Conservative columnist Ross Douthat, in yesterday’s New York Times, resorts to a fine bit of casuistry in pinning responsibility for the widespread practice of sex-selection abortions “in India, China and elsewhere in the developing world” on “Western governments and philanthropic institutions,” as well as suggesting that pro-choice advocates in America who support women’s reproductive freedom are complicit in this demographic disaster in the making.
Pegging his argument to a recent book by the journalist Mara Hvistendahl (Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men (2011), which links Asia’s 163 million “missing” (i.e., aborted) females to the practice of sex-selection abortion, Douthat proposes that the problem lies with the spread of “female empowerment”:
Thus far, female empowerment often seems to have led to more sex selection, not less. In many communities, [Hvistendahl] writes, “women use their increased autonomy to select for sons,” because male offspring bring higher social status. In countries like India, sex selection began in “the urban, well-educated stratum of society,” before spreading down the income ladder.
I haven’t read Hvistendahl’s book, but like many, I’m familiar with the problem of sex-selection abortions in the developing world. It’s a no-brainer that over time, the practice of aborting females is dangerous to a society, for it will eventually skew the male/female sex ratio to the point where millions of men, frustrated by a dearth of prospective wives, will turn dangerous.
For the sake of argument, I’ll assume Hvistendahl’s facts, quoted by Douthat, are correct, and that what he says is her explanation for the evolution of abortion practices in the developing world is correct. I also accept Douthat’s conclusion that the rise in women’s reproductive freedom, along with the increasing access to ultrasound techniques and abortion itself, are leading to more sex-selection abortions in the developing world.
But when Douthat describes sex-selection abortions using the words “missing women” (part of the title of a 1990 article by the economist Amartya Sen), I dig in my heels. It seems more accurate to describe them as “selecting for men.” Using the words “missing women” frames the discussion so that it sounds as if aborted female fetuses are murdered women. Douthat writes, “The scale of that number [163 million] evokes the genocidal horrors of the 20th century.” This is a big number, and it certainly evokes a lot of abortions taking place. But this doesn’t address the underlying causes for sex-selected abortions, which would not have occurred if women were more valued members of the human race.
Douthat’s sloppy reasoning permits him to leap from the “scale” of a number to “genocide,” and from there to the conclusion that there’s some kind of “enormous crime.” This is not a thoughtful way to confront the problem of sex-selection abortion in the developing world. It’s simply a way to promote the conservative agenda regarding abortion.
Although sex-selection abortion undoubtedly presents a threat to social stability, it does not come close to a real genocidal crime. The “163 million” refers to a sentimental, dimly imagined vision of millions of happy, mature women. In fact, we’re talking about women who never existed, many if not most of whom, had they existed, would have been doomed to lead fairly wretched lives.
Whether the word used is “missing” (Sen’s) or “vanished” (Douthat’s), the verbal maneuver is sneaky. It shifts the discussion away from the vexing social, cultural and economic problems associated with the age-old oppression of women, still deeply embedded in developing countries, to the contemporary argument in America over whether or not abortion constitutes murder.
Americans, like people in China and India, express a huge preference for having boys over girls. But Americans do not use abortion for sex selection—not because of any difference in the availability of abortion, but because women here have more or less the same shot at a reasonable future as men. In America, the birth of a girl is no more burdensome than the birth of a boy.
So when Douthat suggests that reading Hvistendahl book is like discovering “the revelation of some enormous crime,” he’s leading us astray. Sex-selection abortions expose to the whole world that in developing countries, millions of women consider the mere fact of being born female to be intolerable.
Women in the developing world strike this observer as profoundly pragmatic. When faced with the reality that the birth of a son will be celebrated, while the birth of a daughter will be an occasion for regret, they’re choosing not to give birth to daughters.