Where the Girls Aren't
Seth Lipsky is a former editor at the Wall Street Journal (where he was my boss), author of a new book on the constitution, and editor of the New York Sun. Here's his latest, on one of the great uncovered stories of the last few decades: the millions of girls around the world who were aborted, simply because they were girls.
Seth mentions me here, but the truth is that he is the editor who first opened my eyes to the great truth that capitalism was at its heart a people-are-assets philosophy, while liberalism -- with its World Banks, IMFs, and countless development agencies -- always seem to regard human beings as a burden. Here he points out the collision of two sacred cows: a woman's right to choose, and the choice that seems to result in fewer women:
It is going to be illuminating to see what the liberal organs make of the catastrophe being glimpsed in “Unnatural Selection.” By our lights, it is a story that will dwarf whatever one makes of global warming. The toll in the story of the missing girls is easier to count, and the responsibility is more clear. And this is the century in which at least some scientists are predicting that, for all sorts of reasons, the population of the globe will peak and then start to decline. When that happens, the missing girls in their hundreds of millions will be mourned with an unimagined intensity.
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Dec '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
The good news: some families in India are deciding not to abort their girl babies.
The bad news: they're deciding instead to have those girls surgically transformed into boys.
Jun '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
I think the "missing girls" are going to mourned sooner than later and for the reason that the cultures that do not value women, such as the Chinese and Indians, and do not find homosexuality acceptable, are going to turn to large standing armies and conquest to satisfy their needs.
Jun '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
Thanks very much Bill. I've been waiting for news on this to get to the main feed.
The great and horrific irony here is the revelation of the true nature of "choice." Many feminists will be upset by this news (as should feminists and non-feminists alike). But, do they realize that persons in India and China are only advocating for what American feminists have been advocating for over the last half century? These individuals are advocating for "choice." That the "choice" is based upon a baby's sex or a baby's intelligence or a baby's eye color makes no difference, really. Choice is choice.
And the choice is to kill a living person.
If you oppose the "choice" based on a baby's sex you must oppose it on any rationale.
Dec '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
But think how simple it will be when a woman can have a simple blood test at 9 weeks into her pregnancy and find out whether her child is "acceptable"!
Jan '11
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
That's one thing that could happen. The other thing that could happen is that the scarcity of women could actually cause a cultural attitude shift: women become revered and gain power/status from this.
Jun '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
LowcountryJoe
That's one thing that could happen. The other thing that could happen is that the scarcity of women could actually cause a cultural attitude shift: women become revered and gain power/status from this. · Jun 29 at 8:04am
From your lips to God's ears.
Oct '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
These girls deserve a chance at life not because they'll serve some function to mankind, but because they are human beings with intrinsic worth. They shouldn't have to justify their existence because populations may decline in the future. They should be mourned already.
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
I tend to agree with Lo Fon. In these environments, when girls increase in "value" it means they can be sold off or something. It doesn't necessarily mean they will be treated any better.
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
Do click through to the cited review by my friend Jonathan Last and the piece by Ross Douthat. Both very well written.
Edited on Jun 29, 2011 at 10:18amDec '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
As with most problems, this illustrates that people cannot be trusted with too much freedom. There are two alternative (and mutually exclusive) legal solutions that would fix this problem:
(1) Ban all abortions. That would prevent sex selection abortion; or
(2) Make abortion compulsory in some cases. In those cases where prenatal testing indicates the baby is a boy, and where the mother has not previously given birth to a girl, require the boy baby be aborted. The rule would be you may not have a boy baby unless you first have a girl baby. If you want two sons, you need two daughters. Etc.
Either way you can fix the "market failure" that causes parents in conditions of scarcity and free choice to prefer sons.
Dec '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
Harry Huntington: As with most problems, this illustrates that people cannot be trusted with too much freedom.
My God man, it's as if you look at the truth and then write your posts to reflect the exact opposite.
You do realize that these folks have been aborting girls because of the government mandated "one child" policy.
