on what basis would sex-selective abortion be regulated?
I previously highlighted the problem, When A Woman’s Right To Choose Results In Fewer Women – In The U.S.
Via James Pethokoukis comes this article about the spread of sex-selective abortion in the U.S., Unwelcome import: Sex selective abortion:
I’d read with dismay about people using ultrasound in China and India to selectively abort females, but was unaware till now that a similar phenomenon may occur here in the US. AuntMinnie.com reports on research by G. Sharat Lin, PhD about the association between birth-gender rations (BGR) and access to 4D “keepsake” ultrasound facilities.
Lin found that Asian ethnic groups in Santa Clara County who were known to have a traditional gender preference for boys had clearly lower female-to-male birth ratios than those Asian ethnic groups who did not have a preference.
“Mothers born in China, India, and Vietnam [have female-to-male birth ratios] that are well below normal, and those from Pakistan are much closer to normal,” Lin toldAuntMinnie.com. “Breaking it down by ethnic group is showing us that this is not simply noise or some kind of a random fluctuation. These are showing up where we expect them, in the ethnic groups where there is a cultural preference for boys.”
Elsewhere in California, however, counties that have continuing proliferation of keepsake ultrasound centers experienced alarmingly low BGRs among Asians in 2010, Lin said.
Low birth-gender ratios among Asians in urban counties in 2010 were as follows:
- Sacramento: 888
- Los Angeles: 889
- San Francisco: 919
- Riverside: 919
- San Joaquin: 927
“While we still don’t have a direct proof of cause and effect, we see a correlation that in counties like San Joaquin County and Sacramento County, [there’s] a downward trend in BGRs, and at the same time, continued proliferation of these keepsake ultrasound centers,” he said.
The findings disturb me for the same reasons the practice is disturbing when it occurs outside the US. In addition, I worry that the findings have the potential to restrict access to abortion for everyone by pointing to signs of abuse.
The height of feminist ideology results in fewer women. Tragic, not funny.
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Sounds like the problem is solving itself.
This is a HUGE problem for Asian boys because not only there are fewer Asian girls, but they have a tendency to marry out in much larger numbers than the males of the specie.
[…] If you are going to keep your laws off their bodies … (Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion) Share this:ShareDiggTwitterLinkedInRedditStumbleUponFacebookPrintEmailTumblrPinterestLike this:Like2 bloggers like this post. Posted in China, politics, war on women, women and tagged China abortion, China abortion policy, China forced abortion, culture, forced abortion, one child per family rule, poltics, war on women […]
Wait till they have a genetic test for being gay.
…or looking and thinking like this…
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/03/nuts-global-warming-professor-says-skepticism-is-racismwants-to-diagnose-it-as-a-disease/
http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=127443
Ah, the real reason for the invention of the paper sack…
MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!
Oh my, she is unfortunate looking.
Yes, the Left has made vile sexual and racial slurs against conservative women. Yes, that sociology professor’s opinions are ridiculous and dangerous.
Nevertheless, I question whether it’s appropriate to link to a (presumably photoshopped) cheesecake image of her in a skimpy bikini.
Maybe I’m an aging male fuddy-duddy who is out of step with today’s hip, cool, with-it conservatives. (snark You know, the hip cool with-it conservatives who brought this center-right nation George W. Bush, Harriet Miers, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, etc).
Nobody else has spoken up. Presumably silence indicates assent.
You have every right to question-
I questioned it when I posted it.
And, I’m sure some find it inappropriate. However, it wasn’t posted to offend or shock, but to humor-
Fair enough. Thanks for the response.
A while ago I posted that one of Santorum’s proposals could be ‘acronymed’ into a disparaging ethnic term.
To speak purely for myself, the idea seemed a lot wittier at the time than it does in hindsight.
AGW gulags are next
Oh, not to worry… the tyranny of political correctness will demand that choosing to abort because “of the so-called gay gene” would be classified as a hate crime. If such as gene is ever found, the Left will do a 180, saying that “there is a minimal-level of choice” in being gay. They already believe, why else would they want it TAUGHT in schools where the vast majority of children will be heterosexual.
I seriously doubt there is a “gay gene.” Perhaps a not-so-uncommon interplay of genes related to sexual orientation.
