What’s Wrong with the World

I don't see how liberals could be blamed for what goes on in China. In fact, I'd venture to say most liberals are appalled at the notion of females being aborted so they could eventually get a male. Moreover, it is overpopulation that has brought Chinese to such extremes, and liberals are often more concerned about the dangers of overpopulation, and the carelessness many conservatives show towards husbanding our natural resources. Not any of the GOP candidates give a fig about what the Keystone XL pipeline could have done to the Ogallala Aquifer, the home of clean water for 6 states, and are impatient with anyone who would question its safety. I'd guess too, Chinas current disregard for their own environment, will eventually lead to a great many deaths from unclean water, and pollution.

Nice straw man you got there, Russell.

Of course I did not blame liberals for "what goes on in China" (though I would have abundant evidence to draw from, were I interested in demonstrating liberals' admiration for what goes on in China). I blamed them for rigid and callous incuriosity concerning the subject of abortion.

In fact, I'd venture to say most liberals are appalled at the notion of females being aborted so they could eventually get a male.

I'd venture to say you're darned ignorant. Just do a little googling on all the hard work liberals have put in for funding the UNFPA and on how _extremely_ proud they are of having restored it. Are they in denial? You betcha.

The accusation that liberals have ignored this problem is of course ridiculous, eg here's something I found in ten seconds of googling: http://feministing.com/2011/05/25/sex-selective-abortions-on-the-rise-in-india/

Glad to see that attention paid, but I must note that the main burden of that post is to prevent that attention from issuing in any serious restrictions on abortion.

Russell:

You say it yourself - liberals are more concerned about overpopulation... therefore concerns about aborting females take second (or third) place and you, being a liberal, support what is going on in China because dealing with overpopulation is the more important issue.

Also, please support your assertion with facts - "Not any of the GOP candidates give a fig about what the Keystone XL pipeline could have done to the Ogallala Aquifer, the home of clean water for 6 states, and are impatient with anyone who would question its safety." I will wait.

goddinpotty:

Liberals have ignored logic in dealing with this problem. If you use any argument that the left uses in supporting the right to abort your baby, then you immediately undermine any argument concerning the outcomes of such abortions. Either a woman has the sole right to make decisions about her reproductive rights or there are other claims. That is the line abortion supporters draw. Any noise about effects of that is merely whining about reality not matching with desires no matter how illogical it might be to want both A and NOT A to be true at the same time.

A more productive discussion might be had if we didn't conflate abortion in parts of the world where it is a matter of individual choice* with areas like China and the sub-continent where cultural conservatism rules. From the Feministing article"

" Kulwant still has vivid memories of the first abortion. “The baby was nearly five months old. She was beautiful. I miss her, and the others we killed,” she says, breaking down, wiping away her tears."

"Until her son was born, Kulwant’s daily life consisted of beatings and abuse from her husband, mother-in-law and brother-in-law. Once, she says, they even attempted to set her on fire."

“They were angry. They didn’t want girls in the family. They wanted boys so they could get fat dowries,” she says."

Also population policy in China needs to be viewed in the broader context of post-revolutionary public policy. If one does so, one will see a host of real problems addressed with a policy meat-ax. This includes policy concerning industrial development and agricultural production as well as population. Usually the result was to crash the target and often trash the environment as a bonus. The one child policy is no different.

"Not any of the GOP candidates give a fig about what the Keystone XL pipeline..."

Alan, figs don't matter. The decision was made to spin the pipeline as a jobs issue. At that point the aquifer became besides the point and acceptable collateral damage. While the Republicans do this far more than the Dems, it is not unheard of for the Dems to also do this.

*At this assertion someone will likely recall a post south of here in which an upscale, presumably liberal family held an intervention of sorts to pressure a teenage daughter to get an abortion. While the teenager said, "I didn't have a choice," her situation is far different than Mrs. Kulwant's whose life was clearly in danger (note the reference to divorce Indian style).

The girl, in fact, did have a choice, the reality of which terrified her family as, had she decided to carry the pregnancy to term, would have had them picking up the pieces (which is what upscale liberal families do when their kids screw up - one thing they don't do is murder them or kick them out on the streets).

So pressure *on a minor* to have an abortion is just fine, Al? Here's a real question for you: Do you think that minor girl in the liberal family believed (regardless of whether it was true) that her parents had the legal power literally to make her have the abortion? Here's another question: Just how far is coercive pressure to have an abortion okay with you? If they'd told her that they would throw her out on the street and leave her to find her own way to a shelter of some kind, would that have been all right with you? What if they'd offered to drive her to a shelter and leave her there with a suitcase? Choice is a joke with you liberals, it truly is.

I'd venture to say you're darned ignorant. Just do a little googling on all the hard work liberals have put in for funding the UNFPA and on how _extremely_ proud they are of having restored it.

So you maintain that someone being proud of UNFPA automatically means that they are in favor of sex-selection abortions? I don't see how that follows (or justifies the intemperate language).

