fetus after the parents learn the sex of their developing child through ultrasound is not as widespread in Canada as in such countries as India and China, where a cultural and often religious preference for boys has led to the estimated destruction of millions of females in the womb.

But Dr. Kale says smaller numbers in Canada, estimated in the thousands, are no reason to ignore such gender-based violence.


“Female feticide devalues women completely,” said Dr. Kale, interim editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. He wants to see doctors withhold information about the sex of a child in the womb until 30 weeks' gestation to prevent “an unquestioned abortion” because parents prefer a boy.Now, in my mind, this raises an interesting dilemma.


On the one hand, we have the woman's right to choose...her right to have an abortion for any reason, to have control over her body, and her choices about what to do with it. On the other hand, we have female fetuses being deliberately aborted because people prefer a male...a practice that very arguably is degrading to women, implicitly giving them a lower value than males.


This seems terribly complex to me. My initial reaction (particularly being in China) is that I'd tend to agree with this. I think it is terrible for people to get an abortion based simply on the fact that their baby is female, and they want a male. I think it is degrading, and strengthens perceptions that men are more important and more valuable than women.


On the other hand...abortion advocates (and I should clarify that I'm pro-choice, this isn't some back-handed way to claim that abortion is wrong) state that a woman has an absolute right to control her body, and to make her own choices about whether she keeps her baby, or gets an abortion. So...would that not also mean that she has the right/freedom to abort because she prefers a particular gender? And what of the women out there who would abort a male fetus because she preferred a female one?


Then there's the issue that, in Canada at least, the majority of people don't think this way...so you'd be deliberately withholding information from them, which I'm sure would raise an outcry, and complaints that they were being treated like criminals (or potential criminals), when they have no such desire, nor intent.


And targeting only those communities (Chinese, Indian, etc.) who are known to engage in such practices would be absolutely impossible...screams of racial profiling, discrimination, etc. would immediately kill any such effort.


So...what do you think? Should we simply allow people to abort a fetus based solely on the preference for a particular gender (and provide them with the necessary information to make such a decision)?



If yes...would you apply this only to a country like Canada, or to all countries, including places like China and India? Why, or why not?


If no...how would/should such a policy be implemented?


Of course, if you're anti-abortion, I'm sure you'll chime in, but your conclusions are pretty much already pre-determined. I'm more interested in hearing from those on the pro-choice side of the debate, as I anticipate that this issue is going to become more public in future (as more immigrants from countries like China and India continue to flock to Canada and the U.S.), and I think it is a valid and important social/cultural question.

[NewtonTrino]

IMHO you can't really fix stuff like this with laws, you have to fix it through education and changing culture. Basically fixing it is ridiculously hard.

Laws may help curb it to some extent though.

[Sam.I.Am]

Making abortions legal until the ninth trimester would fix this problem... :boxedin:

[Loss Leader]

The woman's right to information about what is going n in her own body, including the gender of a fetus, should be paramount to everything else.

If I were a public policy wonk in India or China, I might feel differently.

[ddt]

Why limit the question to North America, and specifically to immigrants from China, India or other cultures where male offspring is preferred?

I had a vague recollection we had a public discussion in Holland about abortions for reason of unwanted gender; however, all I could find to back that up were newspaper articles from 2009 about a Swedish woman who had been suspected of doing just that. She already had two daughters, and had two abortions a year apart - in both cases the fetus was female.

So I can imagine also people from western cultures doing just that. You want the typical family, one son and one daughter; when the second pregnancy turns out to have the same gender as the first kid, you abort it. Of course, such abortions are gender-neutral over the long run.


IMHO you can't really fix stuff like this with laws, you have to fix it through education and changing culture. Basically fixing it is ridiculously hard.
This.


Laws may help curb it to some extent though.
How? Proscribe this as a reason in abortion law?

Someone who has a wanted/expected pregnancy but is determined to abort for reasons of gender will also be determined enough to make up another, convincing reason to tell the doctor in an interview, or however you want to check the reasons for an abortion.

[myowninvention]

Personally, I'd much rather see an increase in abortions due to gender then unwanted children being brought into the world. The practice of aborting a female fetus is not causing female to be valued less, it is a symptom of a culture where that is already the case, and preventing those abortions isn't making parents value a female child any more, nor is it doing anything to address the underlying problem.

[myowninvention]

Making abortions legal until the ninth trimester would fix this problem... :boxedin:

Ninth trimester?

[Beat]

IMHO you can't really fix stuff like this with laws, you have to fix it through education and changing culture. Basically fixing it is ridiculously hard.
Fixing it through education *is* ridiculously hard, but it is nowhere near as hard as letting it be.

[Sam.I.Am]

Ninth trimester?

:boxedin:

[Wolfman]

It's interesting, considering my perspective on this now, and what my perspective would have been before I came to China. Having spent almost two decades in China (and traveled in India several times), I've seen the terrible results of a culture in which male children are very highly preferred over female children.

Now, there are arguably good reasons for this...in both cultures, when children marry, the wife becomes a part of the husband's family, and her responsibility is to them...not to her own family. Thus, if you have several boys, then when they get married, you get more people who will take care of you in your old age; but if you have girls, then when they get married, you are left stranded, with nobody to care for you.

But the result of such thinking is that its not just unborn female fetuses that are unwanted...this perspective permeates society, and females are in general considered much less valuable than males. What else would you expect in a culture that, from the moment they discover they are pregnant, says, "If its a girl, we trash it; if its a boy, we keep it"?

Personally, in this situation, I think that laws to prevent parents knowing the gender of their children are a good thing. It's fine to talk about the value of education over legislation...but in these countries, that level of cultural change will take one or two generations (at least). And in the meantime, you'll have a gender gap that increases dramatically, causing huge social damage. (Even with laws to prevent parents knowing the gender of the fetus, China still has one of the most imbalanced gender ratios in the world...think what it would be like without this law!).

Thus, from that perspective, I would be inclined to support such a law.

However -- Canada is an entirely different situation. There may be parents who prefer a particular gender...but the preference for male and female children is far more likely to be fairly balanced (some will prefer males, some will prefer males). While there are a minority (mostly recent immigrants) who have this strong cultural preference for male children, their own kids will grow up in Canada, and be influenced by Canadian culture. It is far less likely that they will continue this cultural trend when they themselves are adults.

I hate the decreased value placed on females that is intrinsic to such a practice; but in a country like Canada, the combination of culture and education will more than likely negate any long-term trends in this regard. I would like to see more education specifically targeting immigrants (not just in this regard, but in a lot of areas, such as women's equality, not beating your kids, or other cultural issues that tend to be imported along with the people arriving in our country); I'm personally of the perspective that those who live in Canada should be expected to accept and follow our cultural standards (and if they don't want to, then don't give them citizenship), at least where it affects issues of equality, freedom, and other such issues.

I just found it interesting to see this issue -- which is a highly relevant issue in China -- actually being discussed in Canada.

[McHrozni]

This seems terribly complex to me. My initial reaction (particularly being in China) is that I'd tend to agree with this. I think it is terrible for people to get an abortion based simply on the fact that their baby is female, and they want a male. I think it is degrading, and strengthens perceptions that men are more important and more valuable than women.

I agree that it is horrible, but it was also pretty widespread before modern social advances. I think may even be a somewhat evolutionary thing to perfer males over females, but it wasn't a problem until modern medical advances. It could also be entirely cultural, I don't know, but the possibility is there. In any event, the combination is toxic and needs to be prevented as much as possible.

