Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
A while ago, I stopped attending the 4th of July parade in the town where I was raised because of the increasing number of creepy groups that march in it each year. Last time I went, I saw the Zero Population Growth folks marching along in car costumes, pretending to look for parking spots, and sporting bumper stickers that said "Make Love, Not More." Directly behind them marched the antiwar protesters, decked out in tie-dye and carrying signs that read "Peace Is Patriotic" and the old mainstay, "Make Love, Not War."
These two groups, cut from the same cloth, are all retired Santa Cruz hippie sorts who toke up together in the afternoons and help each other circulate petitions around the community to keep the evil, corporatist Wal-Marts and Home Depots and In-N-Out Burgers out of the county. They despise new building projects, fear the apocalypse via global warming, and still have "Bush Is Evil" stickers on their Priuses. But oddest of all, both groups bemoan there being too many people on earth (and of course they mean brown and yellow and black people), while at the same time opposing war on the basis that it would kill people (mostly of the brown and yellow and black varieties). Getting these folks to see that they're at cross purposes with themselves, though, is impossible.
So it is with getting the garden variety pro-choice folks to see the inconsistency they run up against when they oppose sex-selective abortion. Take Mara Hvistendahl, author of Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, who in her book and again in a column on Slate condemns sex-selective abortion in no uncertain terms.
I make very clear in my book that the victim is women -- women who in the 1960s and 1970s were used as pawns in a Western drive to reduce birth rates in Asia, women who later aborted female fetuses against the backdrop of patriarchy, and women who, now that they are scarce, find themselves at greater risk of being trafficked, kidnapped, or sold by their parents to men desperate to find wives. (The State Department's 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, released last week, lists the dearth of women as a cause of rampant sex trafficking in and around China.)
Sex-selective abortion is wrong because women should account for half of the human population, and in parts of the world they now account for far less. That alone justifies moral outrage.
In her next breath, Ms. Hvistendahl goes on to defend abortion rights. Her bizarre line of reasoning: women should have the right to choose whether they will be a parent, but not be allowed to base their decision upon the sex of their child. In his WSJ column today, our own Bill McGurn takes on this misguided logic.
For her part, Ms. Hvistendahl offers a compelling indictment of the cult of expertise that has inflicted tremendous human damage around the world, from the Western development agencies that told women in places like Asia and Africa that their babies were the reason their nations were poor—and supported sometimes brutal efforts to stop them from having those babies. Or the many folks who never tire of preaching, no matter how much history refutes them, that babies are just plain bad: bad for the environment, bad because they increase competition for limited resources, bad because, in this view, each new life is but a new burden on everyone else.
Against these self-appointed experts, of course, we have a parallel tradition born of long, hard experience with human nature. Over the millennia our religious sages have spoken in different languages at different times. Though much mocked these days, their message has been remarkably consistent: that life is good, and that we ought to work for a society where the birth of another human being—a unique individual stamped with the divine image—is a cause for celebration.
Ms. Hvistendahl, by contrast, frets that misreading her feminism may lead to the "feminists' worst nightmare: a ban on all abortions." She needn't worry. Not only is any such ban a long, long way off, our aim is much higher: an America that protects the unborn in law because it welcomes them in life.
And here the great irony is Ms. Hvistendahl's great horror: her discovery that the men and women trying to build that America are the people most likely to agree with her that 160 million girls aborted simply because they weren't boys is a "moral outrage."
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Aug '10
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
I thought even hippies like In-N-Out Burgers. After all, they were featured as "good guys" in Fast Food Nation.
Back on-topic, I've often expressed the sentiment that those who believe the human race should commit suicide are welcome to lead by example.
May '10
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
Yes, as Sheriff Bell put it in No Country for Old Men:
"She kept on, kept on. Finally told me, said: I dont like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I dont think you got any worries about the way the country is headed. The way I see it goin I dont have much doubt but what she'll be able to have an abortion. I'm goin to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she'll be able to have you put to sleep. Which pretty much ended the conversation."
Jun '11
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
Ms. Hvistendahl is learning the Law of Unintended Consequences in the usual way: through bitter experience. I'm surprised I don't hear more people (at least in the pro-life camp) make the connection between the demographic trend that is going to bring down our entitlement programs and the tens of millions of American taxpayers that aren't here to pay their taxes because their mother's killed them before they were born.
Aug '10
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
Diane, The world waits breathlessly for the verdict in fifteen minutes. As the feminists rushed in to defend the woman in Houston when she drowned all her children, what will they say about this postnatal abortion performed (allegedly) by Ms Anthony ?
Central daylight time 12:54 PM, just to keep things in perspective. Because nothing else seems to be .
This article appeared in FT today. Same subject.
Edited on Jul 5, 2011 at 10:57amMar '11
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
In-n-Out Burger shall not be hated upon. They are tasty. Five Guys....you have some work to do.
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
Found not guilty of First Degree Murder. Found guilty of only making false statements...
Aug '10
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
His avowed support of Zero Population Growth groups is one of the many frustrations I have with SF author Isaac Asimov -- and one piece of proof that the libertarianism of his Foundation series is Campbell's and not his own. I have long found the moral foundations of ZPG-ers to be seriously flawed. Not just morally flawed, but rationally flawed. They are never willing to take into account how human reason, invention, and innovation can face challenges. It may not be able to face all challenges, but it has done a pretty good job dealing with feeding a growing population. We aren't at Soylent Green yet.
May '10
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
A quibble with your way of putting this, Diane.