First, UNFPA supports much more than abortion, so support of UNFPA as a whole doesn't necessarily imply support of abortion

Second, one can support UNFPA's goal of giving access to abortion as an option for controlling family size and still loath the use of abortions for sex selection.

A more productive discussion might be had if we didn't conflate abortion in parts of the world where it is a matter of individual choice* with areas like China and the sub-continent where cultural conservatism rules.

It's a distinction worth exploring, indubitably. Why it's more "productive" than getting to the brass tacks of whether abortion is evil or not is a judgment which you'll have to defend by moral reasoning.

Furthermore, there is no implication in my post, nor in the Eberstadt essay, that abortion policy in every country emanates from the same moral, political and social sources of human action. Of course abortion in China is procured for reasons at variance with why it is procured in Manhattan, or New Delhi, or Seoul. Equally obviously, it is logically coherent to argue that abortion is wrong whether coerced or not, so the conflation you present is a figment of your imaginative gift for dodging the question. That it is convenient for you to pretend so broad a brush is being used, when plain fact discloses that it is not so, is an interesting comment on your usual evasion of moral discourse.

In a word, the last thing you want, Al, is a productive discussion.

So you maintain that someone being proud of UNFPA automatically means that they are in favor of sex-selection abortions?

I maintain that being proud of the UNFPA and of our funding for it is equivalent to a reckless disregard for truth about, at a minimum, coerced abortions in China, a reckless disregard so extreme that it amounts to a functional failure actually to care about abortion coercion. The connection between coercive abortion in China and selective abortion and infanticide towards girls in China is obvious to any thinking person. Therefore, if someone cares so little about China's heinous one-child policy as to lie (to himself and/or to others) about the UNFPA and to support the UNFPA, he doesn't care _all that much_ about the war on baby girls in China either.

"All in all, mass sex selection can be regarded as a “tragedy of the commons” dynamic, in which the aggregation of individual (parental) choices has the inadvertent result of degrading the quality of life for all — and some much more than others."

Paul, if you wanted to have a discussion on the morality of abortion as an individual decision, one totally free of coercion regardless of the source of that coercion, then what was the point of waving the red shirt with the article you referenced? Your post is more in line with the HPV one just south of here which also resolves into a tragedy of the commons matter.

It seems to me that things break down thusly:

Abortion as an entirely free choice.

Abortion that is coerced to a greater or lesser extent.

Each of those situations break down in ways that will lead to different folks deriving different moral positions on each sub-section with resulting different policy solutions.

Why is your moral calculus which seems to start with abortion qua abortion better than one that views abortion in the context of individual autonomy and the proper role of the state?

Oh, and why is there always a "war" on things with you all? All I see is a government (China) way out of line and the law of unintended consequences in operation as reactionary social factors get out of whack with the factors of production.

The attitude toward women in China is exactly like that of WWTW commenters -- women are a waste of space. If you want to stop this practice, become feminists and start advocating for women's rights.

Al,

It's hardly "you all" - The Economist noted the global war on baby girls and the ensuing sex imbalance nearly two years ago. They are not usually lumped in with the likes of the W4 writers.

And It's not simply the Chinese government - It's India, the "little dragons" of east Asia and is now detectable in other parts of the world as well. Methinks you didn't bother to read the Eberstadt article let alone take it seriously.

Kamilla

Al, we've all heard countless times the old fairy tale about abortion being a private choice, quite fully segregated from our life in common as social animals. You're version of the fairy tale is that our concerns about abortion are second- and third-order concerns.

That nations have, of their own free will, approached the level of sex-selective generational culling that only coercion by ideology achieved elsewhere, is an interesting but ancillary question. In the post "just south of here which also resolves into a tragedy of the commons matter" you're exercised about the potential for some few thousand deaths by cervical cancer, decades out from now. In this post I'm concerned about 35 million souls snuffed out before they even get a chance. Real demonstrable shifts in the composition of the human population compared to distant expectations of possible illness. Who's practical and who's theoretical now?

Try again, Al.

Lydia,

Russel simply stated his opinion that many liberals would object to abortion sex selection. You responded that liberal support of UNFPA somehow contradicts that. But when pressed to explain how that follows, you respond with a claim that liberal support of UNFPA implies support or ignorance of forced abortions in China.

If you have proof that UNFPA supports forced abortions anywhere, please share. I find that very hard to believe.

Because short of that, this seems yet another non-sequitur in your claim of Russel's 'darned' ignorance.

If you have proof that UNFPA supports forced abortions anywhere, please share. I find that very hard to believe.

You do? You've been living in a cave for the last fifteen to twenty years? Do your own research. I've discussed it elsewhere on this web site. You can do a google search for it. It's documented that China continues to levy ruinous fines, which are enforced, in the UNFPA's so-called "model counties" and that the UNFPA supports China's one-child policy in these counties.

But I've had too much experience with your sort of person to think that it would be anything other than a time-waster for me to do that research for you. People can literally go to China and risk their lives and/or freedom writing down verbatim the very posters in which the government threatens people with fines if they have unlicensed children, in UNFPA-supported counties that are supposed models, they can interview people on how the population controllers come in and destroy their houses if they don't pay up, and your sort will call the reporters liars. Or will pretend that somehow, despite the fact that these population control programs are directly monetarily supported by the UNFPA and occur in their "model counties," this has nothing to do with the UNFPA!