In Canada (and many other places) social change outpaced medical advances, and such prefference was minimized to the point where aborting a fetus just because it was female would amount to almost a crime, and there was no need to adjust legislation as a result of technological advances. In China and India, social change lagged, and legislation was necessary to prevent an even worse fallout. The good thing is that immigrants tend to slowly accept the cultural norms of the country they move to.

The issue, therefore, is limited only to relatively recent immigrants, who have not adjusted to the culture yet. I think that it would be better to focus on education of immigrants than to use laws to prevent it. It's much less traumatic and much more effective, and there is no need for the majority to be inconvenienced because there is a minority that lags in social adjustment. Gender-specific abortion needs to be outlawed, but that's pretty much as far as I want legislation to go.

McHrozni

[McHrozni]

IMHO you can't really fix stuff like this with laws, you have to fix it through education and changing culture. Basically fixing it is ridiculously hard.

Laws may help curb it to some extent though.

Laws to fix such cultural issues are needed when the situation is very bad and needs something that will work quickly. They're unlikely to fix the problem, just made it less urgent for other mechanisms to work. China is a prime example of this - I strongly believe the situation would be a lot worse than it is now, and it's pretty bad (6 males per 5 females at birth, against a world average of 21 to 20). Fixing this will take 1-2 generations, so laws were necessary to prevent China from suffering a rather severe gender imbalance, likely resulting in all sorts of upheval, followed by a major population implosion a generation later.

McHrozni

[KoihimeNakamura]

Wolfman: You might want to fix the (some prefer males, some prefer males) bit

[Professor Yaffle]

In the UK, many NHS hospitals won't reveal the sex of the foetus at scans, especially in regions with a high population of an ethnic origin where selective abortion is more likely. You can still get a private scan if you want to know the sex.

I have less of a problem with barring sex selective abortions than some others do. There are many things we can do, but are barred from doing if it is done of the basis of sex (or race etc). For example shops have the right to refuse service, but they don't have the right to do so on the basis of racial discrimination, for example.

[nabee]

It's interesting, considering my perspective on this now, and what my perspective would have been before I came to China. Having spent almost two decades in China (and traveled in India several times), I've seen the terrible results of a culture in which male children are very highly preferred over female children.

Now, there are arguably good reasons for this...in both cultures, when children marry, the wife becomes a part of the husband's family, and her responsibility is to them...not to her own family. Thus, if you have several boys, then when they get married, you get more people who will take care of you in your old age; but if you have girls, then when they get married, you are left stranded, with nobody to care for you.

But the result of such thinking is that its not just unborn female fetuses that are unwanted...this perspective permeates society, and females are in general considered much less valuable than males. What else would you expect in a culture that, from the moment they discover they are pregnant, says, "If its a girl, we trash it; if its a boy, we keep it"?

Personally, in this situation, I think that laws to prevent parents knowing the gender of their children are a good thing. It's fine to talk about the value of education over legislation...but in these countries, that level of cultural change will take one or two generations (at least). And in the meantime, you'll have a gender gap that increases dramatically, causing huge social damage. (Even with laws to prevent parents knowing the gender of the fetus, China still has one of the most imbalanced gender ratios in the world...think what it would be like without this law!).

Thus, from that perspective, I would be inclined to support such a law.

However -- Canada is an entirely different situation. There may be parents who prefer a particular gender...but the preference for male and female children is far more likely to be fairly balanced (some will prefer males, some will prefer males). While there are a minority (mostly recent immigrants) who have this strong cultural preference for male children, their own kids will grow up in Canada, and be influenced by Canadian culture. It is far less likely that they will continue this cultural trend when they themselves are adults.

I hate the decreased value placed on females that is intrinsic to such a practice; but in a country like Canada, the combination of culture and education will more than likely negate any long-term trends in this regard. I would like to see more education specifically targeting immigrants (not just in this regard, but in a lot of areas, such as women's equality, not beating your kids, or other cultural issues that tend to be imported along with the people arriving in our country); I'm personally of the perspective that those who live in Canada should be expected to accept and follow our cultural standards (and if they don't want to, then don't give them citizenship), at least where it affects issues of equality, freedom, and other such issues.

I just found it interesting to see this issue -- which is a highly relevant issue in China -- actually being discussed in Canada.

I also think it's a really interesting situation...though I'd have to agree that not allowing prospective parents to know the sex of their unborn child is probably better than allowing them to know and facing a potential abortion simply based on gender preferences. At the same time, however, I think you're right in terms of parents wanting their child to take care of them when they are older.

I am in South Korea and the situation is similar here. Preference for male children, and an overwhelming number of male births vs. female births means South Korean men (particularly in the countryside) are having a harder time finding wives, (this is due to cultural reasons as well) and they are turning to foreign countries (China, Vietnam) to find them....

It's a very complex topic...

[Francesca R]

So...what do you think? Should we simply allow people to abort a fetus based solely on the preference for a particular gender (and provide them with the necessary information to make such a decision)?Yes, in countries with high rankings of political and economic freedom. Once abortion is accepted as ethical, I tend not to think that sex-selective abortion is any less so. It almost undoubtedly does, however, create significant net negative social externalities if it is too widespread in one direction (and the only observed tendency for it to skew is against female births)

If yes...would you apply this only to a country like Canada, or to all countries, including places like China and India? Why, or why not?I would apply it (a liberal policy) to Canada since there is insufficient evidence of a sex-selective abortion problem. I don't know about China and India. Sex-selective abortion in both countries has been illegal for almost two decades, but it is not easily enforced, which is why sex identification of a foetus is also illegal. Removing China's one-child policy, and "waiting for both countries to get rich" would help but the analysis I've read suggests that all this would be insufficient to make the practice go away. South Korea is IIRC the only good example in Asia of the sex ratio at birth first rising but then falling back. Some combination of economic growth and cultural change is probably responsible but I don't think additional laws would make much difference.

[Francesca R]

The practice of aborting a female fetus is not causing female to be valued less.I'm easily persuaded that it creates significant social problems of rising crime (including trafficking women/rape/prostitution but not just these sorts of crimes). For instance Sex Ratios And Crime (http://www.nber.org/public_html/confer/2008/cwgf08/edlund.pdf), Edlund et al 2008

[Francesca R]

I've linked to this before but the authority on statistics about sex ratios at birth is the United Nations DESA Population database (http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/unpp/panel_indicators.htm). The natural ratio is 1.05 males:1.

[Wolfman]

The practice of aborting a female fetus is not causing female to be valued less, it is a symptom of a culture where that is already the case, and preventing those abortions isn't making parents value a female child any more, nor is it doing anything to address the underlying problem.Actually, I disagree. If parents are allowed to continue the practice of gender-based abortions in countries like China or India, then there is neither the need or the incentive for people to change their practices, and there will be greater resistance to attempts to change the cultural values regarding men and women. Whereas if that option is taken away from them, then there is much greater incentive to change.

Plain fact -- people tend to resist change. And the less incentive there is to change, the more likely they are to resist it. Making laws to prevent gender-based abortions won't solve the problem by itself; but in combination with other efforts (education, etc.), it can help provide a strong incentive to accept change which might otherwise be resisted.

[Francesca R]

I am in South Korea and the situation is similar here. Preference for male children, and an overwhelming number of male births vs. female births [ . . . ]
South Korea is IIRC the only good example in Asia of the sex ratio at birth first rising but then falling back. [ . . . ]Korea's statistic looks like this. Data from the World Bank (http://databank.worldbank.org/ddp/home.do) (gender statistics).