If they were not limited to a single child, there would be no reason to kill the baby girl. Boys may be more valuable to the Chinese, but girls are not seen as detrimental for simply existing.
This situation is the result of too much government, not too much freedom.
I mean really. You just postulated that a problem endemic to Communist China was caused by excess freedom.
As the kids would say, "Srsly?"
Dec '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
CoolHand
Harry Huntington: As with most problems, this illustrates that people cannot be trusted with too much freedom.
I mean really. You just postulated that a problem endemic to Communist China was caused by excess freedom.
Except the problem is not limited to China with its one-child policy. It's also endemic to India, where childbearing is not restricted by law.
Aug '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
It seems to me that this issue has been knocking around for a while now. If memory serves me correctly there was a campaign last year to highlight the number of Black babies aborted, which one would expect to challenge liberals every bit as much as the gender divide. But I've not yet seen a liberal or pro-choice perspective or argument as to why selective abortion is not an abomination and proof of the vortex at the core of the abortion movement. I genuinely would like to see how the other side argue their way around this and would welcome any pointers. (Maybe they just avoid the issue?)
Dec '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
Stuart Creque
Except the problem is not limited to China with its one-child policy. It's also endemic to India, where childbearing is not restricted by law. · Jun 29 at 3:13pm
Yes, but the thesis of his argument is that excessive amounts of freedom caused people to abort their girl children.
But in fact, it has happened in both a semi-free and a totalitarian country, meaning that freedom is not in fact at the core of it.
If it were, China would have been immune, India would have been worse, and the US, Canada, and the EU would be worse off yet, but that's not the case.
The cause, I suspect is more closely tied to culture than freedom. Asian cultures have historically valued males more than females.
Thus, one would logically expect that members of those cultures, when forced to chose whether to keep or abort a borderline unaffordable/unwanted child, would weigh the sex of the child very heavily in making that decision.
If the child is borderline and male, maybe they choose to keep it. But if it's borderline and female, maybe they don't. Over the course of a generation or two, it's not hard to end up where they are now.
Edited on Jun 29, 2011 at 6:21pmDec '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
CoolHand
Harry Huntington: As with most problems, this illustrates that people cannot be trusted with too much freedom.
You do realize that these folks have been aborting girls because of the government mandated "one child" policy.
This situation is the result of too much government, not too much freedom.
Actually the problem is too much freedom. I suggested you ban abortion outright, or you require abortions to balance births between boys and girls.
In China, the people have the limited freedom to (1) get prenatal care and learn the sex of the child; (2) choose to abort the child.
That is two free choices. Call it what you will. And there may be a one child policy. At the end of the day, the freedom the Chinese have is abused. Clear example of market failure in conditions of scarcity.
My thesis was that in conditions of scarcity, good regulation can fix a market failure.
I still stand on the proposition that the problem here is too much freedom. When people operating under conditions of scarcity are given the freedom to selectively use abortion, the results will never be good.
Dec '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
There, ladies and gents, is the essence of the difference between conservatives and progressives.
To the progressives in the world, regardless of the problem, more control is always the solution.
It would be amusing if it weren't so absolutely boring and destructive.
Dec '10
Re: Where the Girls Aren't
CoolHand: There, ladies and gents, is the essence of the difference between conservatives and progressives.
To the progressives in the world, regardless of the problem, more control is always the solution.
It would be amusing if it weren't so absolutely boring and destructive. · Jul 1 at 8:42pm
And it really is another conversation, for "conservatives" more control is always the answer when it comes to homosexual conduct, "drugs," divorce, alcohol, prayer in schools (we must compel it), government educational handouts (we call them vouchers), labor unions (we ban their voluntary contracts and call it "right to work"), or slave wages (we decry minimum wage laws), or unemployment (we call that free trade).
At the end of the day "conservative" and "liberal" are different ways of naming systems of distributing power and control.
Freedom, by way of contrast, is the systematic denial of power and authority to "government." Freedom has been in decline here since the 1860s.