I simply don't have the time to look up the links for someone who approaches this like that. You didn't know any of this? Interesting in itself. A little digging will disclose it if you're really in good faith. You can do a Google site search of this site right here for "PRI" and "UNFPA."

"IMAGINE you are one half of a young couple expecting your first child in a fast-growing, poor country. You are part of the new middle class; your income is rising; you want a small family. But traditional mores hold sway around you, most important in the preference for sons over daughters. Perhaps hard physical labour is still needed for the family to make its living. Perhaps only sons may inherit land. Perhaps a daughter is deemed to join another family on marriage and you want someone to care for you when you are old. Perhaps she needs a dowry."

I read the article Kamilla (which should have been obvious as I pulled a quote from deep inside) and the above quote is from one of the Economist articles, so I'll take your point but my position remains the same: I don't like "war on X" as a concept; I've never seen where it is usefu and i've seen plenty of instances where it was counter-productive.l.

The above graph that I pulled from one of the Economist articles shows the situation stems from economics and social values being misaligned. Attempting to solve a population problem by arbitrarily limiting family size in a nation where sons are necessary for economic survival, the social safety net is non-existent, and obsolete and barbaric customs like the dowry still exist is a prescription for some sort of disaster (BTW, I have read that in some places the imbalance is leading to changes in the whole dowry thing which is what standard microeconomics would predict).

The same analysis would also apply in nations without formal laws on family size if the other conditions apply and traditional culture was strong enough.

"That nations have, of their own free will..."

Nations don't have free will, individuals do unless authoritarian or totalitarian governance as well as the stifling and coercive environment that prevails in socially conservative and traditional societies thwarts that will.

"...approached the level of sex-selective generational culling that only coercion by ideology achieved elsewhere..."

??? Free will isn't operating in India. Societies in the thrall of theology and tradition can be as coercive as any ideologically driven nation. Besides the population policy in China has nothing to do with ideology - do you know of anything in Marx that would lead to sex-selective abortions? Like many post revolutionary policies in that country, it was the result of an ad hoc decision that failed to properly factor in actual conditions.

"...exercised about the potential..."

No, I'm exercised about a hyper-individualized and fanciful approach that fails to take into account ones responsibilities to the society in which one dwells and from which one derives many benefits. At some point claims over "conscience" devolve into mere freeloading and special pleading.

"I'm concerned about 35 million souls snuffed out before they even get a chance."

I'm concerned that we might well let emotion and theology get the best of us and lead to a solution as brain dead in our nation as the Chinese "solution" was in theirs.

"Who's practical and who's theoretical now?"

Practical and theoretical aren't a numbers game here. If 90% of the occurrences of a given disease are the result of a known cause and that cause can be easily prevented then that's about as practical as one can get.

On the other hand, acting as if one can deal with a popular practice with which has a problem by merely passing a law seems a rather theoretical exercise to moi.

(I guess we now have at least a range as to what some consider a trivial number of deaths.)

"If the fractional composition of our atmosphere (as viewed from the position of temperature) is so pressing an issue as to necessitate the introduction of vast global bureaucracy by which to make our penance for the distortion of natural processes, what can explain their general insouciance concerning a compositional distortion more immediately related to humans?"

BTW, the above comment shouldn't pass without some note. The matter of climate change is about as immediate as things can get given the lead time on the necessary technological and other changes as well as the likelihood of an irreversible tipping point in the near to medium term.

Since numbers seem to mean something (at least in this thread), we should remain aware that the changes coming down the road will negatively effect hundreds of millions or billions of folks. If a couple of nations with nuclear arms have resource issues with each other, well, 35 million could go poof in an instant.

On the other hand, acting as if one can deal with a popular practice with which has a problem by merely passing a law seems a rather theoretical exercise to moi.

I consider my own present existence, as opposed to my having been torn to bits by an abortionist, non-trivial. And that existence is, based on the story of my birth to an unwed mother who contemplated abortion pre-Roe, arguably the result of a "law" that "dealt with" that "popular practice" by making it illegal in the U.S. Here, it could have been (thought to be) safe, sanitary, and respectable. She decided she didn't want to go to Mexico, where (in her words) "it was just as illegal but the bribery mechanisms were more efficient" and from which her girlfriends had brought back "horror stories." Score one for making abortion _illegal_ in the U.S. and for having inefficient bribery mechanisms rather than "safe and legal."

Pretty pathetic, Al. I expected better sophistry.

Societies in the thrall of theology and tradition can be as coercive as any ideologically driven nation.

I agree with that. But immediately before this remark you reprimanded me for talking as if nations had "free will." Any idiot would realize my use of the word "nation" was metonymy, precisely analogous to how you use "societies," which technically cannot have will either. So you undermined your own evasive pedantry within a few lines of your own comment. Bravo.