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/127464f15744b7835d.jpg

[Sabrina]

I find it difficult to understand the mentality behind this. It seems counter-intuitive to me to prefer males over females so drastically (I can understand it in moderation somewhat), considering that females are the ones who actually get pregnant and give birth. If you prefer males so stringently, you end up breeding the females right out of the population, and from what little I've read on the subject, that is sort of the direction China and India are going in. Someone mentioned up-thread about Chinese men having to turn to foreign countries to find wives already; I would think that would be a huge wake-up call.

Setting aside my inability to understand the difference in culture, however, I have to agree with Wolfman about this being a much more complex issue than simply a woman's right to choose, which I am very strongly for I might add. I can think of no good reason why that right should ever be taken away from a woman, and yet I can also see the issue regarding withholding information merely to prevent an elective abortion simply because you want a different gender for the baby. I have to admit, I'm surprised this issue is coming up in Canada of all places, but setting that aside, I don't think making it a law is really the way to go there. For somewhere like Canada, education regarding the situation WOULD work reasonably well, because the number of women who would want to abort based solely on gender is drastically smaller than China or India. Simply educating families there, or as Wolfman said up-thread letting their children grow up immersed in the Canadian culture, should suffice to prevent the more drastic outcomes we are currently seeing in China and India.

Ultimately, for Canada, I think this doctor is going in entirely the wrong direction. He's right that female babies shouldn't be considered less worthy of bearing to term than male babies, but the answer is not in laws or policy; it's in education. I can't speak to China or India in this regard, however, having never really dealt with either culture.

[Francesca R]

I find it difficult to understand the mentality behind this. It seems counter-intuitive to me to prefer males over females so drasticallySupposedly of punjabi origin there is a saying: "Raising a girl is like watering your neighbour's garden". But I've seen it attributed to western societies as well, with "raising" swapped for "educating". It is traceable back to family assets, title and power transferring to sons.

Beyond that, it is a collective action problem: one family practising "gendercide" would not feel it was solely responsible for a nation-wide imbalance, but if enough families do it . . .

[Caper]

A women's right used largely to slaughter women.

[Flo]

I find it difficult to understand the mentality behind this.

- Strong emphasis on perpetuating the clan/family and the name, which culturally can only be through males.

- lack of social security (old age pensions) so the more sons, the more probability you'll be taken care of in your old age.

- girls move into their husband's family and so are useless in your old age.

- in many parts of India, marrying your daughter involve giving a huge dowry in money, jewels, cars, tv, etc., to the husband's family.


Although dowries are illegal in many Indian states, they are still widely practiced since the authorities lack the means to enforce the law and corruption is rampant.

Same for echographies, that generate huge profits and are practiced by corrupt medical professionals as well as anybody who can get their hands on the required equipment.

[Rairun]

In a Western country, if you wanted to have a baby but aborted a female fetus, I'd consider you a bigot--but I don't think there'd be a need to outlaw the practice. It has no consequences other than reproducing and spreading misogyny, which is a bad thing, but hardly illegal (except in employment situations, etc).

In a country where the male/female ratio is skewed due to selective abortions, I can see how it would be necessary to ban the practice. In an ideal world, no one would want to abort a fetus just because it was female. In a less than ideal world, some people would want to abort female fetuses, but we could afford to let them do it for the sake of civil liberties. And in an even less ideal world, the practice would have to be regulated, or else the social consequences would be too tough to bear.

[Professor Yaffle]

There's a summary here of some of the factors contributing to female foeticide and infanticide (which is also still practiced).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/medical/infanticide_1.shtml

[Antiquehunter]

Out of curiousity - at what point in a pregnancy can the gender be successfully determined by ultrasound?

[Professor Yaffle]

Out of curiousity - at what point in a pregnancy can the gender be successfully determined by ultrasound?

From experience somewhere between 12 weeks and 20 weeks (by ultrasound scan). And a google tells me between 16 and 20 weeks. You could also determine gender by CVS (between 10th and 13th weeks), but that procedure, like amniocentesis is not without risk to the pregnancy.

Also, the foetus need to "co-operate" with the scan if you want to find out the sex. Some of them keep their legs crossed - and you can only be very sure for males, females are more difficult to be definite about. We didn't ask about the sex of our first child, but we knew it was a boy when the sonographer paused while looking at the screen and asked us if we wanted to know. A sure sign she had seen the sure sign of a boy.

[Antiquehunter]

Yes, I was aware that ultrasound required the fetus to not be shy, and that it was imprecise, but didn't know that this could be achieved relatively early in the pregnancy.

I guess on the OT - I'm rather squeamish by the idea, and it certainly is not anything that I would ever endorse.

However I don't think that there should be state intervention in this.

My personal thoughts on the issue are that until the end of the second trimester, since the fetus is not viable, that an abortion is no more an ethical decision than sluffing off cells. (By the second trimester, a pretty large clump of cells). It starts to get cloudier for me when the fetus is viable.

That said, since I don't have a womb, and I am not inclined to procreate, I tend to avoid the discussions since I don't think I necessarily should be entitled to a vote on the issue.

[Wolfman]

I'll endeavor to explain, as best I can, why this situation exists in China. It is a result of a combination of factors -- historical, cultural, and economic.

Historical: Through most of Chinese history, women had few or no rights. They were treated as possessions, pretty much the same as a pig or a dog. They had no say in who they married, they'd simply be given to whoever their parents thought was best (often to obtain an advantage for the family). While there are many things the Communists have done wrong, this is one area in which they did some great things. One of the first things that the Communists did after taking over China was to pass laws to give women full legal equality with men. This included outlawing polygamous marriages; making it illegal to force a woman to marry without her consent; granting women equal status in marriages; etc. But one needs to understand that there is a long history of women being regarded as significantly inferior to men (a fact that is largely true in our own histories, as well).

Cultural: Within Confucian teachings, "filial piety" or "filial loyalty" is one of the most deeply held and fundamental values. It essentially means one's absolute, unquestioning responsibility to and obedience to one's parents. The obligation to your parents is unquestioned, and unquestionable. However...for a man, his filial loyalty is always to his biological parents. But for a women, once she gets married, her filial responsibility is to her husband's parents, not to her own. This value is so deeply held that even parents who are losing a daughter generally wouldn't question it; they'd simply accept that the daughter no longer 'belonged' to them, and had no responsibility to them.

Now, the two factors that I've listed above are both from the past, and in some ways today are much less relevant...in fact, in a fully developed economy, they'd likely disappear within a generation. But that's where economic factors come into play.

Economic: China is a country where over 70% of the population still lives in poverty, and some 50% are still peasant farmers. There is no social security, no universal healthcare. For those people, it is almost impossible to save money to care for themselves after retirement. They don't have RRSPs, they don't have money stashed away for a rainy day. For most of these Chinese, their "social security" is their children. When they get old, it is their children who will care for them, take care of them when they're sick, provide sustenance and shelter, etc. Without those children to care for them, they're in very serious trouble.

As mentioned in a previous post, people resist change...and at the risk of stereotyping, people with the poorest education tend to be the most resistant to change. In China, urban dwellers who have lots of money and a good education tend to be much more open to new ideas; but the rural population clings strongly to their traditional values and beliefs.

This combination of factors is why this is still a serious problem in China. In urban centers, this is changing. Many of my Chinese friends don't care if they have a male or female child, and consider the more traditional values in this regard as primitive and repulsive. These are people who don't need to worry so much about their old age, because they have enough money to care for themselves; and they are people who've rejected the older Confucian values that a daughter is responsible solely to her husband's parents (instead, both husband and wife will have equal responsibility for both sets of parents). So there is change taking place.

But that portion of the population -- the population that is relatively well off, with a good education -- still represents a minority of the overall population. For the majority, who still live in poverty, its still a very real problem, and one for which there is no quick fix.

