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#27 Jan 18 2012 at 1:26 AM Rating: Excellent
gbaji wrote:
I thought you were going more with the angle that it bothers you that anyone would choose to abort based on the sex of the fetus in the first place.



You do understand that it's possible to be bothered by something, but not be arguing that it be stopped.... right?
#28 Jan 18 2012 at 6:24 AM Rating: Excellent
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If you need me to say the obvious, then here it is:

Withholding medical test results for sociopolitical reasons is a bad idea. It sets a bad precedent, and it treats people like chattel.

The reason it's being done is still the larger problem as far as I'm concerned, however.

I'm surprised the religious right isn't goose-stepping all over this, in a way, since it seems likely to prevent some number of abortions greater than zero.
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#29 Jan 18 2012 at 7:26 AM Rating: Excellent
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Nadenu wrote:
It's not going to matter much longer, since as has been stated, they're painting themselves into a corner now anyway. All boys = no babies to carry on that ever-important name. I can't believe they've been so short-sighted.

Couldn't agree more. It's quite possibly the worst attempt at population control there's ever been.


The individual families will doubtfully be looking at their countries long term prospects, rather their families short term prosperity.
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#30 Jan 18 2012 at 8:43 AM Rating: Excellent
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Samira wrote:
I'm surprised the religious right isn't goose-stepping all over this, in a way, since it seems likely to prevent some number of abortions greater than zero.
Well, it is Canada. The religious right is far smaller here and gets drowned out more often than not when they do speak up.
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#31 Jan 18 2012 at 8:51 AM Rating: Excellent
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Then obviously you need to tighten your Bible Belt.
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#32 Jan 18 2012 at 8:53 AM Rating: Excellent
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Ours is doing fine, we've slimmed it down quite nicely. You guys though, you've got some work to do.
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#33 Jan 18 2012 at 9:07 AM Rating: Excellent
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Ours is doing fine, we've slimmed it down quite nicely. You guys though, you've got some work to do.
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#34 Jan 18 2012 at 9:17 AM Rating: Excellent
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It seems like every four years we have to add another hole to our Bible Belt. Smiley: frown
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#35 Jan 18 2012 at 9:17 AM Rating: Excellent
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lolgaxe wrote:
It seems like every four years we have to add another hole to our Bible Belt. Smiley: frown
How? It's already a pit.
#36 Jan 18 2012 at 9:42 AM Rating: Excellent
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Nilatai wrote:
Nadenu wrote:
It's not going to matter much longer, since as has been stated, they're painting themselves into a corner now anyway. All boys = no babies to carry on that ever-important name. I can't believe they've been so short-sighted.

Couldn't agree more. It's quite possibly the worst attempt at population control there's ever been.


The individual families will doubtfully be looking at their countries long term prospects, rather their families short term prosperity.

Tragedy of the commons is an actual tragedy! Smiley: laugh

Edit: To be less obtuse, I don't think we can blame Chinese folks for wanting baby boys (but blame away for aborting girls). This represents the best chance they'll have for their one child to be able to support them in their old age. Similarly, as mentioned above, it's hard to blame the Chinese government as they couldn't know that abortion technology would become so prevalent.

Really, it's a case study in unintended consequences.

Edited, Jan 18th 2012 9:45am by Demea
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#37 Jan 18 2012 at 10:16 AM Rating: Excellent
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Although it might be exacerbated in China, it's certainly not limited to China.

At birth:

China 1.13
India 1.12
Armenia 1.12
Japan 1.06
United States 1.05

The average is 1.07 at birth.

Before abortion, it was largely handled by infanticide.

Edited, Jan 18th 2012 10:17am by Sweetums
#38 Jan 18 2012 at 10:36 AM Rating: Good
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This is the ratio of boys to girls?

Just goes to show you, that Y chromosome is tough. Smiley: mad
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#39 Jan 18 2012 at 11:45 AM Rating: Good
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Samira wrote:
If you need me to say the obvious, then here it is:

Withholding medical test results for sociopolitical reasons is a bad idea. It sets a bad precedent, and it treats people like chattel.

The reason it's being done is still the larger problem as far as I'm concerned, however.

I'm surprised the religious right isn't goose-stepping all over this, in a way, since it seems likely to prevent some number of abortions greater than zero.


Agreed. I think it's an issue that is going to eventually go away. They've got some work to do still, but as a culture (at least as I understand from what I've read) they are starting to value females more. I think that it won't be long before, if anything, it starts trending the other way. As it's been pointed out, the male to female ratio has gotten pretty bad over there, and if anything they'll start wanting more females to be born to balance things out again.

