Religions > Atheism > Asia Wages War Against Unborn Girls, Hillary Clinton Is Silent
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Sound of Trumpet" |
| Date: |
07 Jun 2006 02:25:10 PM |
| Object: |
Asia Wages War Against Unborn Girls, Hillary Clinton Is Silent |
http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=284
Mommy, what did you do during the war?
By Daniel Mansueto
Tuesday, 30 May 2006
A war is being waged in Asia against unborn girls. Why aren't more
people enlisting to fight for them?
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"Daddy, what did you do during the war?" is the challenge in
question form that the baby boomer generation rhetorically put to its
fathers. When raised by an adult who has never known war, the question
comes off as a smug accusation. Yet it serves the salutary function of
reminding us that we can expect to be asked one day to render an
account, and to be judged on how we acted when confronted with the
great life and death issues of our day.
With the question in mind of what should be done during a war, let us
consider the untraditional but very bloody war that is being waged
today in Asia against unborn girls. The introduction of sonogram
technology in Asia has resulted in the practice of aborting girls there
en masse. In China, for example, recent statistics indicate that for
every 100 girls that were born, 117 boys were born1. It is said that if
this disparity continues, by 2020 -- only 14 years from now -- there
will be 40 million more men than women in China (which correlates to
millions more girls than boys killed)2.
India has a similar problem. One study that includes a survey of the
literature notes that Indian demographers have found a "stark shift
towards excessively masculine sex ratios at birth between 1981 and 1991
from near normal" to as high as 124 boys per 100 girls in urban
areas3. Why is this happening? The study reports that in India
"[l]ocal studies and surveys show that the use of new techniques to
detect the sex of the foetus followed by the termination of a female
pregnancy has become common among educated and less educated, rich and
poor and in rural and urban areas." This same study reports that
"[d]emographic studies in China, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam since the
mid-1980s have uniformly shown an increasing rise in the proportion of
male births and confirmed that access to sex identification and
abortion facilities is widespread and permits new forms of intervention
before birth."4
One should not imagine that these millions of unborn Asian girls are
being aborted in the first trimester of pregnancy. Nearly all the
abortions that are done to "weed out" girls in Asia are gruesome
late term abortions of viable or nearly viable babies. We know this
because generally a sonogram exam cannot determine the sex of an unborn
child before the 16th week of pregnancy and in some cases cannot do so
until the 20th week or later.
The practice of aborting only girls focuses thought on the victims of
abortion and gives those victims an identity. They are not just
"foetuses," they are girls. Few would deny that the use of abortion
in the service of search and destroy missions aimed at girls subjects
girls to a terrible injustice. But what is the injustice? Is it the
discrimination or is it the abortion? Even a moment's reflection leads
to the inescapable conclusion that the real injustice is not that girls
are selected but abortion itself. What is worse, wanting a boy or
killing a girl? The only way to preserve both the "right to an
abortion" and sex equality is to kill more unborn baby boys. This of
course would not save a single girl but, rather, would only increase
the killing of boys to even the score.
One would think that feminists would have something to say about sex
selection abortion given that its victims are almost exclusively
female. However, while there have been women who have spoken out about
the matter, the war on unborn girls is on the far, far back burner of
the agendas of activist women on the left -- if it is on those agendas
at all.
Hillary Clinton's remarks to the plenary session of the 1995 United
Nations Fourth World Conference On Women are an example of how the
issue is not on the radar screen of American left-leaning activist
women when it comes to international feminist concerns. In those
remarks Ms. Clinton said "it is time to break our silence" and
speak out about wrongs directed specifically at women, such as
infanticide, the sale of women into prostitution, violence directed at
women whose dowries are deemed too small, the rape of women as a tactic
of war, domestic violence, and coerced abortion5. While alluding to a
"history of silence" concerning these problems, Ms Clinton choose
to remain silent herself about the use of sex selection abortion to
effect the slaughter of millions of unborn girls6.
But what can feminists like Ms Clinton say about sex selection abortion
given their commitment to the so-called "right to an abortion"?
Some feminists on the left say, not very loudly, that sex selection
abortion is wrong, and is permissible to outlaw, because it
discriminates based on sex. However, they cannot vigorously assert this
argument without jeopardising the "right to an abortion" because
the logic of the argument completely undermines that so-called
"right." If an unborn girl has the right not to be discriminated
against, she necessarily also has the more fundamental right to life.
And if unborn girls have the right to life, it necessarily follows that
all unborn children, whether male or female, have the same right.