People have talked about education, cultural change, etc. But in my opinion, the most important factor in changing/improving this situation is economic. China's progress has more than adequately demonstrated a direct link between economic security, and rejection of 'traditional' values. Give people greater economic security (the ability to save money for their old age, combined with ready access to necessary health care; and financial support for those who don't have enough money), and many of these problems would disappear fairly quickly.

That is why the Chinese gov't focuses so strongly on continued economic development. Because it really, in a great many ways, is key to bringing about necessary changes. In fact, the vast majority of the positive changes in China in the past 20 years are a direct result of China's economic development. For all the problems that still exist here (and there are many), Chinese people today enjoy greater freedom than at any previous point in over 5000 years of history...and without the economic development of the past 20 years, I'll guarantee those changes would not be taking place.

Economic development has also brought about a lot of problems. Drastically increased pollution, exploitation of workers, a very rapidly growing rift between the haves and the have-nots, etc. There ain't no easy fix here.

[McHrozni]

In a Western country, if you wanted to have a baby but aborted a female fetus, I'd consider you a bigot--but I don't think there'd be a need to outlaw the practice. It has no consequences other than reproducing and spreading misogyny, which is a bad thing, but hardly illegal (except in employment situations, etc).

In a country where the male/female ratio is skewed due to selective abortions, I can see how it would be necessary to ban the practice. In an ideal world, no one would want to abort a fetus just because it was female. In a less than ideal world, some people would want to abort female fetuses, but we could afford to let them do it for the sake of civil liberties. And in an even less ideal world, the practice would have to be regulated, or else the social consequences would be too tough to bear.

Exactly - there is no need for a universal world policy on this. Gender-specific abortion is causing problems, sometimes major problems, in some countries, and it should be actively fought against there. China already needs to "import" about 50 million females, which would amount to almost the entire female population of Japan. Strict laws are needed to reduce the problem (this was done), but major socio-cultural change is necessary, and quickly. This is being done, but is inherently slow, so problems will persist, the only thing that can be done about it is to find ways to make the problems bearable.

In Canada, the practice is limtied to a small minority that hasn't adjusted yet. Strict laws are unnecessary - I'd still prohibit it, but wouldn't use heavy handed preemptive measures - but education targeting the minorities where the practice is common is probably sufficient.

McHrozni

[Kahalachan]

I find it difficult to understand the mentality behind this. It seems counter-intuitive to me to prefer males over females so drastically (I can understand it in moderation somewhat), considering that females are the ones who actually get pregnant and give birth. If you prefer males so stringently, you end up breeding the females right out of the population, and from what little I've read on the subject, that is sort of the direction China and India are going in. Someone mentioned up-thread about Chinese men having to turn to foreign countries to find wives already; I would think that would be a huge wake-up call.

Isn't this preferred for overpopulated countries though? To have fewer reproductive members?

I'm not surprised China and India are headed in this direction.

Not to say this this is a good method. The ends don't justify the means.

[Wolfman]

In Canada, the practice is limtied to a small minority that hasn't adjusted yet. Strict laws are unnecessary - I'd still prohibit it, but wouldn't use heavy handed preemptive measures - but education targeting the minorities where the practice is common is probably sufficient.

McHrozni
I'd take this a step further, in that such practices are not just done among a minority of Canadians, but are also done primarily among those who are first generation immigrants. By the time one gets to the second or third generation, such practices have largely disappeared.

[Redtail]

Exactly - there is no need for a universal world policy on this. Gender-specific abortion is causing problems, sometimes major problems, in some countries, and it should be actively fought against there. China already needs to "import" about 50 million females, which would amount to almost the entire female population of Japan. Strict laws are needed to reduce the problem (this was done), but major socio-cultural change is necessary, and quickly. This is being done, but is inherently slow, so problems will persist, the only thing that can be done about it is to find ways to make the problems bearable.

In Canada, the practice is limtied to a small minority that hasn't adjusted yet. Strict laws are unnecessary - I'd still prohibit it, but wouldn't use heavy handed preemptive measures - but education targeting the minorities where the practice is common is probably sufficient.

McHrozni

Could you explain what you mean by "import"? I mean do they actively seek to get foreign females to come into the country?

[McHrozni]

Could you explain what you mean by "import"? I mean do they actively seek to get foreign females to come into the country?

Some individuals certainly do when they look for foreign wives, but I doubt there is an organized policy on that. It's just a matter of time when agencies will prop up organizing just that, if they don't exist yet. There are already agencies (of questioanble legality) that make money by finding Ukrainian wives for rich Europeans for example.

I'd take this a step further, in that such practices are not just done among a minority of Canadians, but are also done primarily among those who are first generation immigrants. By the time one gets to the second or third generation, such practices have largely disappeared.

Yes - precisely why I think it's unnecessary to make any special prohibitions in Canada.

McHrozni

[Wolfman]

Could you explain what you mean by "import"? I mean do they actively seek to get foreign females to come into the country?In China, there is an active black market in wives from North Korea and Vietnam. The wives are generally purchased from poor families in those countries, then smuggled across the border. They often speak little or no Chinese, and are in the country illegally (no passport, no visa), so they have little or no recourse to go to the authorities if abused. Very few women do this willingly.

This trafficking in women is a serious issue; the gov't has laws against it, of course, but they're poorly enforced. In addition, the women are often treated as criminals if caught (and if returned to their home country, may simply be sold again).

[nabee]

In China, there is an active black market in wives from North Korea and Vietnam. The wives are generally purchased from poor families in those countries, then smuggled across the border. They often speak little or no Chinese, and are in the country illegally (no passport, no visa), so they have little or no recourse to go to the authorities if abused. Very few women do this willingly.

This trafficking in women is a serious issue; the gov't has laws against it, of course, but they're poorly enforced. In addition, the women are often treated as criminals if caught (and if returned to their home country, may simply be sold again).

As I mentioned, in SK as well, there are many Korean men who have married Chinese and Vietnamese women, though I don't think many of them are 'smuggled'. They come as illegal workers usually...and some are found with agencies...In SK even the rich get set up with agencies..
Pass along your 'resume' and you can find a match based on looks, education, finances, etc...

I did want to ask you though, Wolfman..I have been to ShangHai a couple of times, and I thought it was interesting that I saw a lot of men interacting with their children, wheeling them along in strollers, etc....pretty interesting situation...what would you say the reason for that is (culturally speaking)? I have also heard from other friends who stayed in China, and from some Chinese friends I have that men taking care of kids is quite common...

[Wolfman]

I did want to ask you though, Wolfman..I have been to ShangHai a couple of times, and I thought it was interesting that I saw a lot of men interacting with their children, wheeling them along in strollers, etc....pretty interesting situation...what would you say the reason for that is (culturally speaking)? I have also heard from other friends who stayed in China, and from some Chinese friends I have that men taking care of kids is quite common...
In China as a whole...no, not that common. In Shanghai, however...yes, quite common. Shanghai men have a reputation as the best "house-husbands" in China...they'll do the cooking, clean the house, take care of the kids, etc. Some Shanghai women joke, "If you want a good wife, marry a Shanghai man."

Shanghai women, by contrast, tend to be quite aggressive and ambitious...in some ways, a reversal of 'traditional' roles. This doesn't apply to everyone in Shanghai, but is common enough to be noticed. Another significant difference between Shanghai and the rest of China is that in Shanghai, Chinese parents frequently encourage their daughters to marry foreigners, whereas other Chinese parents would generally be opposed to it.

Shanghai should not be taken as 'typical' of the rest of China...it is, in many ways, very different.

