By Fr Mario Attard, OFM
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Besides the UN, media entities have stressed the seriousness of this problem. In March 2010, The Economist ran a cover story entitled ‘Gendercide: the worldwide war on baby girls’. In June last year, researcher Mara Hvistendahl published a book called Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.
Referring to pre-natal therapy undertaken with the aim of modifying the genetic composition of a population (eugenics), Blessed John Paul II condemned the immoral act of selective abortion as “shameful and utterly reprehensible, since it presumes to measure the value of a human life only within the parameters of ‘normality’ and physical well-being, thus opening the way to legitimising infanticide and euthanasia as well” (Evangelium Vitae, 63).
The effects of sex-selective abortions are devastating, and include increased violence and suicide, militant societies, prostitution, human trafficking, the sale of women, forced marriage, the rise of consumer eugenics, and a general degradation of women in society. These are the explicit consequences of a planned campaign against women. Such a disastrous outcome is the fatal corollary of ‘choice’.
Globally, the sex ratio has changed dramatically. Nature has it that in every society about 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. Over the past 25 years, the sex ratio internationally has been drastically thrown off balance to differing degrees. In its 2010 Social Blue Paper, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said the average ratio in China today is 123 boys for every 100 girls.
Likewise, in 2009, the British Medical Journal reported that six provinces in China had sex ratios of over 130. South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan also had sex-ratio imbalances. In India, 46 districts reported ratios over 125.
This leads to two conclusions: Firstly, that 163 million girls have been killed. Secondly, that in several countries there are not enough women for men to marry. Within 10 years, CASS projects that 30 to 40 million Chinese will not marry due to the scarcity of women.
The factors that contribute to imbalanced sex ratios and gendercide include technological progress, increased use of ultrasound, abortion rights, cultural favouritism of men, and legislation, as is the case of China’s one-child policy.
However, in her intriguing book, Unnatural Selection, Mara Hvistendahl pinpointed abortion as the leading cause. Even though she is a self-professed pro-choice advocate, Hvistendhal admitted that none of the other causes could be as disastrous as abortion. This has also been supported by the British Medical Journal, which deduced that “sex-selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males”. Therefore, abortion is the arch-enemy for the survival of female babies.
The irony is that the feminist reproductive health rights movement has greatly helped in the extermination of the female gender through sex-selective abortions. This movement that supposedly aims to emancipate and empower women ends up causing their degradation, and imperils their existence.
Despite clear-cut statistics which constantly illustrate the harsh negative consequences that abortion has inflicted on women globally, the feminist movement remains passive, overlooking the fact that 163 million girls have gone missing due to sex-selective abortion.
How can one protect women’s rights and, simultaneously, permit female unborn children to be aborted? Surely, the self-contradiction of the feminist ‘pro-choice motto is openly illustrated by the worldwide practice of gendercide.
For gendercide to be curtailed Hvistendahl suggests severe enforcement of bans against sex-selective abortions. These include police control and punishment by imprisonment. Reality shows that the law cannot always handle life situations successfully. In fact, both China and India already have bans on sex-selective abortion. Similarly, in the US, Arizona is the first state whereby race- and sex-selective abortions are prohibited.
Sex-selective abortions can only be completely eradicated if abortion remains or becomes an illegal and criminal act.