Others have also noted the silence that surrounds the practice of sex
selection abortion and the reason for that silence. A paper published
by the U.S. President's Council on Bioethics states that the practice
is "a particularly pernicious form of sex discrimination" but notes
"with some sadness" that "almost thirty years of progress on the
matter of sexual inequality has not led to any firm public policy
proposals to put an end to sex control in the United States or
abroad."7 According to this source, the reason for this is that "it
was widely argued by many feminist-oriented scholars as well as other
liberal thinkers that any legal or policy actions taken against
abortion for sex control would put the abortion right itself at
risk." 8
Given the renowned commitment of pro-choice feminists to abortion and
the far- reaching pro-life implications of any argument against sex
selection abortion, it is sadly predictable that pro-choice feminists
raise no loud protest against the extermination of the female gender in
Asia. Men and women bear equal responsibility for ending this
extermination (and all other abortion). But if feminism means anything
it means protecting interests that are unique to the female gender. And
what greater interest does the female gender uniquely have than that of
being defended against systematic extermination? Incredible as it may
seem, pro-choice feminists believe there is a greater interest and that
that greater interest is abortion -- the very means by which the war of
extermination against the female gender is being conducted. What other
conclusion can be drawn from their silence concerning sex selection
abortion? The practice of aborting girls in Asia supplements an older
tradition of infanticide that for millennia was practiced against girls
and disabled children. It is beyond ironic that there are feminists who
aggressively support a means of extending and perpetuating this
barbaric ancient tradition on a mass scale.
The silence about what is happening in Asia is not consistent with any
ideology that seeks to protect the female gender but it is entirely
consistent with the "it's all about me" ethos that underlies the
ideology of abortion. So that an American woman can be sure that a
child will never impinge on her "lifestyle" or career plans,
nothing must be said of the slaughter of countless millions of girls in
India, China and elsewhere in the world. And so it is that when faced
with a genocidal war on girls -- not a figurative war, but a real war
where real, live eighteen and twenty week old girls are being singled
out and killed in very large numbers solely for the sin of being female
-- pro-choice feminists are AWOL.
Mommy, what did you do during the war?
Daniel Mansueto is an attorney and the President of the Board of
Directors of the East Los Angeles Pregnancy Center.
Notes
(1) Staff Working Paper of The President's Council on Bioethics,
discussed at 1/03 meeting.
(2) Laurel Bossen, Forty Million Missing Girls: Land, Population
Controls and Sex Imbalance In Rural China, ZNET (October 7, 2005).
Martin Walker, "The Geopolitics of Sexual Frustration", Foreign Policy
(March/April 2006), p. 61.
(3) Elisabeth J. Croll, Amartya Sen's 100 Million Missing Women,
Oxford Development Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2001), p. 228.
(4) Croll, "Amartya Sen's 100 Million Missing Women".
(5) First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Remarks For The United Nations
Fourth World Conference On Women.
(6) Hillary Rodham Clinton, "Remarks For The United Nations Fourth
World Conference On Women".
(7) Staff Working Paper of The President's Council on Bioethics.
(8) Staff Working Paper of The President's Council on Bioethics.
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| User: "R. Pierce Butler" |
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| Title: Re: Asia Wages War Against Unborn Girls, Hillary Clinton Is Silent |
07 Jun 2006 10:49:30 PM |
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"Sound of Trumpet" <soundoftrumpet@fastmail.fm> wrote in
news:1149708310.721082.310390@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:
http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=284
Mommy, what did you do during the war?
By Daniel Mansueto
Tuesday, 30 May 2006
A war is being waged in Asia against unborn girls. Why aren't more
people enlisting to fight for them?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
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This is not news. This sort of activity has been going on for a long time.
Much longer than 50 years. I cannot give an accurate date but maybe
someone else can.
Change the culture and you will change how they treat girls unborn or not.
Changing culture is a tough one. Look how long it is taking for racism to
die off in the USA.
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| User: "Bob Officer" |
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| Title: Re: Asia Wages War Against Unborn Girls, Hillary Clinton Is Silent |
08 Jun 2006 12:39:20 PM |
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On Thu, 08 Jun 2006 03:49:30 GMT, in soc.men, "R. Pierce Butler"
<spamsucks@google.com> wrote:
"Sound of Trumpet" <soundoftrumpet@fastmail.fm> wrote in
news:1149708310.721082.310390@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:
http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=284
Mommy, what did you do during the war?
By Daniel Mansueto
Tuesday, 30 May 2006
A war is being waged in Asia against unborn girls. Why aren't more
people enlisting to fight for them?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
This is not news. This sort of activity has been going on for a long time.
