Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal carried an article (subscription is required) about activists in India who are now taking legal action against manufacturers of medical imaging machines because these machines are used (illegally) to provide gender information to expectant mothers during pregnancy. Knowledge of an unborn child’s gender results in the abortion of many female fetuses, due to the strong economic incentives favoring male offspring that are deeply established in some cultures. The practice of female feticide is now so common that it is having serious demographic impact on a global scale. Here is an excerpt from the WSJ article: India has long struggled with an inordinate number of male births, and female infanticide -- the killing of newborn baby girls -- remains a problem. The abortion of female fetuses is a more recent trend, but unless "urgent action is taken," it's poised to escalate as the use of ultrasound services expands, the United Nations Children's Fund said in a report this year.
The latest official Indian census in 2001 showed a steep decline in the relative number of girls aged 0-6 years from 10 years earlier: 927 girls for every 1,000 boys compared with 945 in 1991. In much of northwest
A Boston Globe story on this topic in 2006 estimated that 10 million young women were “missing” in India alone, and the number must be far higher in
The loss of any child is a tragedy. But women enrich, bless, and anchor human culture in so many ways that men either cannot, will not, or do not. The mystery that is gender is the most fundamental and precious form of human diversity. To dramatically alter the balance of gender toward males in the two most populous countries in the world is nothing other than a Holocaust, and one for which the world has barely begun to suffer the consequences, which will persist for decades.
Yet sadly the supposedly pro-female organizations (take NOW as an example) are utterly silent on this matter. NOW simply has nothing to say about these 20 or 30 million “missing” women.
Why not? The loss is so staggering.
9 comments:
Because these Feminists are LIBERALS first and everything else falls beneath that. The Liberal playbook says that Abortion is their Sacrament, to be protected at all costs. Why let this tragedy in India spoil that carefully-crafted Liberal template? THAT is why they are 'silent.' The humorous folly of the Abortion proponents is that they actually prevent more new Liberals from being born! At least there's a silver lining!
That is no silver lining, Chris. It is purely tragedy and on a huge scale.
I didn't know liberalism was a heritable trait. Though it is obvious that children never ever ever have political belief different from their parents'. Oh well I guess someone with latent totalitarian impulses such as these would be willing to go on probability.
Chris is soooo right: The liberals are liberal first before all else. I don't understand, but it is true.
Please don't be sarcastic, Ramon.
Reasonable statistical studies can model a person's probable voting patterns based on those of their parents.
The effect of permissive abortion laws in the US since 1973 has been to reduce the fraction of minority voters, who usually tend to vote Democratic. This phenomenon is sarcastically referred to as "The Roe Effect".
I wasn't being totally sarcastic.
Chris speaks of being a liberal as if someone is born imbued with that political ideology. No one is born a liberal any more than any one is born a Catholic, Muslim, Marxist, or monetarist.
I will accept that those fetuses which are aborted will more probably vote Democratic than not. Chris' (if he wasn't being sarcastic) veers into totalitarianism when he implies that someone's probable political bent makes it more acceptable to abort them. He apparently does not have much moral problem with abortion but simply opposes it because of its association with American liberalism. He is obviously an Ann Coulter fan, the telling sign being his use of the phrase "Sacrament of abortion." This is enough to disqualify him from serious consideration in itself.
So he is willing to use means he supposedly opposes to shape political demographics. Means he apparently opposes for no reason other than their association with the bogey man liberal. He has an ill-defined ideology with ill-defined enemies. An ideology which, apparently can accomodate anything when it suits his purpose, even things which he by affiliation should ifnd immoral. These tendencies are hallmarks of totalitarianism and fascism. (think Robespierre justifying the Terror in the name of freedom) Also note his repeated use of hot button words like "leftist" and "LIBERALS" (for some reason capitalized) and the way he assumes I am "spewing lefty pablum" simply by disagreeing with him. His thought allows for no dissent within ranks and no serious consideration of the other side. Everything he says is constructed to divide between "left and right" or "us and them."
So no I am not being sarcastic. Chris would be predisposed to seeing people as born liberals as it helps him create irredeemable bogey men and justify the use of abortion to shape demographics even though he should oppose it. There need not be consistency on his side when the other is so far beyond salvation and he is serving what he thinks is the greater good, however poorly he can articulate it.
By the way. If you accept the validity of "The Roe Effect" then I assume you accept the validity of Steven Levitt's thesis regarding Roe and crime? Just wondering.
Also calling out NOW for not commenting on abortion preferences in India is bogus. They represent a constituency like every organization. The "N" stand for National meaning this nation. Its utterly useless for them to go trolling the world for everything women may find offensive. I don't see this blog cataloguing liberal bias in the Times of London or Le Monde.
Ramon, when he is not writing your lines, Harry, or setting up straw men to knockdown, simply makes it up. Of course NOW's reach is global, esp. when it comes to hyperventilating about Bush's 'global gag rule.' Would that they only promoted abortion on demand in the first world
You can get free access to Wall STreet Journal and those other subscription sites with a netpass from www.congoo.com
This was on CNBC last week.
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