But my guess as to what causes homosexuality is that something fairly common happens during pregnancy to alter “normal” development of the baby’s sexual orientation. Perhaps a surge of a certain hormone during a critical phase of development, etc.
I came to this guess after reading that schizophrenia is more common among the offspring of women who contracted influenza during pregnancy. Think of all the things both inside and outside the mother’s body which might affect stages of development … stress, sickness, hormone levels … the variables seem infinite.
I’ve seen some things on this too. Supposedly there is some kind of tension going on between the male fetal hormones and the mother’s body, which produces something or other to keep them at bay in her own body. Supposedly there is a statistically higher chance with successive sons that the younger ones could become gay. And then there’s the finger length thing…
Which of course begs for the question of what creates lesbianism.
I suspect that there are a number of different anomalies from different causes that are manifesting in a superficially similar way, and get generalized under the umbrella category of “homosexual”. Which might explain some things. But it’s not currently politically correct to consider homosexually as a deviation from the norm.
When in doubt blame the woman. Why not the babydaddy?
There are definite syndromes & ill effects that can be caused by the mother eg Foetal Alcoholic syndrome which will destroy the child ‘s life chances.
It is fairly easy to pick true gay girls & boys at an early age. Others are cultural choices or refuge situations from bad life experiences . For many males – they like anal sex & it is plenty available out there in that community. Heterosexual or gay women do not in mass loiter around public toilets looking for action.
A “gay gene” will be found whether it exists or not. Believe me, if they can continue to perpetrate the hoax of AGW they will “find” a “gay gene.” It is only a matter of time…
I am pro-choice but I think abortion based on prenatal testing predicting what the baby will be like after it is born is eugenics as well as unethical and probably bad for genetic diversity.
(Imo, the ethical reasons for abortion include the impact of pregnancy on the mother’s health (self-defense), consent (rape), and that I don’t want the state having the final say. I support efforts to make the choosing life over abortion preferable (access to prenatal care, adoption, etc) but I do not support efforts to coerce a woman into being pregnant against her will. I guess that makes me a libertarian on the issue.)
What do you then do with a woman who says “I have free choice. Where do you get off inquiring into my reasoning”?
Well, the whole point of Roe v Wade was to keep abortion a private activity, but as health care is “reformed” the government will stick it’s head into your health care till the presumption of privacy under Roe is gone.
There is no libertarian consensus on this issue. Clearly “fetuses” have rights too.
If you want abortion on demand legal, than you have to admit that babies will be aborted for unethical reasons.
“I guess that makes me a libertarian on the issue.”
And confused, too.
How can you have eugenics when there is no human in the equation? And how can you be the sole determiner of life or death if there is another human being in the equation?
See?
I see your position. It is very absolute. But our constitutional rights have always been a balancing act. Abortion pits the rights of the woman against the rights of the baby, and they both have rights.
The “fetus is not a baby” trope is something I have never bought into.
If there was a medical way to transfer an implanted fetus from the mother to a surrogate or even an artificial womb, I would be in favor of making abortion illegal.
As it is, I personally think that there are cases when the mother has the right to decide to terminate the pregnancy. Barring a case where it’s a medical crisis that makes it a choice between the mom’s life vs baby’s life, that decision should be made within the first trimester. Personally I think that if once there is a heartbeat then decision time is over.
The decision however should ethically be only about the pregnancy and its impact on her. The state simply cannot coerce a woman into pregnancy without her consent. But if the woman makes the decision based on what the baby will be like once it’s born, she is discriminating against the baby’s civil rights. Do you see what I am saying?
(I accept beforehand that very few people will agree with me on either side)
*But our constitutional rights have always been a balancing act. Abortion pits the rights of the woman against the rights of the baby, and they both have rights.*
Would that were true. It isn’t under Roe and its descendents.
The unborn human has no rights, and none to advocate for it. If Roe were done away with, that would be corrected, and the matter returned to the states where it belonged. Courts would, in many cases, do what they do…balance the interests and rights of the SEVERAL human beings involved.
Roe always seemed like a duck & cover decision, imo. It would probably be a net good if it were overturned.