[Wolfman]

As I mentioned, in SK as well, there are many Korean men who have married Chinese and Vietnamese women, though I don't think many of them are 'smuggled'. They come as illegal workers usually...and some are found with agencies...In SK even the rich get set up with agencies..
Pass along your 'resume' and you can find a match based on looks, education, finances, etc...
In China, it is rare to be able to import a wife legally...most of it has to be done illegally.

[Aepervius]

I am not sure this is unethical at all. There are a variety of reason why people abort. Why would "sex is female" be less ethical than "i don't have the money" or even "I don't wanna have a kid now" ? Why indeed ? China is forbidding it not on ethical ground but because of population ratio and all the problem they bring when they are out of whack in favor of more male. I see no reason to forbid abortion on ground of the foetus being a female , if we allow for abortion due to not wanting a child at all due to inconvenience. Actually I even see one case where it was nearly ethical to allow it : family has already 3 or 4 female daughter, and wish for a boy, why not allow them aborting until the sex is male ?

TL;DR if you allow abortion for convenience (which i think should be allowed) then gender selection is not less ethical.

[Francesca R]

People have talked about education, cultural change, etc. But in my opinion, the most important factor in changing/improving this situation is economic. China's progress has more than adequately demonstrated a direct link between economic security, and rejection of 'traditional' values. Give people greater economic security (the ability to save money for their old age, combined with ready access to necessary health care; and financial support for those who don't have enough money), and many of these problems would disappear fairly quickly.I think you are on the right lines but that it is more complex than income-per-head, or social welfare coverage. Two of the important drivers of sex-selective abortion actually increase as income does--these being (i) declines in fertility which--if nothing "cultural" changes--increase the premium on the first-born being a son, and (ii) access to cheap gender identification technology which facilitates selection.

South Korea, mentioned above, is a test case for studying the reasons for a reversal in male birth preference. This (http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2007/10/09/000158349_20071009133451/Rendered/PDF/wps4373.pdf) is a good paper on the subject. Importantly the analysis does hold up education and societal ("cultural") changes as being significant. In the case of education, increases in female education and employment (and their recognition in non-discriminatory employment law) increase women's status and their "economic value" to society. In the case of societal changes, it identifies urbanisation, associated breaking-off of parental influence and growth of secular individualism as triggering "ideational" change. It also notes that these happened despite public policy that for most of the country's independent history--worked in the direction of trying to keep up the patriarchal bent. So the argument goes: if policy promotes female education/rights/status rather than retards it, the results could have been seen more quickly.

From the latter observation, it concludes that poorer countries like China and India--whose policies have already embodied gender equity interventions much more than Korea's did--can reverse their sex-ratio-at-birth imbalance well before they reach Korean levels of income.


The findings show that nearly three-quarters of the decline in son preference [in South Korea] between 1991 and 2003 is attributable to normative change, and the rest to increases in the proportions of urban and educated people. South Korea is now the first Asian country to reverse the trend in rising sex ratios at birth. The paper discusses the cultural underpinnings of son preference in pre-industrial Korea, and how these were unraveled by industrialization and urbanization, while being buttressed by public policies upholding the patriarchal family system.

http://www.worldbank.org/research/2007/10/8460020/son-preference-declining-south-korea-role-development-public-policy-implications-china-india


(One of the authors, Monica Das Gupta (http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64187835&piPK=64187936&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187283&query=&fromDate=&qDate=4&IRISF=&fromDisclDate=&disclDate=4&docTitle=&author=m177772&aType=&owner=&origu=&colTitle=&displayOrder=ORASCORE%2CDOCNA%2CDOCDT%2CREPNB%2CDO CTY&callBack=&siteName=WDS&sType=&report=&loan=&trustfund=&projid=&credit=&sourceCitation=&projectId=&startPoint=0&pageSize=10&ImgPagePK=&sortDesc=DOCDT&dAtts=DOCDT%2CORASCORE%2CDOCNA%2CDOCTY%2CLANG%2COW NER%2CORIGU%2CREPNB%2CVOLNB%2CREPNME%2CVOL_TITLE&totalrecords=27), has written extensively for the World Bank and others on this subject)

[Francesca R]

if you allow abortion for convenience (which i think should be allowed) then gender selection is not less ethical.Agreed (in post 16)

[Francesca R]

Isn't this preferred for overpopulated countries though? To have fewer reproductive members?Biologically, yes it could be a "preference", but on what basis are China or India deemed overpopulated?

[Wolfman]

Biologically, yes it could be a "preference", but on what basis are China or India deemed overpopulated?
You and I have had this debate before, and I see no point in doing it again. How about this instead: "Countries that currently lack adequate resources, in comparison to the size of their population, to provide adequately for that population" This could be food (given the relatively small area of arable land in China, combined with frequent natural disasters (droughts and floods) that frequently destroy that food); it could be lack of adequate hospitals and doctors; it could be lack of adequate schools and teachers; etc.

Were the amount of all these things significantly greater, China might not be considered 'overpopulated'; but currently, not only are these things not adequate, but the proportionately larger population makes improvement much slower and more difficult than it would be were there fewer people.

[Carn]

@all, who think sex-selective abortion should be limited legally:

What would be the justification for such laws?

If its discrimination protection for women, sorry these things in the womb aren't women (Well, at least given the suspected majority opinion of this forum). Furthermore abortion in general (and contraception even more) reduces the relative number of children in society, so both are discriminatory vs children and a ban would be at least something to think about with this line of reasoning.

If its about the problems a male/female imbalance creates in the long run for the country, this argument is questionable. Because with the same argument a ban on abortion would make sense, as the lack of children in some countries can create huge problems for society.

As i see it, the only consisten positions are either allowing abortion and alloweing abortion for whatever reason or banning or strongly limiting abortion including for reasons of sex selection.

[Francesca R]

How about this instead: "Countries that currently lack adequate resources, in comparison to the size of their population, to provide adequately for that population" This could be food (given the relatively small area of arable land in China, combined with frequent natural disasters (droughts and floods) that frequently destroy that food); it could be lack of adequate hospitals and doctors; it could be lack of adequate schools and teachers; etc.
On that basis most countries poorer than China (thus lacking even more resources, or the ability to acquire them), and 95% of Africa are overpopulated. England would have been overpopulated in the middle ages when its population was a fraction of its current level, and only post about 1850 would it have been fine, even though its population was probably at an all time high then.

Were the amount of all these things significantly greater, China might not be considered 'overpopulated'; but currently, not only are these things not adequate, but the proportionately larger population makes improvement much slower and more difficult than it would be were there fewer people.
The "proportionally larger population" does not make "improvement much slower". That statement contradicts everything observable about China's growth rate, and growth rate per-head, in the last 30 years.

[McHrozni]

If its about the problems a male/female imbalance creates in the long run for the country, this argument is questionable. Because with the same argument a ban on abortion would make sense, as the lack of children in some countries can create huge problems for society.

Which is a ridicolus argument, since people will always want to have children (we're wired that way), and the problem won't manifest.

McHrozni

[Redtail]

In China, there is an active black market in wives from North Korea and Vietnam. The wives are generally purchased from poor families in those countries, then smuggled across the border. They often speak little or no Chinese, and are in the country illegally (no passport, no visa), so they have little or no recourse to go to the authorities if abused. Very few women do this willingly.

This trafficking in women is a serious issue; the gov't has laws against it, of course, but they're poorly enforced. In addition, the women are often treated as criminals if caught (and if returned to their home country, may simply be sold again).

I was afraid it was something like that.

[McHrozni]

On that basis most countries poorer than China (thus lacking even more resources, or the ability to acquire them), and 95% of Africa are overpopulated. England would have been overpopulated in the middle ages when its population was a fraction of its current level, and only post about 1850 would it have been fine, even though its population was probably at an all time high then.