We agree that population control fashion can exert a force comparable to state coercion, which is why even free Western nations have begun to approach the coercive Chinese in sex-selective abortion. You introduced the conflation you decried to avoid the moral discussion you refuse to have. Bravo again.

I'm concerned that we might well let emotion and theology get the best of us and lead to a solution as brain dead in our nation as the Chinese "solution" was in theirs.

Since I didn't propose a solution, I'll let you provide the final solution your sophistry found convenient to assume into evidence.

As for local statutory solution, mine is confined to my own state and national law: proscription of abortion and prosecution of abortionists. Pretty simple: perform an abortion, face a felony rap.

What America can do about Chinese, SKorean or Indian law is far from clear. We can begin by not funding, through the UN and NGOs, their coercive abortion regime.

Can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want a little girl. They're really wonderful. And really good at stealing dad's heart too!

The imbalance between the sexes created by the pro-abortion policies and 'cultural imperatives' of the places highlighted in red must, one supposes, eventually provoke a civil war. Ferocious competition among men for mates in a diminishing pool of women, could result in terrible bloodshed.

Perhaps this theme has already been explored in some novel I haven't heard about.

If a woman can kill her unborn child because she doesn't happen to want a baby right now, why can't she kill it because she doesn't happen to want a baby girl right now?

For the same reason that "...why, on one side of a one-inch thick hospital wall, physicians are spending a million dollars on high-tech professional skill to save and preserve the life of a premature baby, while on the other side more physicians are throwing an aborted baby of exactly the same weight and gestation into the garbage? Clearly, if at the right moment the two mothers were to make the opposing 'choice', the child to be saved would disappear, and the non-human child would suddenly become human. Clearly, the source of such existential prestidigitation is the naked Will of the mothers, whereby human life is created ex nihilo or extinguished, not via biology, but by Will alone. I am not judging this fact morally at the moment. I am simply trying to present the bald truth that as a political and moral extension of the Micro-fascist Will to triumph over nature, the western democracies, by ideological imperative, have adopted a legal technique for converting millions of human beings into things, and thus we have become slave-regimes of a new kind."

from William Gairdner, "Getting Used to the F-Word," an essay which originally appeared in the October New Criterion:

http://www.williamgairdner.com/journal/2011/11/3/getting-used-to-the-f-word.html

Existential prestidigitation, indeed. Support in any form for abortion requires just such intellectual sophistry, and is dependent on either the autonomy of the sheer Will of the mother in "free" countries, or the Will of the State in authoritarian nations like China.

P.S. If it were unborn males being killed disproportionately, these femininst critics wouldn't have a damn thing to say about it. In this particular instance, on the hiearchy of liberal values being "pro-woman" trumps being "pro-choice." Lose the feminist angle and things would change pretty flippin' quick.

This is interesting:

"The policy is probably costing China at least half a percentage point off the annual growth rate, which will become more important as growth slows and a rapidly aging society saps the economic engine that has driven China’s rise for a generation. After growing at a steady clip for three decades, China’s working-age population has stalled, and the demographic dividends of that expanding workforce are running short. When do demographers expect the working-age worm to turn? 2013."

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/01/is-the-one-child-policy-on-its-way-out-.html

The accompanying photo is seems to be sending a message: the older child appears to be female.

This "war" is what one would expect when a society's values get out of sync with its economic and technological base. Now they play catch up.

"Pretty pathetic, Al. I expected better sophistry."

From the chap who invokes a poetic device to defend an obvious misstatement. Asserting that societies are entities capable of asserting pressure on individuals is hardly a radical statement.

If by "free will" you mean that sovereign entities can legislate within their boundaries, well, so what? The problem is that no country appears to have done so in respect to selective abortion or infanticide that specifically targets females.

With China we have an ill-considered law together with certain conservative Confucian values and modern technology that has led to selective abortion. Prior to the new technology we got increased selective infanticide.

At its core, and in the other nations listed, the "war" is more driven by traditional values and social conservatism than anything else (I'm surprised you didn't note the drop in Korea).

"Since I didn't propose a solution,"

And then you go on to provide one:

"As for local statutory solution, mine is confined to my own state and national law: proscription of abortion and prosecution of abortionists. Pretty simple: perform an abortion, face a felony rap."

Paul, it's been a few years since one had to go around the Horn to get to Californy. State or national (which you leave unspecified), the only pulverizing thing is that your "moral" commitment seems to resolve to rationing access to abortion by class and the depth of ones pocketbook.

So, what do we know?

We know, based on prior experience with attempting to solve social problems with criminal legislation (e.g. alcohol, drugs, firearms, and abortion), that folks will rise up to provide any demand that may exist.

We know that when abortion was illegal folks with the means were willing to hop on flying machines and go to where they could get what they wanted.

We know from two elections in Colorado and one in Mississippi that an overwhelming majority of the folks in these states don't really want to end access to safe, legal abortions. Mississippi is a conservative state and the measures in Colorado failed in even the socially conservative areas, hence we may safely draw national conclusions from these votes.