For one thing, it would help unshackle the women’s vote from the Dems. Women are more than uteri, but the Dems treat them as if that were their only issue.
Roe v Wade pits the right of the mother against the rights of government. The baby gets no say.
“If there was a medical way to transfer an implanted fetus from the mother to a surrogate or even an artificial womb, I would be in favor of making abortion illegal.”
Have you ever read “Brave New World”? You can find it at any library. Please read or re-read it; then consider the things in the story that were once fiction are now fact. Unintended consequences are something certainly to think about, aren’t they….
“Personally I think that if once there is a heartbeat then decision time is over.”
The human heartbeat begins 18 days after conception, by day 21 after conception the heart is pumping blood through a closed circulatory system. Of course this is not exact…there is a range of development times, usually listed as being up to 25 days after conception/fertilization. This is about the time a woman might think she has missed her period–the first month.
Brainwave activity has been measured by EEG 40 days after conception. This fact has been documented (H. Hamlin, Life or Death by EEG, Journal of the American Medical Association, 12 October 1964).
“Two girls for every 10 boys!”
—lyrics from Jan & Dean’s “Surf City,” updated to reflect the modern world.
1. on what basis would sex-selective abortion be regulated?
The Left, which perverted civil rights into a system of racial/sexual quotas and preferences, will have no problem thinking of a pretext.
2. I read somewhere that upscale whites prefer female children. I don’t know if they’d go so far as to abort to enforce their preferences. IMHO the gender preferences of whites are worth a study if one hasn’t been done already.
1. on what basis would sex-selective abortion be regulated?
In Roe v Wade, the rights of the mother are pitted against the rights of the government. Under this regime, I don’t see much to regulate, as the government is supposed to stay at arm’s length.
I agree with you on the merits.
However, we’re talking about a Left which distorted ‘equal opportunity’ into preferential ‘affirmative action’ and is now trying to assert a ‘compelling government interest’ in what they call diversity.
Among East Asians, I’ve never read nor heard about this phenomenon ocurring among the Japanese (perhaps I’ve missed it). Of course, among East Asians, the Japanese are the most westernized, although the gap is smaller than it once was.
For the Chinese and Koreans it’s a completely different story. The desire for a son to carry on the family name is still very strong.
Their replacement-level birth rates have fallen off a cliff. The one-child policy in China has had a profound effect upon the typical Chinese cultural norm towards large families. Not only in Singapore and Hong Kong, even in mainland China their is movement towards having fewer children by choice. The same is ocurring in South Korea.
The problem is, their fertility rates have plunged and are well below the replacement level of 2.1.
Add sex-selective abortion to the mix of these graying societies and you have some demographic/economic nightmares looming in the future.
I realized that this was happening during my first pg ultrasound. The u/s the was an Indian woman, and she refused, politely but firmly, to predict the gender. I asked why and she finally explained it was because they were avoiding gender based terminations which apparently was happening among some ethnic groups that hubby has the look of. I think my look of shocked horror convinced her that the thought had never entered my mind.
Why are you assuming that the mothers–using female ideology–made the decision to abort females? It looks to me that it could also be the husbands who told their wives to abort females.
Yeh, like THAT would work. You don’t know any Asian couples, do you…???
http://paa2006.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=60747.
Looks like, at least in Japan, men wanted sons but women wanted daughters, for a while.
My experience with both Korean and Vietnamese couples is that momma rules…despite any outward appearances.
Can’t speak for Japanese couples.
Well, in my house, Japanese mama-san definitely rules.
From what I understand, women are coerced into abortion in a majority of cases by men.
An excerpt:
The womb is the most dangerous place in America…
See http://www.mccl.org/page.aspx?pid=516.
If the parents are from nations with a custom of dowry this could be a lucrative practice.
I have been wondering about this for years. In the mid 90s I was with a firm that had as clients two brothers from India. Both were married to women doctors. Both families seemed to travel back and forth to India a lot. Each brother had four children- all boys. I started thinking there might be more here than a quirk in normal gender distribution when the oldest boy in each family was married to a girl from the parents’ home town in India almost as soon as the boys were of legal age.
I left the firm before I could confirm what I thought might be happening but any one want to bet the brides’ parents and siblings were all in the States as soon as Immigration got the paperwork completed?
