In this article it is claimed that:
For those who believe in a woman’s right to choose abortion, what do you think of this? It seems the ‘10 million’ number is an estimate, but it’s certain that large numbers of female fetuses are being destroyed because the parents would prefer to have a son.
I’m having a hard time seeing how the use of abortion to achieve a goal of fewer women fits with feminist ideals. What is the pro-choice position regarding this?
Son preference in India is well known. This is surely better than the widespread infanticide that preceded it.
And, of course, it doesn’t work to achieve a goal of fewer women.
The new article above is suggesting that the study says it does.
Merely a question of timing.
Actually it has. There are fewer women than men in India.
Ultrasound for sex determination is illegal in India because of this.
I’ve always heard there’s a similar practice in China, where couples are restricted to having one baby.
I’ve often wondered if this will have the side effect of making women more valuable in their culture, because if less girls are born, men will have touble finding wives. Their very scarcity will have to increase their worth.
If you have a culture where girl children aren’t valued, you can’t make them valued by forcing women to carry pregnancies to term.
I certainly don’t think women whose lives probably suck enough as it is should be forced to give birth to a child they don’t want just to make other people feel better.
Has it started happening?
I suppose now, in those countries, women will have a greater number of men to choose from, so they could afford to be extremly picky.
I don’t think we’ll see any changes for at least twenty years or so-- as soon as the current generation of babies are ready to be married. Of course, it greatly depends whether the ratio of males to females was significantly changed or not. Many poor women can’t afford abortions, after all, so they will still be having girls.
This is a truly tragic instance of the tragedy of the commons, or the prisoner’s dilemma.
It is better for the society as a whole for girls to be born (and survive) in the same proportion as boys.
However, for each individual woman, it is better to have a boy.
From what I understand, girls are very expensive to raise. A saying goes that “raising a girl is like watering somebody else’s garden.”
I am not justifying these people’s selective abortions. But in response to
I have never seen a feminist ideal having to do with producing the largest number of women
Many feminists hold women’s reproductive rights as one of the most, if not THE most, important feminist ideal. In this situation, an individual woman’s desire not to have a daughter is challenged by society’s need to have more women. Thus it is definitely an interesting question for feminists to address. However, THIS feminist says that no, the individual woman’s reproductive choice cannot be limited by society’s need.
Also, I fully agree with
Does anyone know how long this practice has been going on for, and what the demographics are of males/females of all ages in parts of the world where it happens?
I would expect that if the ratio surpasses a certain point, then after a generation or two, women would increase in “value.”
It is happening in China. I’ve read various opinions about the future effects of this, from invasions of neighboring countries to trafficking in girls.
The problem in India has specific causes and solutions. The problem isn’t so much that society doesn’t value women as it is dowries. When a girl gets married (and she must be married) the parents are expected to give lavish gifts- often money, motorcycles, and household goods. If a dowry isn’t what the family being married in to expected, the young woman kind find herself instantly divorced or worse. India’s “kitchen accidents” are one of the saddest things around. And if you can’t even get enough stuff to get married- well, there just isn’t much of a life for unmarried women.
This practice used to be confined to the upper classes, where it wasn’t a problem. But in fairly recent years it has spread to all reaches of society, and the reciprocal “bride prices” that used to balance things out have slipped away. For a poor family the birth of a girl can mean financial ruin. The birth of two girls can easily mean debt slavery and ruined prospects for the entire family. There used to be billboards for ultrasounds along the lines of “$100 now or $10,000 later.” The poor simply can’t afford to have girls.
In the backwoods, where health care is nil, the government rarely peeks it’s head and where having a girl can easily lead a family to starve to death, infanticide has to do.
Anyway, the point is that nowhere in this equation is abortion a factor. Yes, there needs to be more prospects for unmarried women. Yes, there needs to be some kind of change in the dowry system. It’s officially banned, but the central government is weak there and you can’t really stop a billion people from doing something. Yes, the abominable practice of killing young brides with insufficient dowries needs to be stopped- and they are trying. But restricting abortion in a country brimming with people is no solution. India is a place where your fertility can starve you. Population control is necessary for them to step out of the third world (notice how China has twice the per capita income of India…they are getting their population under control) and while abortion isn’t the preferred method for this- by our standards or theirs- it is a tool.
You can’t increase their value by refusing to bear them, either, though, and in this case it means limiting your own value. The truth is that, while many of these women are sincere in their desire to have only male children, many others may in fact want to keep their female fetuses, but are persuaded or coerced by the men in their lives not to.
It’s not a “child” she doesn’t want; she (or her husband) does want a specific kind of child.
Certainly it doesn’t invalidate every abortion by itself, but is it wrong?
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with any woman deciding that she doesn’t want to bear any children, or any children who fit into any particular category. If she doesn’t want to bear that child, she shouldn’t have to, either by law or by my moralizing about it.
It’s simply not my business. It’s her body.
Should she be forced into abortions she doesn’t want? Absolutely not.
Should their culture change? Ideally, I think so. Is it going to happen? This might force it to.
People do things I don’t like with a lot of their rights. People say things I don’t like with their freedom of speech, vote for candidates I don’t like with their right to vote, and so on and so forth. But in general, I think taking the right away from them is worse than their doing things I don’t like with it.
even sven makes all the points I would have made.
Lack of abortions is not the answer. I, and many other Indians, do not respect Mother Teresa because of her insistence on no birth control whatsoever in a country that desperately needs it. This isn’t like the US, with a very low birthrate - this is a country that can’t feed what it’s got.
Read through even sven’s post. Daughters cost a fortune. And then they go away and live in someone else’s house. Some things have changes for the better, some for the worse. The government, as she says, is not strong enough to enforce the rules.
I have read even sven’s post, and similar explanations. But if there were a sudden, overwhelming explosion of women, wouldn’t that force the dowry system to change? It seems like the abortions of female fetuses support the system as it currently exists.
I don’t understand why you would think so. If there is a shortage of women relative to men, the price it would take to “sell” one off via a dowry should decrease.
For those of you who do think this should be prohibited by law: would you feel the same way if the sex selection were happening through artificial insemination (separating out the XX and XY sperm, and giving the woman only the XY ones) instead of through abortion? I would- I still wouldn’t approve of what they’re doing, but it’s their right to do it.
Typically, what you get with few women and lots of men, is prostitution and plenty of it. The Old West being a great example.