"The War Against Girls"

I read this fascinating article in The Wall Street Journal today entitled "The War Against Girls." The article is actually a review of the book Unnatural Selection by Mara Hvistendahl. Unnatural Selection details the systematic targeting of female babies for abortion in many countries of the world, most notably China and India. In China, largely due to forced abortions resulting from the country's One Child policy, 121 boys are born for every 100 girls, with the ratio topping out at over 150 in some towns. In India, the ratio is 1.12. Sadly, Hvistendahl concludes that approximately 163 million girls that would otherwise have been born based on biological averages have been aborted over the past three decades by parents seeking sons. Aside from the obvious tragedy of females being systematically targeted for destruction, Hvistendahl points out the problems inevitably resulting from such a significant gender imbalance, including increased social turmoil and violence and the booming of a global female underclass through prostitution, forced marriage, and mail-order-bride businesses. And institutions such as the United Nations and Planned Parenthood have been instrumental in promoting such sex-selective abortion overseas.

The reviewer points out that Hvistendahl is adamantly pro-abortion and expresses fear that the facts in her book will jeopardize legalized abortion; yet, despite her biases she has documented something very important and tragic that should cause all of us to wake up and see where the culture of abortion has taken us. Ironically, a practice touted as a basic woman's right has resulted in tremendous harm to -- indeed in the systematic extermination of -- women in many countries around the world. It turns out that women themselves are the greatest victims of abortion.

Jonathan Last sums up his review this way:

Despite the author's intentions, "Unnatural Selection" might be one of the most consequential books ever written in the campaign against abortion. It is aimed, like a heat-seeking missile, against the entire intellectual framework of "choice." For if "choice" is the moral imperative guiding abortion, then there is no way to take a stand against "gendercide." Aborting a baby because she is a girl is no different from aborting a baby because she has Down syndrome or because the mother's "mental health" requires it. Choice is choice. One Indian abortionist tells Ms. Hvistendahl: "I have patients who come and say 'I want to abort because if this baby is born it will be a Gemini, but I want a Libra.' "

This is where choice leads. This is where choice has already led. Ms. Hvistendahl may wish the matter otherwise, but there are only two alternatives: Restrict abortion or accept the slaughter of millions of baby girls and the calamities that are likely to come with it.