And running hotels & motels. 🙂
I have to say my opinion on abortion has gone from pro-choice in my youth to completely pro-life (except for rape and incest).
When my wife was pregnant with our youngest daughter, just before Thanksgiving she had an ultrasound and the doctor thought he detected a serious problem with our daughter’s brain. He wanted us to see a specialist, but we had an agonizing wait over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend before we could see the specialist. My wife was an emotional mess over those foour days … feeling she had some baby inside her with half a brain or something. Those four days were awful.
When we finally got to see the specialist, after a nerve-racking wait … she said, “You’re baby is absolutely fine. There is no problem with her brain.”
Thank God my wife didn’t do something drastic during those four days, like abort our daughter.
No problem with her brain? I’d say. Her brain is always going 100 miles per hour. I used to say to my wife, “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s a famous comedian one day.”
Now I say, “I’ll be surprised if she isn’t a famous comedian one day.”
Russia, China and Europe are now reaping the negative outcome of decades of abortion.
The Russians are currently begging women to become mothers mostly for economic reasons (fewer workers and taxpayers). It’s been a hard sell when their maternal instincts have been quelled and distorted for generations and there is a high rate of addiction and alcoholism among males and thus few good or willing candidates for healthy parenting in Russia. The Chinese have a serious shortage of women and may have to resume their 19th century practice of kidnapping women into white slave gangs to replenish their diminished stock of females. Europe has a problem with Islamic immigrants reproducing rapidly, while European natives have increased abortion rates and childless couples.
What about the US? Research shows a dramatic rise of incidence of suicide, depression and breast cancer among women who have had abortions. The incidence of child abuse has risen 600% since the legalization of abortion although abortion was supposed to reduce abuse, due to the birth of unwanted children. Divorce, domestic abuse, rape, suicides, sexually transmitted diseases, sex trafficking, teen pregnancies have risen. Murder is the leading cause of death of pregnant women. Single parent families and poverty has risen.
As God warned in Leviticus 26, he negative effects of trespassing the Commandments are not only social, economic economic, it is also political. In Leviticus 26, a very sobering chapter indeed, the political consequence would be that those who hate you would rule over you (26:17). It would seem that promised outcome is upon us here in the USA. A righteous God cannot ignore the reckless conception and merciless slaughter of 50 million unborn babies…even late term and post-birth infants…the gift of life rejected, God’s image snuffed, our humanity distorted.
Abortion has only increased the ills it was supposed to cure; abortion has not and cannot produce a utopia.
Very Sobering Reading: A New Scar On My Soul: http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/28467
More here: http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/sf/section/C273
Oh, how sad.
The problem with your theory is the incredible levels of racism against children of “mixed ethnicity” in much of East Asia. If the Chinese or Koreans started kidnapping Caucasian women, much of the local culture would discriminate heavily against the resulting offspring. I have seen this many times.
The Philippines is a rare exception where “Mestizos” are often seen as highly preferred. Again, I know from first-hand experience…
“Abortion has only increased the ills it was supposed to cure.”
For further cultural destruction, contraception actually increases the number of abortions: http://www.lifenews.com/2011/01/03/study-abortions-double-in-spain-despite-increased-contrapcetion/
(Make sure you look into this, so you have some ammo when your lefty friends tell you, “If you’re anti-abortion you need to be in favor of providing contraception!”)
And remember how we were told “If couples cohabitate before marriage, it will pretty much eliminate divorce”? Yeah. That one didn’t work out either.
Seems hedonism begets hedonism. And some people are still shocked.
I cohabited for 8 years before I got married. Married 29 years so far. Worked for me.
People who claim to be pro-choice really shouldn’t object to abortion being used for gender selection. Either an unborn child has the right to live or it doesn’t. If you grant the woman total authority over a pregnancy you shouldn’t really get upset when she decides she want a son not a daughter. If you think bearing a disabled child is grounds for abortion you have to accept that some people may only want one or one more child and they want it to be a boy. We are on the road to selective breeding.
I have to ask, in all seriousness, for the people who are firmly pro-choice, why don’t we legalize infanticide until a certain age, say six months?