Now, rather than engage in empty moral speculation and localism, let us get down to legal brass tacks. How far would you be willing to go to end abortion in this country?

"Pretty simple: perform an abortion, face a felony rap."

Since we know that criminalization won't end abortion (and arguably, won't make much of a dent) at this point, why not try a different approach?

The UN thing is a red herring as it is clear that the one child policy is unsustainable and social and economic changes are already raising the value of women.

"If a woman can kill her unborn child because she doesn't happen to want a baby right now, why can't she kill it because she doesn't happen to want a baby girl right now?"

She can and there's no way you can stop a really determined woman from doing so in any nation in which you would wish to dwell. Laws can only effect this at the margins if cultural values skew towards a particular gender. As South Korea demonstrates, these cultural notions can be changed rather quickly.

Asserting that societies are entities capable of asserting pressure on individuals is hardly a radical statement.

Nor is asserting that nations are capable of freely choosing evil, in comparison to nations where evil is forced upon them. Which is what I was doing: using "nation" in the same way you use "society." You introduced the pedantry, Al.

We don't criminalize behavior in the expectation that the legislation will finally and permanently end the behavior.

Based on your quietest presupposition here, one could say that it was useless to pass the Reconstruction Amendments because Southerners were going to go on oppressing blacks for another century.

There's "no way you can stop a really determined [fill in the blank]" will leave a liberal like you on pretty thin ground when we consider matters you care about. There's no way you can stop really determined plutocratic influence in politics. There's no way you can stop really determined sedition. Etc.

As usual, though, we all know you don't believe this stuff, Al. You argue as convenient and abandon a principle the moment it no longer suits you.

The attempt to tar liberals generically with the advocacy of China's coercive policies and/or sexist preferences for male children over female children is absurd. (Perhaps it is akin to attempting to tar religious conservatives generically with the crimes of the Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War.)

Nobody I know -- and I know lots of left-leaning people (many of whom are both sensitive to and willing to accept the logical consequences of their views) -- is a fan of this sort of thing. But, lest you conclude that I know a strange and unrepresentative subset of the liberal conspiracy, note that such liberal paragons as Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen have been working to raise awareness of this issue for some years now. (These two are, one might say, "leading liberals".)

And, Alex, tell me: Are those two people opponents of America's funding of the UNFPA? I don't have time to research that, but perhaps you know. How about your other "left-leaning" friends? Because let me tell you: In Congress the complicity stinks to high heaven between the left and these policies.

Not much really we can do for the babies in China, but there is a lot we could do to keep Iranian babies safe from being Iraqed.

Not much really we can do for the babies in China,

Except stop giving oodles of U.S. tax dollars annually that go to fund the forced abortion program that kills them. Just that little thing. It's always very convenient to ignore that option.

I'd love to meet one person on the left, just one, who strongly, vocally, and unreservedly joins forces with the right on that defunding.

I don't think we should fund that. One would almost vote for R Paul to see that kind of stuff ended. All aid to Israel and the rest too.

Hey,

I looked up the facts, and you will be relieved to know we are not funding any Chinese abortions! Thank God.

"A TV spot makes a distorted claim that Gingrich co-sponsored a bill containing money for a United Nations program “supporting China’s brutal one-child policy.” The truth is that bill specifically prohibited the use of funds for “involuntary sterilization or abortion,” or “the coercion of any person to accept family planning services.” The funding in question was a small part of a much larger bill which died before ever coming up for a vote."

A bit more. One, like Newts former wives, should learn to take care when he says stuff.

"Sarah Craven, a spokeswoman for the UNFPA, said the organization believes China’s one-child policy is “wrong,” and that, among other things, it promotes a huge gender disparity. The UNFPA, she said, categorically “does not support the one-child policy.”

And regardless, she said, Gingrich has long been an opponent of UNFPA funding. In fact, she said as speaker he once boasted from the floor of the House that he had completely eliminated UNFPA funding from a spending bill.

“Newt is hardly our friend,” Craven said."

Please tell me these last comments were satire.

You know what's really striking? Contrasting the map in this post with this one of all the autonomous ("autonomous") areas designated for non-Han ethnicities (different colors correspond to different administrative levels). (This map has labeled ethnic distributions.) The 55 officially recognized non-Han peoples of China were expressly exempted from the one-child policy, which -- as accounts of Uyghur couples being forced to abort their third child attest -- is not to say that their reproduction was left unregulated by the state.

this grand project in enlightenment: the experiment of producing a planet far more densely populated by unmarriageable males whose female siblings were executed before birth

Though the scale of the present-day "experiment" is certainly staggering, we're not entering wholly uncharted waters. Drastically imbalanced sex-ratios (and their attendant social frictions) were commonplace in many societies long before the advent of prenatal sex-determination. Have a look at these figures from Azar Gat's 2006 War in Human Civilization (pp. 74-75):