My guess is that having female babies is going to become so desired, there may even be incentives for it. Perhaps a revival of dowry's, but they go the other way. When your daughter gets married, as her parents, you end up getting some financial kick-backs from the groom's family. You know, a few goats and a fishing boat, with a trip to Hawaii thrown in. That sort of thing. But if your daughter turns out to be a lesbian, then you're hosed.

Of course that's largely speculation on my part.

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#40 Jan 18 2012 at 12:49 PM Rating: Good
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wow, this is sad...

Quote:
It’s a girl, a film being released this year, documents the practice of killing unwanted baby girls in South Asia. The trailer’s most chilling scene is one with an Indian woman who, unable to contain her laughter, confesses to having killed eight infant daughters.

The statistics are sickening. The UN reports approximately 200 million girls in the world today are ‘missing’. India and China are said to eliminate more female infants than the number of girls born in the US each year. Lianyungang in China has the worst infant gender ratio on record with 163 boys born for every 100 girls. Taiwan, South Korea and Pakistan are also countries in which unwanted female babies are aborted, killed or abandoned.

Gendercide in South Asia takes many forms: baby girls are killed or abandoned if not aborted as foetuses. Girls that are not killed often suffer malnutrition and medical neglect as sons are favoured when shelter, medicine and food are scarce. Trafficking, dowry deaths, honour killings and deaths resulting from domestic violence are all further evils perpetrated against women. This femicide has led the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces to report in ‘Women in an Insecure World’ that a secret genocide is being carried out against women at a time when deaths resulting from armed conflicts have decreased.

The brutal irony of femicide is that it is an evil perpetrated against girls by women. The most insidious force is often the mother in law, the domestic matriarch, under whose authority the daughter in law lives. Policy efforts to halt infanticide have been directed at mothers, who are often victims themselves. The trailer shows tragic scenes of women having to decide between killing their daughters and their own well-being. In India women who fail to produce sons are beaten, raped or killed so that men can remarry in the hope of procuring a more productive wife.

It is an oft-made argument that parental discrimination between children would end if families across south Asia were rescued from poverty. But two factors particularly suggest that femicide is a cultural phenomenon and that development and economic policy are only a partial solution: Firstly, there is no evidence of concerted female infanticide among poverty-stricken societies in Africa or the Caribbean. Secondly, it is the affluent and urban middle classes, who are aware of prenatal screenings, who have access to clinics and who can afford abortions that commit foeticide. Activists fear 8 million female foetuses have been aborted in India in the last decade.

The Chinese cultural bias towards male children is one exacerbated by the birth control policy. India, however, poses a more complex problem where the primary cause is a cultural one.

Activists attribute a culture of valuing children by their economic potential to South Asia’s patriarchal social model in which men are the sole breadwinners. Sons both carry the family name and work from a young age. Daughter, on the other hand, impose the burden of a dowry before leaving the home upon marriage. Strict moral codes, onerous cultural expectations and demanding domestic responsibilities are all forces that further subjugate women.

Dr Saleem ur Rehman, director of health services for the Kashmiri Valley, has conceded that a healthy male to female infant ratio in Kashmir in 2001 led him and his team to become complacent. Since 2001, the ratio has dropped from 94.1 to 85.9 girls per 100 boys. The solution, however, lies beyond merely holding officials to account.

The cultural root of the problem partially explains why an effective solution has eluded authorities. Legal prohibitions have proved ineffective. In India, dowries were outlawed 1961 and in 1994 the Prenatal Determination Act outlawed gender selective abortions. Yet dowries remain a condition of marriage and action against unregistered or non-compliant clinics fail to intercept registered medical professionals performing illegal operations.

A crude supply and demand distinction can be drawn. Activists argue the demand for eliminating female fetuses is independent of the supply of illegal services. Only those that can afford to abort will do so. Others simply kill or abandon female infants after birth. This foeticide/infanticide equation will only skew towards the latter if the problem of illegal clinics and criminal doctors were solved.

In the New Statesmen, Laurie Penny explained that South Korea improved its infant gender ratio through a programme of education. But is increasing the awareness of contraception, abortion laws and women’s rights a panacea? No. Educational efforts insufficiently target the core cultural canker. Similarly, economic policed designed to encourage development are necessary but insufficient. Any improvement in living conditions is unlikely to offset the financial burden of raising a child and a dowry.