If bringing “unwanted” children (tell that to my younger sister who was desperate to adopt) into this world is such a potential tragedy, what about mothers or couples who decide with a newborn baby that they made the wrong decision to have the baby (for whatever reason … not realizing the hardship and self-sacrifice involved, impediment to career, stress, etc.)?
Why not be able to kill “with compassion,” a young “unwanted” baby?
Because I think there’s a sliding scale of rights as the pregnancy goes further along.
If you read the opinion polls, most of the US tends to be in the squishy center on abortion, and have some opinions that late term abortion is worse than early term abortion, and that abortion because of some things (sex selection) is worse than abortion because of others (significant physical health issues).
My question is about morality, not polling.
I take it you experienced your own first trimester in your mother’s womb, as well as your own third trimester.
Were you not the same person, albeit at different stages of development, during these two periods?
Will you not be the same person years from now when you are walking with a cane, albeit in a different stage of development?
Should there be a sliding scale of rights, then?
It’s just a variation on the resort to popular opinion fallacy.
You either are…or are not…dealing with a member of the human family.
Since I don’t remember either, it’s tough to know what I experienced.
I don’t think I’m the same person I was ten years ago, in fact. And I don’t think I’ll be the same person I am now ten years from now.
Oh, but you will be the same person, semantic sleights of hand notwithstanding.
Hope you don’t find yourself on the disagreeable end of some sliding scale of rights for those who might deem you at an “unwanted” stage.
What a crappy, cowardly dodge.
You know what Rags and LukeHandCool, that is what I believe.
Many of you seem to think that “liberals” are disconnected from reality and ignorant because they are so dismissive of conservatives arguments (like those regarding Obamacare at the Supreme Court). Yet you seem to similarly dismiss “liberals” and many libertarian arguments on abortion because you believe anyone that holds those views must be “evil”, “stupid”, “anti-Christian” or something similar.
In 1980 in his first trimester Jimbo voted for Jimmy Carter.
He realises now that was infantile.
Now & in 10 years he votes Obama.
See he has changed.
@jimbo3
“… you believe anyone that holds those views must be “evil”, “stupid”, “anti-Christian” or something similar.”
I didn’t say you were evil, stupid, or anti-Christian.
I didn’t even say you were given to erecting crude strawmen.
Oh, my… The butt hurt.
Please… Don’t insult my intelligence…again.
You are not a person until you can exist independent of another.
BTW do you call acorns trees?
What if these people draw a hard line at six months?
What if they draw another hard line at 60 years?
If they can draw one line at one age, they can draw another. And the government would benefit financially by drawing that second line. And they know it…
I believe the line has been drawn by Obamacare–you become a “unit” at age 70.
The day will come when Roe will be seen to be another Dred Scot.
Both created an extra-constitutional class of human beings, and a truly frightful period in American history.
Please explain how with several abortion pills you would police your no abortion rule? I have often proposed hanging women who have abortions for premeditated murder. This does not meet with widespread approval. What I have found is that people would like it treated as misdemeanor manslaughter and the woman goes free. Not very logical.
I generally don’t like to chime in on the abortion debate. I was always a fence sitter, thinking that I would never have an abortion, but other women could do what they wanted with their bodies… and then I had my sons. I don’t even want to imagine the emotional wasteland of someone’s heart and mind that they would abort a baby over plumbing?
The great tragedy would be to normalize the premeditated termination of human life for purely elective causes. It is not, or should not be, a woman’s right to end a life that results from voluntary behavior.
And exactly what kind of police state will be required to stop it? OTOH a job as a vagina inspector could be quite rewarding.
Let me know when the Father has the right to protect the life of his son or daughter…from their mother.
I’m sorry, did I open a can of worms?
This issue is an extension of the Roe effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_effect), where there are now millions fewer probably Democrat voters because they were aborted. In Chicago, that doesn’t make a difference, but so far in most parts of the US it does.
As far as liberals dealing with this, the answer is simple: invoke affirmative action. For every female fetus aborted, grab a pregnant woman of the street, check the sex of her fetus, and if it is male, abort it also. Eventually, extend that: for every abortion by a Democrat, abort a Republican.
Remember, Obama is a centrist, so this is not an extreme proposal. Rather modest, in fact.
