Not a pro/anti discussion, but...
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airehead
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 Posted: 01/09/06 - 21:01 Post subject: Not a pro/anti discussion, but...
Due to the abortion rate in India and China (and other nations) it has been discovered that there will be a dangerous gender shift that will come when these generations come of age. IE: no girls.
| Quote: | Around 10 million female foetuses may have been aborted in India over the past two decades because of ultrasound sex screening and a traditional preference for boys, according to a study published online in The Lancet.
Researchers based in Canada and India looked through data from a national survey, conducted among 1.1 million households in 1998, and at information about 133,738 births that took place in 1997.
They found that in cases where the preceding child was a girl, the gender ratio for a second birth was just 759 girls to 1,000 boys.
And when the two previous children were girls, this ratio fell even further, to 719 girls to 1,000 boys.
On the other hand, when the preceding child or children were male, the gender ratio among successive births was about the same.
Based on the natural sex ratio in other countries, around 13.6-13.8 million girls should have been born in India in 1997 -- but the actual number was 13.1 million.
"We conservatively estimate that prenatal sex determination and selective abortion accounts for 0.5 million missing girls yearly," said one of the authors, Prabhat Jha of St. Michael's Hospital at the University of Toronto, Canada.
"If this practice has been common for most of the past two decades since access to ultrasound became widespread, then a figure of 10 million missing female births would not be unreasonable."
The "girl deficit" is far more prominent in educated women, the investigators found.
The number of boys born as second children was twice as high among this group than among illiterate mothers.
However, the deficit did not vary by religion.
The study published by the London-based medical journal comes on the heels of a report last October by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which warned that infanticide or abortion was driving India towards a gender imbalance with alarming social consequences.
Afghanistan, China, Nepal, Pakistan and South Korea face similar problems, the UNFPA said. |
Should something be done? (This isn't a pro/anti debate, more a political debate as to the dangers of manipulating natural order)
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Pug
The Movie Geek
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Posted: 01/09/06 - 21:20 Post subject:
So there will be an even greater population shift a generation or two after...fewer people. Okay. That is one way to fix the problem, the population drops and eventually stabilizes (based on non-intelligent thought).
Or...having girl children becomes prized and there is a huge cultural revolution.
Or...Well, I don't know.
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Sahara
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Posted: 01/09/06 - 23:15 Post subject: Re: Not a pro/anti discussion, but...
| Quote: | ...which warned that infanticide or abortion was driving India towards a gender imbalance with alarming social consequences.
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I wonder if the reports say social consequences but really mean cultural consequences. Perhaps there will be significant cultural issues in the poorest of communities (I'm drawing a line between wealth and illiteracy).
| airehead wrote: | | Should something be done? (This isn't a pro/anti debate, more a political debate as to the dangers of manipulating natural order) |
Hmm. I don't particularly feel the need to influence the cultures in those countries any more than we do already. I'll have to ponder this a bit more though. I don't see the objection to the practice unless it's based upon the abortion itself which you have taken out of the discussion. Interestingly you ask about natural order. Do you think that people in these countries are they effecting evolution? If not, again other than cultural issues I don't see the social issues world changing. Dangerous gender shift you say? I don't see it as particularly dangerous. It will change the perception of women within those countries, hopefully to be more valuable in their cultures rather than less valuable because of an ever more male-dominating society.
Good questions aire... I'll be ruminating a bit more about this now.
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airehead
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Posted: 01/10/06 - 00:13 Post subject: Re: Not a pro/anti discussion, but...
| Sahara wrote: | | Quote: | ...which warned that infanticide or abortion was driving India towards a gender imbalance with alarming social consequences.
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I wonder if the reports say social consequences but really mean cultural consequences. Perhaps there will be significant cultural issues in the poorest of communities (I'm drawing a line between wealth and illiteracy).
| airehead wrote: | | Should something be done? (This isn't a pro/anti debate, more a political debate as to the dangers of manipulating natural order) |
Hmm. I don't particularly feel the need to influence the cultures in those countries any more than we do already. I'll have to ponder this a bit more though. I don't see the objection to the practice unless it's based upon the abortion itself which you have taken out of the discussion. Interestingly you ask about natural order. Do you think that people in these countries are they effecting evolution? If not, again other than cultural issues I don't see the social issues world changing. Dangerous gender shift you say? I don't see it as particularly dangerous. It will change the perception of women within those countries, hopefully to be more valuable in their cultures rather than less valuable because of an ever more male-dominating society.
Good questions aire... I'll be ruminating a bit more about this now. |
It would be a blessing if they became more valued, but history shows quite the opposite. 
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prohemp
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Posted: 01/10/06 - 09:49 Post subject:
There is some good - when they don't abort or kill the girl babies they simply abandon them - so the orphanages in China are filled with baby girls and the western world has discovered this. According to U.S. State Department statistics, American parents alone had adopted 33,637 Chinese baby girls by 2002.
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Gogirlgo
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Posted: 01/10/06 - 10:09 Post subject:
Is it possible that significantly less women in the future means the ones that do exist might be more valued?
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sonnylax
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Posted: 01/10/06 - 10:31 Post subject:
| prohemp wrote: | | There is some good - when they don't abort or kill the girl babies they simply abandon them - so the orphanages in China are filled with baby girls and the western world has discovered this. According to U.S. State Department statistics, American parents alone had adopted 33,637 Chinese baby girls by 2002. |
Not to go off-topic and I'm sure I could google this... but how would one go about adopting a Chinese (or Russian) baby? What does the process entail? How much does it cost and how long does it take?
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airehead
Oompa Loofah
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Posted: 01/10/06 - 11:52 Post subject:
| Gogirlgo wrote: | | Is it possible that significantly less women in the future means the ones that do exist might be more valued? |
Sahara said the same in her post.
I am not sure that would happen. Call me cynical.
The adoptions have been wonderful--so many more left, though.
I wonder what the prognosis for a decent life is now for those orphans?
Do they get an education of any sort? Do they just go into the manual labor force?
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prohemp
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Posted: 01/10/06 - 13:17 Post subject:
| sonnylax wrote: | | prohemp wrote: | | There is some good - when they don't abort or kill the girl babies they simply abandon them - so the orphanages in China are filled with baby girls and the western world has discovered this. According to U.S. State Department statistics, American parents alone had adopted 33,637 Chinese baby girls by 2002. |
Not to go off-topic and I'm sure I could google this... but how would one go about adopting a Chinese (or Russian) baby? What does the process entail? How much does it cost and how long does it take? |
According to the article I read - there is a well-established system is in place for foreigners to adopt Chinese babies. A co-worker of mine did just that - it's not like adopting Korean babies where they bring them here - she had to spend apr two weeks in China to pick up her daughter.
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tdassow
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Posted: 01/14/06 - 04:23 Post subject:
There is something more sinister going on here, I can't quite put my finger on it.
I view life as "goodness" (as opposed to a commodity or expense/burden) and pretty much every rule of nature I have observed has promoted diversity.
I dislike many things about the nation I live in, (United States), however, I enjoy the results of how dynamic our cultures are.
This selective breeding of boys in India represents a narrow-mindedness and exclusionary philosophy.
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