I won't comment on Africa, but pretty much all of Europe was overpopulated from middle ages onward to the 19th century. It's was one of the main driving forces of European imperialism.

McHrozni

[Carn]

Which is a ridicolus argument, since people will always want to have children (we're wired that way), and the problem won't manifest.

McHrozni

Check the birth rates in Europe.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4768644.stm
"Ireland: 1.99
France: 1.90
Norway: 1.81
Sweden 1.75
UK: 1.74
Netherlands: 1.73
Germany: 1.37
Italy: 1.33
Spain: 1.32
Greece: 1.29"

Thats average children per women during her entire life. So with this number ignoring immigration each generation in Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece would be 1/3 smaller in size than the previous. Considering that people also get older, this creates huge problems for society, as immigration policy is not always a success.

Edit: And these numbers have been like that since 10-20 years.

[Francesca R]

I won't comment on Africa, but pretty much all of Europe was overpopulated from middle ages onward to the 19th century. It's was one of the main driving forces of European imperialism.
Economic growth was approximately zero (compared to afterwards) through that era, and so were most metrics of quality of life on average, so land-grabbing was much more of an "efficient" tactic to increase wealth compared to now.

The tables have comprehensively turned such that not conquering foreigners (which is a negative sum game, used to be positive for the conquerors) and getting growth at home (a positive sum game now, a non-existent prospect before) is the wealth/welfare maximising option.

More to the point, suggesting that Europe was over-populated when it invaded the New World, and observing that it is not overpopulated any more even though its population is a multiple of the C16th, suggests that the "remedy" is nothing to do with population itself.

[Wolfman]

On that basis most countries poorer than China (thus lacking even more resources, or the ability to acquire them), and 95% of Africa are overpopulated. England would have been overpopulated in the middle ages when its population was a fraction of its current level, and only post about 1850 would it have been fine, even though its population was probably at an all time high then.Francesca,

First, in regards to Africa...as you well know, it isn't just an issue of how much money the country has, or how much food a country has. It is an issue of proportions. For those countries where proportionately speaking the amount of money/food/other resources available is equal to or worse than that in China, then yes, I'd agree -- those countries are overpopulated.

Let me put it in more concrete terms. Let's say that I have two petri dishes, with agar nutrient in them. One petri dish has ten times less nutrient than the other. Both petri dishes have the same population of bacteria attempting to live off those nutrients. Both dishes are the same size, both have the same populations...but based on the resources available, one of the dishes is overpopulated, and the other is underpopulated. I don't see this as being a terribly difficult concept to understand...you asked for a criteria to determine 'overpopulation', and I provided it.


The "proportionally larger population" does not make "improvement much slower". That statement contradicts everything observable about China's growth rate, and growth rate per-head, in the last 30 years.And here, I don't know if you're being intentionally obtuse, or are so caught up in how you think reality works that you miss out on actual reality. Yes, China's economy has been growing at a phenomenal pace, far faster than that of the U.S., for example. Yet there are still far, far more people living in poverty (both in terms of actual numbers, and in terms of percentages) than in the U.S. Furthermore, China started from a position far, far, far behind where the U.S. was.

Again, an analogy. A man suffers a terrible spine injury, and is unable to walk for several months. As he undergoes rehabilitation, he gradually regains the opportunity to walk. Now, if I compare that man's progress with the progress of a normal man, I could very easily make a case that his health is improving far faster than that of the normal man's, and that his rate of improvement in mobility is far faster than the normal man's. But that would be ignoring the fact that the former man still cannot walk as well as the latter, nor that he still needs a lot of work just to get to the point the normal man is already at.

Here's a plain fact -- and I'm truly fascinated to see what bizarre logic you'll use to contradict me. Some 60% of China's population still lives in poverty. Education and medical care are still offered at terribly substandard levels to a large portion of the rural population, despite massive investments in infrastructure by the Chinese gov't over the past 50 years (far, far behind that of any developed nation). Now, if China had only 1/10th the population that it currently does, this situation would not exist (or would be far, far less serious than it is today). Because the amount of time, money, resources, effort, etc. that are required to provide food, education, medical care, etc. to 130 million people is far less than that required to provide the same to 1.3 billion people. This is, so far as I can see, an absolutely indisputable fact.

Yes, China's economy is growing at a frantic pace...it has been for more than two decades now...and despite dramatic increases in the standard of living for many Chinese, despite the tons of money that's been plowed into agriculture, education, and medicine, hundreds of millions of Chinese still don't have adequate access to them for the simple reason that the resources simply aren't there at present.

Now, if you have some magic plan to provide hospitals, doctors, and nurses for the 500 million or so people who still need them (including all the money to build them, to train the professionals, to provide money to pay the costs of drugs and medical care for those who can't afford it); to build schools for the more than 200 million children who still lack adequate access to education, not to mention training the teachers, paying their salaries, providing books and equipment (that'd be tens of millions of computers, among other things); if you can tell me, or anyone else how to accomplish this, then please do...and I'll make sure you get a Nobel prize for it.

But as things stand, China does not have the resources to adequately provide for the needs of its population, and even at the current rapid pace of development (a pace that is slowing down, it should be noted), it will be decades (optimistically) before they could do so. Were the population smaller, the situation would not be so serious, or so difficult to overcome.

So yes -- in comparison with the available resources, China is overpopulated. So is India. So is any other country that, when looking at the proportion of available resources compared to the actual size of the population, is equal to or worse than either of those two countries. It isn't the size of the land that determines population; it is the availability of resources to support that population. If you lock me in a room with enough resources to sustain five people, then 10 people would be overpopulated, regardless of how large or small that room may be.

And before you get around to accusing me of Malthusian thinking again, that's not my argument at all. If/when China develops to the point where it can provide adequately for its entire population, then I will not consider it overpopulated any more (even if its population at that time is greater than it is now). And I think that, given time and technology, China could reach that point. But currently, it is not at that point, and the current size of the population is an impediment, increasing the time until that point will be reached.

[Mark6]

Which is a ridicolus argument, since people will always want to have children (we're wired that way), and the problem won't manifest.

McHrozni
You don't know any childless (by choice) adults?

[Number Six]

Wolfman, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the effects of China's one child policy. My impression was that it was fairly draconian but that in the long term it would help, but recently I read an article that implied that China's birth rate probably would have gone down anyway and that the one child policy may have ended up doing more harm than good.

Also I've read that in coming years the male/female imbalance may start giving China some problems with social unrest, what with tens of millions of young males with nobody to mate with and the nature of young male energy that needs expressed somehow.

[Francesca R]

China's one-child policy (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=190665&highlight=child+policy)

[McHrozni]

You don't know any childless (by choice) adults?

I do. So? The argument would be only valid if no (or very few) adults would have children. That's not the case in any society in the world. Hong Kong has among the lowest birth rates in the world, and a large majority of adults has children there.

McHrozni

[Number Six]

China's one-child policy (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=190665&highlight=child+policy)

That's an interesting thread. Thanks for the link.

[McHrozni]

Check the birth rates in Europe.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4768644.stm
"Ireland: 1.99
France: 1.90
Norway: 1.81
Sweden 1.75
UK: 1.74
Netherlands: 1.73
Germany: 1.37
Italy: 1.33
Spain: 1.32
Greece: 1.29"

Thats average children per women during her entire life. So with this number ignoring immigration each generation in Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece would be 1/3 smaller in size than the previous. Considering that people also get older, this creates huge problems for society, as immigration policy is not always a success.

