Steven Mosher is speaking in the general session this morning on sex-selective abortion.
India: In India as many as half a million unborn baby girls are aborted each year because of their gender. This works out as a sex ratio at birth to 130 boys to 100 girls – the normal ratio is 106 boys to 100 girls – by adulthood, this will have usually dropped down to 100:100. In some areas, 7/10 pre-born girls are killed before birth.
China: In China, there are 117 boys born for every 100 girls. “As soon as the one-child policy began, it began to have a devastating effect on little girls – reports started to come in of little girls dying mysteriously.” “midwives reported that they were receiving instructions that girls born where a first child had already been born, the girl was to be killed.” Sex-selective abortion goes on all throughout Asia. A recent UNFPA report says that at last 60 million girls are “missing” because of sex-selective abortion, infanticide and neglect. In China, only-sons are known as “little emperors”.
The Chinese Communist Party claims that, “Sex-selective abortion is an offshoot of “feudal ideas” that modernization will soon extinguish” However the reality is that in China, sons provide support for their parents in their old age. The ultrasound technology is fueling the historical preference for sons.
Mosher shows the audience photos of a young Chinese woman taken by force and given an injection into her uterus, an abortifacient drug – once her dead child was expelled, it was returned to her in a garbage bag – she was given the job of cremating it as she had conceived it illegally.
The practice of aborting baby girls is a testimony to the low value placed on female life. Each sex selective abortion degrades women. While a narrow view of economics would say that fewer women means that women are more highly valued, in fact, sex-trafficking is on the rise in Asia. Prostitution and homosexuality are on the rise in China also. Single men are contributing to a rise in gang activity and violent crime.
Back to the United States: In the 1990s, advertisements for sex-selective abortions were found in the New York Times. “It is legal to abort a child in the United States for any and all reasons.” 86% of Americans believe that an abortion should not be done for reasons of sex-selection.
A simple bill is required to “ban abortions for the purpose of sex-selection”, however this is being halted by people such as Nancy Pelosi.
“The pro-abortion lobby is attempting to defend the indefensible.”
Sex-selective abortions; “One of the bitterest icons of our post-feminist age.”