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Dec. 28th, 2004 03:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickDavid Brooks over at The NYT is handing out awards (The Hookies) for notable essays. One of the selected essays, by Nicholas Eberstadt, is entitled "Power and Population in Asia". It's an interesting read.
Where are all the girl babies?
There are more boy babies born than girl babies everywhere in the world... about 103 to 105 sons are born for every hundred daughters under normal circumstances. According to China's own published numbers from the November 2000 census, the reported sex ratio at birth was 118 boy babies for each 100 girl babies. Hrm.
Maybe people in China just aren't counting their daughters. It's possible that they are the dark matter of the infant world. Eberstadt makes the rather convincing point that the skew holds over time... what was the Chinese "infant" ratio in 1990 became the five-year-old ratio in 1995 and showed up as the ten-year-old ratio in 2000. That's sort of convincing, I think.
There are also shockingly more boy babies than girl babies in India, where 2001 census figures show almost 108 boys under age 6 for every 100 girls. There is, as with the Chinese data, considerable variation in the region of the country. (The linked article has footnotes and graphs. It's good stuff. You should check it out.)
Not sufficiently sickened? Try this on for size: "In both India and China over the past two decades, the nationwide sex ratio at birth has increased along with per capita income, female literacy rates, and urbanization."
Hrm. As people in India and China have gotten richer, as the women have become more educated, as their lives have changed from rural to urban, they have killed more and more of their girl babies... or have they? It's true that the thought of thousands... millions of little baby girls left red and squalling on hillsides to die of exposure (and not grow up to slay their fathers and marry their mothers) is a tragedy. The thought of similar numbers of girl babies shaken or smothered or otherwise killed -- that's tragedy, also, but please. Infanticide is so twentieth-century. Try to keep up.
Technology for determining a baby's sex well before birth, technology from amniocentesis to ultrasound, exists in these countries. Sex determination via medical technology is a tidy cottage industry in India because abortions are legal out to the 20-week mark and sex can be determined pretty reliably between 12 and 14 weeks. I think you can do the math, here.
It's illegal in China, to abort a baby based on sex. It's illegal, in India, to do prenatal testing for sex selection. These laws are pretty recent -- 2003 in China and 1996 in India. However, since the elements (ultrasound or amniocentesis, abortion) are legal, it's pretty tough to seperate the wheat from the chaff. "We want to space our children further apart" or "We just can't afford another baby right now" or "Our birth control failed" or "My husband just lost his job" or whatever... all of those are legal reasons for wanting an abortion. Only a pretty damn stupid woman would say "Well, hell, it's a girl. We want a son, damn it!" when she could easily give any other plausible reason... and I've been raised to believe that all of the "plausible reasons" I listed up there are acceptable and valid reasons for having an abortion.
So, y'know, is it *just as bad* to abort a baby girl fetus because you don't want a daughter as it is to wait until the baby is born and pay the midwife to snap her neck? Survey says No. Fuck.
I don't like this conversation. I don't want to be having this conversation. It is precisely this sort of conversation that is the most enlightening, though, so have it we shall.
*sigh* I think technology is a good thing. I think people should be allowed the information and tools to help them shape their fates as they see fit. I think abortion is a necessary tool, though one I'd be happy to see used infrequently. And, damn it all, I agree that it's the right of individual couples in India and China to determine that they WILL NOT spawn a girl child. It just worries me to hell that so damn many of them are apparently deciding that way.
If you're anything like I am, you probably wonder what's going to happen when all the little boys grow up and there's nobody to marry. Some of the scenarios out there don't look good. If you're of the mindset that enjoys watching slow-motion train wrecks, keep an eye on India and China for the next twenty or thirty years. I'm sure they will be living in interesting times.
Where are all the girl babies?
There are more boy babies born than girl babies everywhere in the world... about 103 to 105 sons are born for every hundred daughters under normal circumstances. According to China's own published numbers from the November 2000 census, the reported sex ratio at birth was 118 boy babies for each 100 girl babies. Hrm.
Maybe people in China just aren't counting their daughters. It's possible that they are the dark matter of the infant world. Eberstadt makes the rather convincing point that the skew holds over time... what was the Chinese "infant" ratio in 1990 became the five-year-old ratio in 1995 and showed up as the ten-year-old ratio in 2000. That's sort of convincing, I think.
There are also shockingly more boy babies than girl babies in India, where 2001 census figures show almost 108 boys under age 6 for every 100 girls. There is, as with the Chinese data, considerable variation in the region of the country. (The linked article has footnotes and graphs. It's good stuff. You should check it out.)
Not sufficiently sickened? Try this on for size: "In both India and China over the past two decades, the nationwide sex ratio at birth has increased along with per capita income, female literacy rates, and urbanization."
Hrm. As people in India and China have gotten richer, as the women have become more educated, as their lives have changed from rural to urban, they have killed more and more of their girl babies... or have they? It's true that the thought of thousands... millions of little baby girls left red and squalling on hillsides to die of exposure (and not grow up to slay their fathers and marry their mothers) is a tragedy. The thought of similar numbers of girl babies shaken or smothered or otherwise killed -- that's tragedy, also, but please. Infanticide is so twentieth-century. Try to keep up.
Technology for determining a baby's sex well before birth, technology from amniocentesis to ultrasound, exists in these countries. Sex determination via medical technology is a tidy cottage industry in India because abortions are legal out to the 20-week mark and sex can be determined pretty reliably between 12 and 14 weeks. I think you can do the math, here.
It's illegal in China, to abort a baby based on sex. It's illegal, in India, to do prenatal testing for sex selection. These laws are pretty recent -- 2003 in China and 1996 in India. However, since the elements (ultrasound or amniocentesis, abortion) are legal, it's pretty tough to seperate the wheat from the chaff. "We want to space our children further apart" or "We just can't afford another baby right now" or "Our birth control failed" or "My husband just lost his job" or whatever... all of those are legal reasons for wanting an abortion. Only a pretty damn stupid woman would say "Well, hell, it's a girl. We want a son, damn it!" when she could easily give any other plausible reason... and I've been raised to believe that all of the "plausible reasons" I listed up there are acceptable and valid reasons for having an abortion.
So, y'know, is it *just as bad* to abort a baby girl fetus because you don't want a daughter as it is to wait until the baby is born and pay the midwife to snap her neck? Survey says No. Fuck.
I don't like this conversation. I don't want to be having this conversation. It is precisely this sort of conversation that is the most enlightening, though, so have it we shall.
*sigh* I think technology is a good thing. I think people should be allowed the information and tools to help them shape their fates as they see fit. I think abortion is a necessary tool, though one I'd be happy to see used infrequently. And, damn it all, I agree that it's the right of individual couples in India and China to determine that they WILL NOT spawn a girl child. It just worries me to hell that so damn many of them are apparently deciding that way.
If you're anything like I am, you probably wonder what's going to happen when all the little boys grow up and there's nobody to marry. Some of the scenarios out there don't look good. If you're of the mindset that enjoys watching slow-motion train wrecks, keep an eye on India and China for the next twenty or thirty years. I'm sure they will be living in interesting times.
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Date: 2004-12-29 12:02 pm (UTC)Mitch H.