When I was visiting China about five years ago and people-watching on the main drags of Beijing and Shanghai, two things stood out. One, I had grown up imagining the Chinese people as shorter than those in the western world; but here were young men much taller than I (I’m 6’3”), looming over me on the subways. Two, I had read about the one-child law. So in public places I looked for families with more than one child. There were a few, but only a few. In an English language Chinese paper I read that an aimless population of young males was coming of age, faced with the reality that there were not enough women to give each one of them an opportunity to marry and raise families of their own. What do you do with aimless, single males? Swell the ranks of the army. And then what to you do with all the soldiers with nothing to do? The answers to that are frightening.
Now, prompted by new data from India in The Guardian Weekly and a review of a new book by Mara Hvistendahl, Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men (Public Affairs), in the Wall Street Journal, moralists—and the rest of us—are challenged to answer, what reasons can justify taking the life of an unborn person in the womb?
Whether we refer to the unborn as an “it,” or a person, or a fetus, or a child, it is far enough along in its development for us to know its sexual identity, and that, if it is allowed, he or she will come into the world as a boy or a girl. At this stage, according to the articles, the mother or the in-laws discuss it and decide whether she—it’s an issue only if she is female—lives or dies.
Culturally, whether in India or China or anywhere else, boys are worth economically than girls. Since the late 1870s, 163 million female babies have been aborted by families seeking sons.
If nature is allowed to take its course, 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. Any violation of that ratio is due to human intervention into the natural process. According to the WSJ, today India has 112 boys for every 100 girls. China has 121. In Armenia it’s 120. Couples are having abortions when, through ultrasound or other medical means, they see the child is a female.
The book's author, Ms. Hvistendahl, warns that this is a very bad sign, a warning for the future. Societies where men substantially outnumber women are very unstable, violent. Men with no hope of marrying accumulate in the lower classes and make trouble. Crime waves follow. Wealthy men in prosperous countries will poach women from poorer ones. A small but significant percentage of women will be stolen and forced into prostitution or marriage.
The author of the book oddly concludes that this pattern should not be used as an argument against abortion. The reviewer, Jonathan Last, and I see this situation as a strong refutation of the absolutist-feminist argument for abortion: the only fact worth considering is the “mother’s choice.” With absolute authority over her own body, their logic goes, she alone has the right to decide the future of what is obviously a living human being inside her, totally dependent on her for life present and future.
The reasons for killing the female are usually economic. The daughter brings the expense of a dowry if she is to marry. The son will be a wage earner, carry on the family name, and support the parents in their old age.
If the abortion decision is based purely on the woman’s “right to choose”—no matter what the reasons for her choice—she and/or her family are free to kill the child merely for being a girl. How can anyone, particularly a feminist, allow that? If that is clear, then the law should intervene to protect the child. And if it can protect the child because she is female, it can protect him or her because he/she is a human being.
Raymond A. Schroth
This could be either a boon for peace (in that the risk of high casualties makes the human cost of conventional war intolerably high) or a recipe for complete savagery and total warfare using weapons of mass destruction - ICBMs, bio-weapons, chemicals and other 'asymetric' means of catastrophically destroying the enemy's ability to wage war and resist the "Asian Horde" or hegemonic advance.
Now, being the gaming person I am, I put myself in the shoes of some Chinese colonel in a military college somewhere and ponder the alternatives: If I have 50 million soldiers but it's politically unteneble to "use" them if the USA's military is sufficiently robust as to make conventional war too costly..... will I a) seek to bide my time with alliances and peace and hope for the best.... or b) seek to politically and economically so hamper the USA's military-industrial complex such that key offensive platforms and systems are NOT developed or deployed....so my 50 million troops won't face politically intolerable risks when they pour out of their container ships to storm the beaches of LA and San Diego on some rainy morning?
Yeah, I'd choose the latter: millions to Democratic party officials to advance a "free trade" regime and call for the unilateral disarmament of the USA's nuclear triad, the cancellation of the F-22 and F-35 fighters...while at the same time I'd be promoting every socially toxic lifestyle, idea, and fad I can think of to throw sand in the gears of American society. I'd want the US military bogged down in the Middle East and getting really, really good fighting lightly armed infantry forces from static bases and secure logistics trains or depots.... and not getting much training on force on force warfare.
I'd not want the USA to develop energy independence or wean themselves off of goods and services shipped to CONUS over the Pacific rim.... or do any financial reform that would make the entire federal system less dependent on borrowing to finance the shaky status quo.
And then I'd build up my conventional forces and nuclear forces and asymetric forces for maximum capability around the year 2018-2019 time frame when my Navy and Army would be full of fairly new equipment run by 50 million soldiers who've had a decade or so of familiarity and training....all while the USA's military is falling apart on old equipment and has the bulk of their veterans retiring into their reserves.
Scary scenario indeed. But besides a 'gamer' I'm also a believer so I trust that the Holy Spirit will outflank all worldly wisdom...who knows, maybe the underground Church will save both of our nations from the worst angels of our nature?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303657404576361691165631366.html