PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Bias for Boys Leads to Sale of Baby Girls in China (ELISABETH ROSENTHAL, 7/20/03, NY Times)

With two daughters already, Liu Yihong was crystal clear several years back about what he would do if his pregnant wife was carrying yet another girl.

"You can take medicine to end the pregnancy," he explained matter-of-factly. "Otherwise you have the baby and if it's a female, you try to find another family who will take it, or you just put it up for sale."

This practical philosophy is deeply ingrained in this rural backwater in southern China, a lush but poor area where the preference for sons overwhelms all other impulses, and family planning laws strictly limit how many children a farmer may have.

In March, the police here in Guangxi Province found the shocking fallout of son worship packed away in the back of a long-haul bus: 28 unwanted baby girls from Yulin, 2 to 5 months old, being transported like farm animals, for sale. [...]

Because of the selective abortion of girls in China, some researchers estimate there are 111 males for every 100 females in the country, making it difficult for poor farmers to persuade women to marry into their villages.

How does that mantra go again? "Abortion empowers women." "It is inappropriate for the religious, who happen to believe in human dignity, to seek to impose their personal morality on others who may believe differently." "Just because I'm pro-choice doesn't mean I bear any responsibility for how those choices are used." "Slippery slopes are a figment of conservative imaginations." ... Posted by Orrin Judd at July 29, 2003 11:00 AM