Surveys of hundreds of different communities from over 100 different cultures (of which about a fifth were hunter-gatherers) has shown that juvenile sex ratios averaged 127:100 in favor of boys, with an even higher rate in some societies. The Eskimos are one of the most extreme cases. Their harsh environment made them wholly dependent on male hunting, whereas female foraging played a greater economic role in milder climates. Thus, female infanticide was particularly widespread among them. They registered childhood sex ratios of 150:100 and even 200:100 in favour of boys. No wonder then that the Eskimos experienced such a high homicide rate over women, even though polygyny barely existed among them. Among Australian Aboriginal tribes childhood ratios of 125:100 and even 138:100 in favour of boys were recorded. The Orinoco and Amazonian basin hunters and horticulturalists have been closely studied. Their childhood boy ratio to every 100 girls is: Yanomamo 129 (140 for the first two years of life), Xavante 124, Peruvian Cashinahua 148. In Fiji the figure was 133. In tribal Montenegro it was estimated at 160. Although the evidence is naturally weaker, similar ratios in favour of males have been found among the skeletons of adult Middle and Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers [...].

Russell, Obama and the Democrat Congress restored funding for the UNFPA. The UNFPA is complicit in the one-child policy, which is vigorously carried out in counties the UNFPA calls its own "model counties," but pretends it is not. This has been well-documented. I'm glad you would like to see the funding ended and hope you are not easily taken in by the UNFPA's lies, which were well-refuted during the Bush years, which was why during the Bush administration, funding was cut off.

The Indian state, in a mad pursuit of its two-child norms, is planning to criminalize bearing of more than two children. The punishments include fine and imprisonment.

Alex H, you may note with profit that my criticism of liberals was not confined to the subject of China's coercive policies but rather compassed a broader spectrum of human behavior, ably summarized as global data by Mr. Eberstadt in his essay. That China, due to its ghastly one-child coercion, has managed to arouse even pro-choice liberals to outrage, amounts to no more than a codicil to the fact that no liberal can answer the rhetorical checkmate of Nice Marmot's question: "If a woman can kill her unborn child because she doesn't happen to want a baby right now, why can't she kill it because she doesn't happen to want a baby girl right now?"

Russell, you're embarrassing yourself. For one thing, I would recommend that you investigate the history of the positions taken by the contributors at this website vis-a-vis the Iraq war, before indulging your smug sophistical quips on that subject. Perhaps it has escaped your notice that not all conservatives supported that war. Once you remedy your ignorance, I assure you you will regret your arrogance. Likewise, spare us the cheap imposition of partisan political polarities: as if every right-wing website must answer for every right-wing politician. First it was Santorum, now its Gingrich: each time asinine.

Paul,

About UNFPA the Bush admin. seemed to think it was a good thing, and were only pressured to end what is a good program. Still, I these hard debt ridden times, I would think the Chinese could pay for these things themselves.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/05/4/gr050413.html

Well, there you have it. The UNFPA is a "good thing" and the Bush admin. ended the support for it only because of political pressure. We have the word of the Guttmacher institute on this. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. This is _so_ typical. Start out with apparently heartfelt rejection and then accept obvious cover-up of what is really going on.

What Gian brings up is interesting. I hadn't known India was thinking of doing this. The really strange this is that the Indian government has been fighting against the girl shortage by things like criminalizing the use of ultrasounds to discover the gender of the child. This has been totally ineffective, and also little girls die at a suspicious rate after birth as well--evidently from a combination of starvation, neglect (including neglect and abuse of the nursing mother), and (occasionally, I have read) nicotine poisoning using the juice from the leaves. For them to go to a hardline two-child policy is insane even consequentially and in an area that the Indian government itself apparently recognizes as a problem.

I don't know if outlawing ultra sounds is such a good idea, they would probably resort to more cruel things like infanticide. The very best thing we can do, besides being antiwar, is stay our of foreign nation's machinations all together.

Likewise, the very best thing Russell can do is stay out of comment threads he knows and cares nothing about.

I've checked a bit about the Indian law. It's very strong, just as Gian has said, and can include jail time for a third child. (Interestingly, a kind of easy-no-fault-divorce-on-steroids is also part of the proposed code. The whole proposed "women's code" appears to be designed to break up and attack families wholesale.) This is just for the state of Kerala. I don't know anything about Indian law and politics, so I don't know if "proposed draft code" means, "This thing will likely be put into effect unless you hear otherwise" or "This is something some one legislator dreamt up that might get nowhere." It looks like perhaps a judge or "justice" was somehow involved in writing it (?). Sinister. That such a thing has _any_ plausible chance of being put into effect tells one a lot.

I didn't see any provision for jail time just denial of services plus incentives for compliance. Several Indian states have penalties for exceeding the two child norm. Some of them skew against women, of course (the patriarchy strikes again)

The Kerala proposal came from a commission and makes no sense (the penalties, that is) as the state already has an birth rate at or below replacement.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/nation/south/keralas-2-child-norm-suggestion-kicks-debate-more-views-galore-437

Back in the day there were forced sterilizations under Sanjay Gandhi and even a few years later there seemed to be sex clinics (that's what they were termed, i recall) in every village (or at least the scores I went through).

