Dear ProLife Colleague, The following are excerpts taken from a book review found in the June 24 Wall Street Journal. Jonathan V. Last reviews the book “Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men” By Mara Hvistendahl (PublicAffairs, 314 pages, $26.99). This is a profoundly important topic, not just for women, many of whom simply won’t exist, but for men, many of whom will not be able for find a wife with whom to create a family. Abortion is supposed to be all about women’s rights. What about the right to exist??? That seems fairly fundamental. But do you hear much objection from women’s rights groups about the war against women? They should be outraged. And so should men. In his review, Mr. Last notes: “Mara Hvistendahl is worried about girls. Not in any political, moral or cultural sense but as an existential matter. She is right to be. In China, India and numerous other countries (both developing and developed), there are many more men than women, the result of systematic campaigns against baby girls. In “Unnatural Selection,” Ms. Hvistendahl reports on this gender imbalance: what it is, how it came to be and what it means for the future. In nature, 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. This ratio is biologically ironclad. Between 104 and 106 is the normal range, and that’s as far as the natural window goes. Any other number is the result of unnatural events. Yet today in India there are 112 boys born for every 100 girls. In China, the number is 121—though plenty of Chinese towns are over the 150 mark. China’s and India’s populations are mammoth enough that their outlying sex ratios have skewed the global average to a biologically impossible 107. But the imbalance is not only in Asia. Azerbaijan stands at 115, Georgia at 118 and Armenia at 120……. If you peer hard enough at the data, you can actually see parents demanding boys. Take South Korea. In 1989, the sex ratio for first births there was 104 boys for every 100 girls—perfectly normal. But couples who had a girl became increasingly desperate to acquire a boy. For second births, the male number climbed to 113; for third, to 185. Among fourth-born children, it was a mind-boggling 209. Even more alarming is that people maintain their cultural assumptions even in the diaspora; research shows a similar birth-preference pattern among couples of Chinese, Indian and Korean descent right here in America.” In our 6-9-11 letter on Keepsake Sonograms, AAPLOG touched on this as it relates to the USA scene. See: https://www.aaplog.org/get-involved/letters-to-members/neonatal-mortality/ Mr. Last’s review is fascinating, and extremely valuable. You need to read it!!, The review can be found at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303657404576361691165631366.html
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