Yup. But this has very little to do with abortion, but mostly with all other forms of birth control we all know and love.

Secondly, the argument was that no adults would have children. Even in Greece, the average is more than one child per woman. It's not enough, I know, but it's a fair cry from zero.

McHrozni

[Francesca R]

For those countries where proportionately speaking the amount of money/food/other resources available is equal to or worse than that in China, then yes, I'd agree -- those countries are overpopulated.That appears to mean that every country with GDP/capita at or below China is overpopulated. I'd call that a strange statement. One could say they were poor, or even too poor. "Overpopulated" suggests that the appropriate response (to increase wealth/welfare) in China and these other places, is to reduce the population.

Yes, China's economy has been growing at a phenomenal pace, far faster than that of the U.S., for example. Yet there are still far, far more people living in poverty (both in terms of actual numbers, and in terms of percentages) than in the U.S. Furthermore, China started from a position far, far, far behind where the U.S. was.Yet you think China's growth (improvement) would be faster if there were fewer people in China. I don't see any rationale for this. It is both of the most populated and close to the fastest growing economy over the last two decades. Where's the evidence for your (hypothetical) statement? Certainly it is not "indisputable fact"

Your analogies are either not relevant, or are attempting to make different points from the statements you made that I challenged.

[Carn]

Yup. But this has very little to do with abortion, but mostly with all other forms of birth control we all know and love.

About 110000 known abortions and 680000 life births in germany. So abortion could change the above number by 0.2-0.3.

Other stats i read was, that about 40% of women have abortion in their life, meaning it could be even 0.4.

Secondly, the argument was that no adults would have children. Even in Greece, the average is more than one child per woman. It's not enough, I know, but it's a fair cry from zero.

McHrozni

The argument was that for the good of society the right to choose whether to have a child can be limited if necessary.

If you assume that, the question of banning or limiting abortion or contraception is just a question, whether or not the situation is dire enough and whether a law actually helps.

One gets in a mine field by assuming that reproduction should be controlled for the greater good of society.

[Mark6]

I do. So? The argument would be only valid if no (or very few) adults would have children. That's not the case in any society in the world. Hong Kong has among the lowest birth rates in the world, and a large majority of adults has children there.

First, the very existence of voluntarily childless people demonstrates we are not in fact "wired that way." Second, the problems Carn was talking about:

If its about the problems a male/female imbalance creates in the long run for the country, this argument is questionable. Because with the same argument a ban on abortion would make sense, as the lack of children in some countries can create huge problems for society.

Which is a ridicolus argument, since people will always want to have children (we're wired that way), and the problem won't manifest.

do not require complete lack of children. One child per couple for 2-3 generations, add the fact that women have that one child much later in life (thus "generation" gets to mean 35-40 year span rather than 20-25), and you have a country with huge proportion of old people. That's a problem.

[McHrozni]

About 110000 known abortions and 680000 life births in germany. So abortion could change the above number by 0.2-0.3.

Other stats i read was, that about 40% of women have abortion in their life, meaning it could be even 0.4.

The first statistic is probably more relevant. Many abortions in fact prevent single mothers, who have a notably lower chance of finding a new partner and have more kids.

do not require complete lack of children. One child per couple for 2-3 generations, add the fact that women have that one child much later in life (thus "generation" gets to mean 35-40 year span rather than 20-25), and you have a country with huge proportion of old people. That's a problem.

I red the argument as a leading to a childless society, and I see now it might not have been intended as such.

McHrozni

[Kaylee]

<snip>

I have less of a problem with barring sex selective abortions than some others do. There are many things we can do, but are barred from doing if it is done of the basis of sex (or race etc). For example shops have the right to refuse service, but they don't have the right to do so on the basis of racial discrimination, for example.

I agree.

Laws have to balance the rights of individuals and groups. It probably takes centuries to get it right. For example, in this era, most of us probably don't have a problem with not having the right to take personal revenge against someone who had violated our legal rights or even harmed us physically. We are use to the idea of turning that right over to the community, which in our time is done by having this handled by the police and district attorney. I'm willing to bet that originally that was a very unpopular idea and that it took a long time to get widespread acceptance, probably over hundreds if not thousands of years.

I think it's a good balance to let women have the legal right to abortions but not to use it as a tool for parents to select their children's sex.

I would have thought that a policy that makes female babies more rare than male babies would have resulted in rapidly increasing the social value of females including female babies. But we've had decades to see that is not the case and that allowing the male/female ratio to become skewed usually results in even more problems for women [ETA], and men also.

For me its the same reasoning that societies have seen that it is better for people not to directly solve their own legal and criminal problems but to delegate most of those issues to the government. Deciding how to allocate rights between individuals and groups of people is a delicate balancing act.

[Carn]

I think it's a good balance to let women have the legal right to abortions but not to use it as a tool for parents to select their children's sex.


Its an completely arbitrary balance.

It assumes that society has a right to force women to have children they do not want, to avoid a skewed men/women ratio.

If a society has that right, it would also have the right to force women to have children they do not want, to avoid a skewed children/adult ratio, or to force women not to have children they want, to avoid a skewed children/adult ratio (China did the later the last decades. Forced abortions, forced sterilisation and in cases even "post birth abortions" to meet the quota).


For me its the same reasoning that societies have seen that it is better for people not to directly solve their own legal and criminal problems but to delegate most of those issues to the government. Deciding how to allocate rights between individuals and groups of people is a delicate balancing act.

So the legal issue of how many and which children to have should be delegated to government?

And i still do not see, how one actually legally could argue for such an intrusion, if the position is, that an embryo is not human or even something like tissue. If its not human, its part of the women's body. And so the state would tell the women "You want to remove that part of your body, but sorry its not allowed, because it will be a girl in 6-8 months."

And any idea that by just not telling the women, whether its boy or girl, is although softer along the same line - the women's body is state property and some commission decides how to put that property to best use for society.

[Francesca R]

I would have thought that a policy that makes female babies more rare than male babies would have resulted in rapidly increasing the social value of females including female babies. But we've had decades to see that is not the case and that allowing the male/female ratio to become skewed usually results in even more problems for women [ETA], and men also.Well I think it does increase the value of women in several ways. A problem with that concept is that the value doesn't accrue to the women themselves, and they can come out of it worse off (EG trafficking brides in the worst cases). Another point is that it may be increasing the economic value of women from a negative number to something like zero (EG the disappearance of dowries).

Unfortunately in patriarchal societies the inequality between male and female has historically been staggering.

[Puppycow]

(and the only observed tendency for it to skew is against female births)

An interesting caveat though:

The End of Men (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/)

In the 1970s the biologist Ronald Ericsson came up with a way to separate sperm carrying the male-producing Y chromosome from those carrying the X.
. . .
Feminists of the era did not take kindly to Ericsson and his Marlboro Man veneer. To them, the lab cowboy and his sperminator portended a dystopia of mass-produced boys. “You have to be concerned about the future of all women,” Roberta Steinbacher, a nun-turned-social-psychologist, said in a 1984 People profile of Ericsson. “There’s no question that there exists a universal preference for sons.” Steinbacher went on to complain about women becoming locked in as “second-class citizens” while men continued to dominate positions of control and influence. “I think women have to ask themselves, ‘Where does this stop?’” she said. “A lot of us wouldn’t be here right now if these practices had been in effect years ago.”