In a bid to redefine Draconian, the Commission on Rights and Welfare of Women and Children feels that nothing lesser than a fine of Rs 10,000 or three months simple' imprisonment deserves to be slapped on the expectant father of a third child. The recommendation is part of the measures intended to encourage population planning for well-being and children's development.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-25/india/30200244_1_third-child-first-child-population

Isn't 10,000 Rs a pretty strong incentive? Negative-wise? ;-)

I can't tell if paying the fine or going to jail is at the "choice" of the "criminal" who has impregnated his own wife with their third child--if he happens to have the fine on hand, which I gather plenty of poor people in India don't and won't--or if it's up to some judge or jury to decide whether to give him the fine or the imprisonment.

Here's another sweet bit:

The report reads, "No person or institution shall use religion, region, sect, cast, cult or other ulterior inducements for the bearing of more children".

So if you publicly advocate big families on religious grounds, or advocate not engaging in the government's version of family planning on religious grounds, you could also get in trouble. Talk about muzzling the clergy!

Notice the ramified implications of that "no person shall use any...ulterior inducements" language. If a church (or Church) gives money to the poor on the basis of the number of children they have, or even specifically offers to raise or pay the fine for additional children, that would presumably fall under this ban.

About $US 200. A Catholic parish in Kerala has and offer of Rs 5,000 for families having a fifth child.

The draft bill is a mess,

"(c) Where any person or institution by any act or omission encourages, facilitates or otherwise promotes the State population policy, family planning project or birth control scheme set out under this Chapter and creates public opinion favourable to the provision of this Chapter, such entity may be granted rewards in cash or awards conferring distinction by the Governor on the recommendation of the Commission set up under Section 7 of the Chapter."

Corruption anyone? Anyway, there is all sorts of opposition and I can't find any information that indicates this went anywhere (I assume it would have had to be passed by the legislature. I also found references to a 2010 national bill that had a provision for 5 years imprisonment that seems not to have passed. India has way too many people but these are really goofy solutions. Here's the whole bill:

http://fiatjusticias.blogspot.com/2011/10/kerala-womens-code-bill-2011.html

I don't know if outlawing ultra sounds is such a good idea, they would probably resort to more cruel things like infanticide.

The state already has tools for dealing with cold-blooded murder. All it has to do is ruthlessly apply them for a few years to every family member involved in the infanticide and the people will get the picture pretty quickly.

"...the fact that no liberal can answer..."

I did and the question isn't the checkmate you believe. Wouldn't it be interesting if requiring ultrasounds had unintended consequences?

Paul, I took exception to the national "free will" concept as it doesn't reflect the often contentious politics in nations like India which is on full display in the coverage of that nation's two child policy debate.

"We don't criminalize behavior in the expectation that the legislation will finally and permanently end the behavior."

No, we don't but that comment is a red herring and reflects your category confusion. Some things that are amendable to regulation and policies encouraging behavior modification are poor candidates for outright prohibition. We usually learn this through experience. You refuse to confront this experience.

"Based on your quietest presupposition here, one could say that it was useless to pass the Reconstruction Amendments because Southerners were going..."

Except that experience demonstrated otherwise until the Supremes did a number on the federal civil rights laws and federal troops were withdrawn in an evil political deal. Recall that good president Grant defeated the Klan and had a pretty good civil rights record. As soon as the laws were reinstated and federal troops and marshals returned folks fell into line real quick. They still hate and grumble (and, as in South Carolina this year, try to pull a fast one from time to time) but they mostly obey the law. History defeats, not supports, your argument.

"...go on oppressing blacks for another century."

And they stopped, why? You refute yourself.

"There's "no way you can stop a really determined [fill in the blank]" will leave a liberal like you on pretty thin ground when we consider matters you care about. There's no way you can stop really determined plutocratic influence in politics. There's no way you can stop really determined sedition. Etc."

Maybe. You keep evading my question as to just what lengths you are willing to go in order to compel women to bear children against their will.

No law will get 100% compliance but if we required all women of child bearing age to get monthly pregnancy tests, started requiring such tests at the airport and border crossings, and treated every miscarriage as a potential crime scene, well, you might get some traction.

"As usual, though, we all know you don't believe this stuff, Al. You argue as convenient and abandon a principle the moment it no longer suits you."

Now, now, let's play nice. Besides, what principles have I ever abandoned? And you might confront the reality that even most social conservatives want the option of safe, legal abortions (at least for the right sort of women).

It would be easier to deal with usury and plutocracy, as well as unnecessary wars and torture, if folks like you stopped constructively supporting them while formally opposing them.

No law will get 100% compliance but if we required all women of child bearing age to get monthly pregnancy tests, started requiring such tests at the airport and border crossings, and treated every miscarriage as a potential crime scene, well, you might get some traction.

Or we could do it like we do with all other types of homicide which is assume that it is not first or second degree murder until the evidence shows sufficient intent to raise it from involuntary to voluntary manslaughter, then up to murder.

Granted, the intersection of felony murder, drug consumption and abortion would make for some interesting legal discussions. I suspect most people would come to the conclusion that drugs need to be outlawed because some pregnant women might get caught up in felony murder if readily available rather than expecting women who know they are pregnant to stop using them until the baby is no longer dependent on their body for development or nutrition.