Much longer than 50 years. I cannot give an accurate date but maybe
someone else can.
Change the culture and you will change how they treat girls unborn or not.
Changing culture is a tough one. Look how long it is taking for racism to
die off in the USA.
I didn't know it was dying off in the USA. It is just better hidden.
--
Ak'toh'di
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| User: "R. Pierce Butler" |
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| Title: Re: Asia Wages War Against Unborn Girls, Hillary Clinton Is Silent |
09 Jun 2006 01:39:59 PM |
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Bob Officer <bobofficers@127.0.0.7> wrote in
news:23og82l8e39127j3v6pnna12k0dkkt6rp9@4ax.com:
On Thu, 08 Jun 2006 03:49:30 GMT, in soc.men, "R. Pierce Butler"
<spamsucks@google.com> wrote:
"Sound of Trumpet" <soundoftrumpet@fastmail.fm> wrote in
news:1149708310.721082.310390@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:
http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28
4
Mommy, what did you do during the war?
By Daniel Mansueto
Tuesday, 30 May 2006
A war is being waged in Asia against unborn girls. Why aren't more
people enlisting to fight for them?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-- -------
This is not news. This sort of activity has been going on for a long
time. Much longer than 50 years. I cannot give an accurate date but
maybe someone else can.
Change the culture and you will change how they treat girls unborn or
not. Changing culture is a tough one. Look how long it is taking for
racism to die off in the USA.
I didn't know it was dying off in the USA. It is just better hidden.
It is dying off. It is just not advertised.
.
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| User: "Attila" |
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| Title: Re: Asia Wages War Against Unborn Girls, Hillary Clinton Is Silent |
07 Jun 2006 03:57:43 PM |
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On 7 Jun 2006 12:25:10 -0700, "Sound of Trumpet"
<soundoftrumpet@fastmail.fm> in alt.abortion with message-id
<1149708310.721082.310390@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> wrote:
More propagandizing spam from one of the usual sources.
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| User: "MarkA" |
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| Title: Re: Asia Wages War Against Unborn Girls, Hillary Clinton Is Silent |
08 Jun 2006 10:06:58 AM |
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On Wed, 07 Jun 2006 12:25:10 -0700, Sound of Trumpet wrote:
http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=284
Mommy, what did you do during the war?
By Daniel Mansueto
Tuesday, 30 May 2006
A war is being waged in Asia against unborn girls. Why aren't more people
enlisting to fight for them?
The way to end the attitude of valuing female children less than male
children is to promote *humanism*. In the 21st century, there are very
few things that women can't do as well as men, when given the opportunity.
Unfortunately, much of the world, China and India included, is still
mired in 14th century thinking, a phenomenon that religions encourage.
--
MarkA
(still caught in the maze of twisty little passages, all different)
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| User: "Hyerdahl" |
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| Title: Re: Asia Wages War Against Unborn Girls, Hillary Clinton Is Silent |
08 Jun 2006 02:58:31 PM |
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MarkA wrote:
On Wed, 07 Jun 2006 12:25:10 -0700, Sound of Trumpet wrote:
http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=284
Mommy, what did you do during the war?
By Daniel Mansueto
Tuesday, 30 May 2006
A war is being waged in Asia against unborn girls. Why aren't more people
enlisting to fight for them?
The way to end the attitude of valuing female children less than male
children is to promote *humanism*. In the 21st century, there are very
few things that women can't do as well as men, when given the opportunity.
Unfortunately, much of the world, China and India included, is still
mired in 14th century thinking, a phenomenon that religions encourage.
You've sure pinned the tail on their jack *****! :-) They want to
devalue our feminism by virtue of wanting feminist American women to
provide more brides for brideless grooms, groomed by THEIR own misogny.
I guess you know better than to swallow THAT snake oil.
--
MarkA
(still caught in the maze of twisty little passages, all different)
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| User: "Ray Fischer" |
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| Title: Re: Asia Wages War Against Unborn Girls, Hillary Clinton Is Silent |
08 Jun 2006 11:15:07 AM |
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Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrumpet@fastmail.fm> wrote:
http://www.mercatornet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=284
Mommy, what did you do during the war?
By Daniel Mansueto
Tuesday, 30 May 2006
A war is being waged in Asia against unborn girls. Why aren't more
people enlisting to fight for them?
Why do lunatics like you insist upon treating women and girls like
criminals and 2nd-class people?
--
Ray Fischer
rfischer@sonic.net
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