By virtue of her pregnancy, a pregnant woman is a parent. The choice is whether to kill her child or let it live.
Dec '10
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
Great example of market failure in response to changing conditions and technology. In the "old" economy, kids were valuable to families for work on the farm or in what were largely family home-based businesses. In the modern industrial world, children are valuable to society, but have lost the value they provide to individual families. Indeed, on a pure cash basis, high quality children are quite expensive.
Enter birth control. Women can now regulate the number of children. Enter abortion, by using prenatal testing and a legal window in which babies may be killed at no cost (read: legal abortion), moms can now select the sex of the few children they choose to consume.
More market freedom leads to moms killing unborn girl babies. That is the result under conditions of scarcity when people are free to choose the action that benefits themselves individually, while shifting costs to others.
Solution 1-- take away freedom and ban abortion.
Solution 2--take away freedom and compel abortion (under some conditions) to balance sex selection.
Solution 3--return to individual families the value of the social benefits of having children so that there is no cost to families to bear unpopular girl children.
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
Harry Huntington:
More market freedom leads to moms killing unborn girl babies. That is the result under conditions of scarcity when people are free to choose the action that benefits themselves individually, while shifting costs to others.
Solution 1-- take away freedom and ban abortion.
Solution 2--take away freedom and compel abortion (under some conditions) to balance sex selection.
Solution 3--return to individual families the value of the social benefits of having children so that there is no cost to families to bear unpopular girl children. · Jul 5 at 12:38pm
To classify killing unborn girl babies as "market freedom" is an abhorrent characterization. Strictly speaking, of course, despite the disgusting terms you frame your idea in, you have a point. Along the same lines, you could say that society has stripped away the market freedom for men to kill their dependent wives, if they find them to be an economic disadvantage.
As to the solutions you outline, I am unclear as to what "return to individual families the value of the social benefits of having children..." would mean. Could you expound on that?
Dec '10
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
Diane Ellis, Ed.
As to the solutions you outline, I am unclear as to what "return to individual families the value of the social benefits of having children..." would mean. Could you expound on that? ·
Actually I agree with you completely that abortion is murder, but since a majority of the Supreme Court disagrees, we live with the free market.
In the olden days if you trained a child how to farm, you received a direct economic benefit from your investment in your child's education when your child farmed your farm. Your child received the life long benefit from the learning because he or she was able to farm in the future.
Today if you pay for your child's college education, your child receives the life long benefit, but you receive nothing back. It is the classic public good problem from economics.
Parents would be "incentivized" to have "better" children if some of the "public good" was returned to the parents. Perhaps tuition refunds on college tuition? Perhaps a kicker on your social security benefit to reflect the fact that you contributed a future tax payer to the pool of social security tax payers.
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
Harry Huntington
Parents would be "incentivized" to have "better" children if some of the "public good" was returned to the parents. Perhaps tuition refunds on college tuition? Perhaps a kicker on your social security benefit to reflect the fact that you contributed a future tax payer to the pool of social security tax payers. · Jul 5 at 2:48pm
Oh, I see. Thanks for clarifying. If/when Social Security fails, I suppose another social benefit that parents would receive from having children is having someone to take care of them in their old age, while those who aborted their offspring can either live comfortably on their retirement investments or rot away alone in some rundown, decrepit state hospital.
Aug '10
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
Harry Huntington
Today if you pay for your child's college education, your child receives the life long benefit, but you receive nothing back. It is the classic public good problem from economics.
Our parents (to the extent that they paid for our college education in the first place) definitely have received something back from us:
We have kept them in their home -- kept the home from being condemned, kept Aged Relative out of a nursing home, according to his wishes...
True, it wasn't because we kids are college-educated that we have done these things, but because we were raised to be grateful for the sacrifices our parents made for us, even if their direct contribution towards our college tuition was fairly minor.
My own family's eccentricities aside, I know few parents who actually did pay for any large portion of their offsprings' college education. The college-bound kids I knew were expected to get loans and scholarships.
Oct '10
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
It is called “gendercide” when the numbers don’t come out right. When the columns balance, however, it’s called “choice.” It is genocide either way you look at it. The evil is not the mathematical imbalance and its results; the evil is the act causing the imbalance. Following Ms. Hvistendahl’s reasoning one could easily come to the macabre conclusion that there would be no need for “moral outrage” if an equal number of boys were missing. It boggles the mind.
When you don't see a child (unborn or not) as a human being made in the image of God with intrinsic worth, you start seeing him/her as someone whose life is to be permitted at the pleasure of the parents, or in the case of China as a functional tool of the state.
Edited on Jul 5, 2011 at 8:16pmMay '10
Re: Bill McGurn on the Moral Outrage of 160 Million Dead Girls
Lo Fon
Following Ms. Hvistendahl’s reasoning one could easily come to the macabre conclusion that there would be no need for “moral outrage” if an equal number of boys were missing. It boggles the mind.
This reminds me of all the handwringing over the "disproportionate" response of the Israelis in the 2008 war, and, come to think of it, almost every military action they have engaged in. The proportionality or lack thereof is determined by comparing the body counts of Palestinians and Israeli Jews.
Of course, if the Palestinians cared about their citizens to the extent the Israelis did, they would protect their people with bomb shelters instead of firing rockets from hospitals and schoolyards.
The flip side of the coin is that the Israelis go to great lengths to warn their citizens about the incoming rocket attacks so they take shelter. By ceasing to do this, more Israelis would die and thereby make their military response "proportionate".