A solution therefore must be three-fold. Policy efforts combatting poverty must be supplemented by legal prohibitions. There must be an educational programme informing women of their rights. Finally and most importantly, there must be a social and religions campaign aimed at destroying ossified cultural attitudes.

The distinction between, on the one hand a programme of economics and education and on the other a cultural campaign is not qualitative but quantitative. The latter warrants a greater level of official engagement, allowing governments to actively discourage femicide rather than passively encouraging change.

A ‘secret genocide’ is a malaise in response to which government paternalism must surely be justified. In Kashmir, officials have enlisted the help of social and religious leaders. It is religious and social leaders that must reinforce legal prohibitions on dowries with campaigns attacking the social pressures of producing one. And they must supplement information of women’s rights by persuading mothers to educate their daughters and to allow their daughters to work. These cultural channels are best placed to begin to erode sexist cultural monoliths.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/01/16/it%E2%80%99s-a-girl-the-three-deadliest-words-in-the-world/

#41 Jan 18 2012 at 1:16 PM Rating: Excellent
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So abortion isn't really the issue, it's just easier than actually wrapping your hands around your daughters neck and squeezing.

If these people don't want daughters, they're not going to have daughters.

I hope Kakar and Samira are right about there being a change in attitude toward females over there. This is just sickening.
#42 Jan 18 2012 at 1:21 PM Rating: Excellent
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Nadenu wrote:
So abortion isn't really the issue, it's just easier than actually wrapping your hands around your daughters neck and squeezing.
Comes with less prison time as well.
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#43 Jan 18 2012 at 1:38 PM Rating: Good
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Nadenu wrote:
So abortion isn't really the issue, it's just easier than actually wrapping your hands around your daughters neck and squeezing.
I suppose one could say that in some cases aborting a female fetus is the more compassionate path to take rather than giving birth to a unwanted girl-child. Better to abort a fetus than murder a child eh.
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#44 Jan 18 2012 at 2:04 PM Rating: Good
I thought that China was the only country that had the one child policy? If that's true, why would they practice female infanticide (or target female babies for abortions) in the first place?

I feel like China could have done a better job of this if they had just made a 2 child policy instead. Although that doesn't mean that baby girls wouldn't have been at risk, but I think it probably would have helped decrease the likelihood. I don't know if it's a plus side or not, but a lot of baby girls in China aren't killed or aborted, they're raised in orphanages. I think that's what led to the "trend" of Westerners adopting Chinese baby girls. Plus, I remember when I was a teenager, watching the summer Olympics, and them doing a little biography on one of the gymnasts from China. She was raised in an orphanage, but somehow had managed to become one of the country's best gymnasts.

Which randomly raises another question for me. What does the government do if a couple has twins or triplets? I know there's the option of keeping a second baby but paying a fine, but obviously that's only an option for people who can afford the fine.
#45 Jan 18 2012 at 2:27 PM Rating: Excellent
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Female infanticide has been going on a lot longer than China's one-child policy has been in effect, and other countries participate in it too. The answer is simple: when women are devalued, they don't want to use their resources for a child they deem "inferior."

There are no penalties if the first birth has multiple children, which prompts the wealthy to spend money on fertility treatments to increase the chances of this to skirt the policy.
#46 Jan 18 2012 at 2:33 PM Rating: Excellent
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PigtailsOfDoom wrote:
I thought that China was the only country that had the one child policy? If that's true, why would they practice female infanticide (or target female babies for abortions) in the first place?
While it may not be illegal in other countries to raise more than one child, it sure is expensive (which kind of hits your last point as well).

Quote:
I feel like China could have done a better job of this if they had just made a 2 child policy instead.
I feel like you're about three and a half decades late to the debate. Smiley: laugh
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#47 Jan 18 2012 at 3:36 PM Rating: Good
Oh I know. I'm aware the policy is decades old, it was just a thought.
#48 Jan 18 2012 at 3:44 PM Rating: Good
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A 2 child policy? Because two boys are better than one?
#49 Jan 18 2012 at 3:50 PM Rating: Good
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Allegory wrote:
A 2 child policy? Because two boys are better than one?


Hey, it's always prudent to have a practice baby, first.
#50 Jan 18 2012 at 3:55 PM Rating: Excellent
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I wanted to hire a midget and have it act like a baby for six months but my wife wouldn't let me. Smiley: crymore
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#51 Jan 18 2012 at 5:59 PM Rating: Excellent
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Demea wrote:
Really, it's a case study in unintended consequences.


Big time.
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