Ericsson, now 74, laughed when I read him these quotes from his old antagonist. Seldom has it been so easy to prove a dire prediction wrong. In the ’90s, when Ericsson looked into the numbers for the two dozen or so clinics that use his process, he discovered, to his surprise, that couples were requesting more girls than boys, a gap that has persisted, even though Ericsson advertises the method as more effective for producing boys. In some clinics, Ericsson has said, the ratio is now as high as 2 to 1. Polling data on American sex preference is sparse, and does not show a clear preference for girls. But the picture from the doctor’s office unambiguously does. A newer method for sperm selection, called MicroSort, is currently completing Food and Drug Administration clinical trials. The girl requests for that method run at about 75 percent.

So this is not sex-selective abortion but sex-selective IVF. And in America the preference seems to run the other way.

[Kaylee]

Its an completely arbitrary balance.

It assumes that society has a right to force women to have children they do not want, to avoid a skewed men/women ratio.

If a society has that right, it would also have the right to force women to have children they do not want, to avoid a skewed children/adult ratio, or to force women not to have children they want, to avoid a skewed children/adult ratio (China did the later the last decades. Forced abortions, forced sterilisation and in cases even "post birth abortions" to meet the quota).



So the legal issue of how many and which children to have should be delegated to government?

And i still do not see, how one actually legally could argue for such an intrusion, if the position is, that an embryo is not human or even something like tissue. If its not human, its part of the women's body. And so the state would tell the women "You want to remove that part of your body, but sorry its not allowed, because it will be a girl in 6-8 months."

And any idea that by just not telling the women, whether its boy or girl, is although softer along the same line - the women's body is state property and some commission decides how to put that property to best use for society.


This reminds me of another thread at the JREF that I saw years ago. The topic was about whether human rights are innate or something external that is granted by others.

The thread got very heated as you can imagine.

My preference is to grant individuals as many rights as possible, until we get to the point where it infringes on other people's rights or allowing such rights can make being part of a community insufferable. Sometimes its easy to define the boundaries and sometimes it isn't.

I would not care to live in a society that was almost all male or almost all female, and I'm comfortable with society creating laws to prevent that. I think that this is one of the situations where the rights of others outweighs the rights of the individual (to select the sex of his or her children). I think we can have a legal framework that prevents that from occuring but still allows women to chose whether or not to have an abortion without knowing the gender of their fetus, or loosing the right to decide how many children they will have.

[Kaylee]

Well I think it does increase the value of women in several ways. A problem with that concept is that the value doesn't accrue to the women themselves, and they can come out of it worse off (EG trafficking brides in the worst cases). Another point is that it may be increasing the economic value of women from a negative number to something like zero (EG the disappearance of dowries).

Good points. What I was trying to say was that I was surprised that this didn't trigger a cascade of events that caused women to be granted more rights and be shown value that way, both under the law and in reality. (Just because a law is on the books doesn't mean that its carried out.) But as you said:

Unfortunately in patriarchal societies the inequality between male and female has historically been staggering.

Sometimes I wonder if that will ever change in some parts of the world, and if it does -- what it would take. Wolfman mentioned upthread that one of the things communism got right in China was to give woman equal rights. I agree, but I am puzzled how that came about because as he also explained it went very much against the culture.

[Carn]

My preference is to grant individuals as many rights as possible, until we get to the point where it infringes on other people's rights or allowing such rights can make being part of a community insufferable. Sometimes its easy to define the boundaries and sometimes it isn't.

I would not care to live in a society that was almost all male or almost all female, and I'm comfortable with society creating laws to prevent that. I think that this is one of the situations where the rights of others outweighs the rights of the individual (to select the sex of his or her children). I think we can have a legal framework that prevents that from occuring but still allows women to chose whether or not to have an abortion without knowing the gender of their fetus, or loosing the right to decide how many children they will have.

I do not say this position is wrong.
It just has the consequence, that in case someone can show data, that lack of children is a problem for society (this data is available), and convincing argument, that banning abortion will lead to more births (for which no data is available, but as you assume a law effectively limiting sex-selective abortion is possible, a law effectvely limiting abortion is conceivable as well), then there is no reason not to forbid abortion.
And as i said, it would even open up the possibility to meddle with contraception. Banning contraception would certainly solve the problem of (statistical) lack of children some countries have in a matter of years. Black market cannot provide reliable products in sufficient amounts for affaorable price, so at least parts of population would lack contraception, which would increase number of children, if the option of abortion is also effectively limited. All for the good of the society.

[McHrozni]

And as i said, it would even open up the possibility to meddle with contraception. Banning contraception would certainly solve the problem of (statistical) lack of children some countries have in a matter of years. Black market cannot provide reliable products in sufficient amounts for affaorable price, so at least parts of population would lack contraception, which would increase number of children, if the option of abortion is also effectively limited. All for the good of the society.

You think way too much in absolute terms. Using speed limits as an analogy, you would be only considreing two possibilities - a universal speed limit of 15 mph on all roads and no speed limits at all. The first one, effectively enforced, would reduce road deaths to almost zero, while the results of the second option would be a bit bloody. Both would also result in fairly significant downsides, so neither option is vey appealing.
In road speed limtis, we use a system that determines the speed limits based on the type of the road and the dangers of the road ahead. There is no reason not to use the same principle on other issues, such as abortion and birth control. Some forms of abortion result in much more significant downsides than others, so those should be restricted, even if the abortion as such is permissible. Skewing gender ratio is an issue that requires banning abortion for it, but banning contraception over low birth rates is not - it would only result in a rise of unwanted children, creating even more, larger problems, and quite likely another STD epidemic.

McHrozin

[jcp]

What happens to these unwanted girls once they are born? Brr, I don't think forcing parents to have children they don't want is a good idea.

[AcesHigh]

this question is interesting because feminists will be the FIRST to defend the right to abortion above all else.

but they would also be the first to cry against women aborting female babies in favor of having male babies.

[Francesca R]

Must not be a feminist myself then, since in post 16 I outline that if abortion is ethical (which is my position) then sex-selective abortion is no less so.

[mumblethrax]

this question is interesting because feminists will be the FIRST to defend the right to abortion above all else.

but they would also be the first to cry against women aborting female babies in favor of having male babies.
I don't agree.

I think the first to cry against women aborting female babies in favor of having male babies would be stalking horses for those opposed to abortion rights.

[Belz...]

IMHO you can't really fix stuff like this with laws, you have to fix it through education and changing culture. Basically fixing it is ridiculously hard.

This.

Personally, I don't think we should make some reasons illegal. It's their problem if they get 90% males and 10% females.

I also don't agree that it devalues females. In a society where each female gets 9 potential husbands, she is VERY valuable.

[Carn]

I don't agree.

I think the first to cry against women aborting female babies in favor of having male babies would be stalking horses for those opposed to abortion rights.

This is even more true due to the legal system being based on individual rights. In these any intrusion into individual rights requires a justification. If a justification regarding one aspect of abortion is found to be legally sufficient for the intrusion into individual rights acsociated with limiting abortion, then a precedent of limiting abortion would be established, which could be used to establish similar justifications for other limitations of abortion.

E.g.
If discrepancy of male/female causing society problems is sufficient justification for limiting abortions, then it could be argued that a discrepancy of children/adults causing society problems could also constitute sufficient justification for limiting abortions.

[CplFerro]

“Female feticide devalues women completely,” said Dr. Kale, interim editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. He wants to see doctors withhold information about the sex of a child in the womb until 30 weeks' gestation to prevent “an unquestioned abortion” because parents prefer a boy.

That's rich, ain't it? Ordinary feticide, killing a fetus out of the inconvenience it causes, doesn't devalue anyone completely, and in fact is a healthy, wholesome, and womyn-empowering righteous act. But if the inconvenience it causes is due to its XX-chromosomal condition, then, oh no, let's struggle to find a way to revoke a womyn's Right To Choose!

Cpl Ferro