Here’s a link to abortion rates by state in 2008: http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?cat=10&ind=465.
The abortion rate in Kansas and Texas was higher than that in Wisconsin. The rate in Kentucky, North Carolina and Georgia was as high as in Michigan. The rates in Maine, Oklahoma and Arkansas were roughly equal.
I’ve got significant doubts about the validity of the Roe effect.
When you cheapen life and devalue the rights of individuals – and “fetuses” are individual human beings, their DNA is the same as it would be if they live to adulthood, they are nothing less – it sets the stage for more state control over lives, up to and including life itself.
Dehumanize the fetus and those in “vegetative states,” and soon the severely mentally handicapped and the comatose will find themselves without protection.
This is not alarmist – it is happening today in the UK and the Netherlands.
Defeating Obama and Democrats in Congress would be a great victory, but only in a battle. The war will go on as long as there remain those with the ideology that the state should be supreme.
Few things have touched me like the time I watched a young man with Down’s Syndrome watching a parade at Disneyland.
Directly opposite of us on Disneyland’s Main Street USA, he became the show for me. Soon my wife and children couldn’t help but watch him more than the parade, and that became the case with more and more people in the crowd. He was cute personified.
His smile could not have been any larger, and I was almost surprised he didn’t dislocate his sholder the way he waved excitedly, non-stop, at the princesses and other characters on the floats passing by.
The tears welled up in my eyes at the pure joy he showed, joy which I doubt few “normal” people are capable of experiencing.
The crowd erupted in cheers when Snow White, God bless her, got off her float, walked up to him, and gave him a kiss on his forehead.
He raised both hands above his head like he’d just scored the super-bowl-winning touchdown, and the crowd cheered him on.
It was an absolutely beautiful moment. Disabled? Not in that sense. Not in the capacity to experience wonderment and joy.
A beautiful human being that young man. His parents are truly blessed.
It’s his innocence that you likely found to be cute. The same innocence we observe in most children. It seems that knowledge untempered by wisdom predisposes us to corruption.
They are similar in that Down Syndrome persons share a strong logic base with children.
When a train does not turn up on a station the commuter with Down will be puzzled But happy if it is explained & alternatives are arranged.
When a child expects something to happen & it does not – just try explain & offer alternatives. Yeah right. 🙂
Although innocence would be part of the equation, this was pure, unbridled joy that was on display.
It was the kind of happiness or euphoria “normal” people would likely have to take illegal drugs to experience.
So, when “normal” people talk about these people leading impoverished lives … when it comes to pure joy, I think we could learn a thing or two from that young man and others like him. His joy was profound and profoundly moving.
This is the same type of disturbed mentality that is represented of Planned Parenthood, which is the same disturbing and dangerous mentality of the people and doctors who supported, instituted, and ran the Eugenics programs of the early 1900’s, like Dr. Marie Stopes, an English female Doctor who propagated birth control and planned parenthood, through compulsory sterilization, was a prominent campaigner for the implementation of policies inspired by eugenics, then not a discredited science. In her book of 1920, “Radiant Motherhood”, she called for the “sterilization of those totally unfit for parenthood, to be made an immediate possibility, indeed made compulsory.” The UK Planned Parenthood Marie Stopes organization, with affiliates all over the world, still practice birth control through sterilization, under the guise of reproductive health, and so on.. which influenced and led Hitler’s aryan race theories, reinforcing and giving intellectual credence to his already prevalent hatred.
This kind of human genetic sexual and race manipulation that starts in the minds, then the bodies, will only lead to another human catastrophe.
I pray for the day when fetuses can be identified as gay, so that aborting them can be declared a hate crime.
This is another example of external cultures not assimilating to the American way of life. We are no longer a melting pot so these ethnic groups do not adopt the social norms established by our society. In the PC world of today, all cultures are equal. You wind up with women in burqas in the mall, English press 2, and abortion on demand to get rid of girls. Way to go, multiculturalists! You all must be so proud!!
The melting is slow. Takes about 3 or 4 generations. Give it time.
We already have gulags for folks using the wrong plants. Republicans champion that. Why not a gulag that Democrats can champion?
In truth we have one party. The Gulag Party. It divides along the lines of what crimes should make people enemies of the state.