"I did and the question isn't the checkmate you believe."

Your answer was more of a side-step than an answer. How about a straight one for a change?

I believe my answer was as straightforward as possible. How was it not?

Here is your answer: "She can and there's no way you can stop a really determined woman from doing so in any nation in which you would wish to dwell. Laws can only effect this at the margins if cultural values skew towards a particular gender. As South Korea demonstrates, these cultural notions can be changed rather quickly."

I think you missed the point. I was using 'can/can't' in the sense of permission, not in the sense of ability. So let me rephrase it: If it's permissible for a woman to kill her unborn child because she doesn't happen to want a baby right now, why shouldn't it be permissible for her to do so because she doesn't happen to want a baby girl right now?

Thank you, NM.

Al, the principle you abandoned (right quickly, as it turned out) is that it is unwise to criminalize activities that people will go ahead do anyway. As you put it, "attempting to solve social problems with criminal legislation" is a fool's errand that generally only benefits the rich who can evade the laws over the poor who cannot.

The fact that even conservative states have rejected life-at-conception legislation does not move me. Lincoln had to placate wicked racist opinion (most notably perhaps in his repeated and strident denials that he wanted anything to do with miscegenation: "because I don't want a Negro woman as a slave I must want her as a wife") in the course of overthrowing slavery. Support for abortion-on-demand has been eroding for decades, and I am happy to let it continue to erode. One day the indefensible SCOTUS impositions will be removed, and abortion law will return to the states; at which point many of them will instantly enact abortion-on-demand legislation. Nevertheless, like Lincoln I'd not let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Overturning those impositions by the Court will be an enormous blow for liberty and justice, whatever the blue states may do with their newly-won freedom.

The point about the Reconstruction Amendments is that even unpopular legislation can be made effectual, given sufficient will. I was refuting your quietism, not entering into a discourse on Reconstruction. You'd just spent a few paragraphs lecturing me on the folly of legislating against things people demand and "empty moral speculation." It struck me as a ridiculous posture that you'd never allow in other contexts. Happily, your next comment vindicated me.

Rendering abortionists, in the public mind, as comparable to seditious Klansmen is a fairly good approximation of what I'm aiming at. Yet even today we still have seditious Klansmen; and even in my reformed Republic, no doubt we'll still have abortionists. Man is a fallen creature. Some wicked folks enjoy assaulting and slaughtering the helpless and vulnerable. But I believe in something you do not: justice. They will answer for their crimes.

"If a woman can kill her unborn child because she doesn't happen to want a baby right now, why can't she kill it because she doesn't happen to want a baby girl right now?"

It is almost like someone who is pro-choice, but who objects to sex-selective abortion, would have to take the controversial position that it is possible to do what is legally permitted, but in so doing be subject to moral criticism.

If it were just that it wouldn't be too problematic, even though it is the case that liberals often have difficulty distinguishing between the legal and the moral.

What it has to do with is the fact that once abortion per se is morally permissible, you no longer have any moral ground whereby you can restrict it after the fact. Any strictures one wishes to apply "downstream" become purely matters of preference, and not moral ones.

Nice Marmot:

I agree that liberals (like people generally!) have difficulty distinguishing between the legal and the moral. But I disagree with you about your substantial point. It is possible to do what is morally permitted and be subject to moral criticism.

Consider, for an especially salient example, Judith Thomson. Thomson argues that while abortions typically violate nobody's moral rights (i.e. abortion is typically permissible), some abortions might be un-virtuous.

But the point is not peculiar to the kind of action in question -- i.e. abortion. Nor does it depend on the peculiarities of Thomson's arguments. The phenomena is a familiar part of everyday moral reasoning.

Think about the following example to get a sense for what the position: Suppose that since these are my cookies (they were gifted to me alone, let's say), you have no claim to them. In other words: you have no right to my cookies. Therefore, I am not morally required to give you any. In other words: I am morally permitted to keep my cookies.

Nonetheless, I might be subject to moral criticism if I do not give you any. Suppose, for example, I have many cookies and you are my little sister. I might be criticized for being a jerk, if I don't share with you.

[There are probably other ways of reaching the same conclusion (or similar conclusions): for example: almost any act falls under multiple descriptions...]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9104994/Sex-selection-abortions-are-widespread.html

One "doctor" is quoted as saying:

"I’ve had a consultant colleague in the North who expressed a view — that consultant was from an ethnic minority … He didn’t think it was ethically wrong because he thought that the cultural reason why some communities may prefer to have four male babies is as good a reason as the, if you like, the Anglo-Saxon cultural view, 'Well I’m pregnant, I just don’t want it anyway.’”

Just so.

The innocence of our skeptics of private enterprise concerning the profit motive in this service is conspicuous. If you want to break up shale formations to recover natural gas, in order to sell at for a profit, you’re a dirty capitalist and polluter; if you want to break infant skulls in the womb for a profit … crickets.