Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men

Book Review. "Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men" by Mara Hvistendahl. This is an absolutely fascinating, well researched book. It has been impossible for me to stop reading it - I was even reading it on line at Costco.There are 163 million females missing in Asia. Why and who is to blame?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. If the male number in the sex ratio is above 106, it means that couples are having abortions when they find out the mother is carrying a girl.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.Hvistendahl puts the blame squarely on sex-selection abortion. In Asia, it was found that women will continue to get pregnant until they have a son. Herein is the problem: A male child is more valued than a female child. And, in China's one-child policy, couples want a son.Women in the U.S. have a right to have an abortion. But what if abortion was forced on them? What if abortion is used as an alternative to having a female baby? Hvistendahl gives some horrific cases of forced abortions on women 7 and 8 months pregnant. Field workers in Asia got paid for every abortion they performed.Hvistendahl's research shows that in the 1960s the Ford Foundation, the United Nations and Planned Parenthood zealously backed the use of cheap prenatal technologies (portable ultrasound equipment) that would indicate the sex of a fetus. This was reasoned to be the best way to stop over-population. It permits women to select to have a son. In many cases, the U.S. used foreign aid as a hammer to implement sex-selection policies.It worked.The world is becoming increasingly male. What will that mean in the near future?Sex-selection abortions are the reason that 163 million girls are missing from the world.It all started with Paul Ehrlich, author of the 1968 bestseller "The Population Bomb." He popularized the idea that ensuring that couples had sons was an effective means of curbing population growth.What are the consequences? Hvistendahl lists "wife tourism", bride buying, prostitution, and other horrific practices. A world predominately male brings with it increased violence and social unrest.Yet, how can the U.S. expect other countries to ban abortions when there is really no way to know if telling a woman the sex of her fetus means the woman will have an abortion? Women go to one doctor to find out the sex of their fetus and then, if they are carrying a female fetus, go to another doctor for an abortion.Hvistendahl illustrates the problem in South Korea which has the fourth-lowest birthrate in the world, according to the United Nations.South Korea will soon be a country primarily of old people. To combat this frightening problem, abortion is now illegal in South Korea except in specific cases. Take for example this: In 2009, Sungshin Women's University in Seoul organized an event aimed at trying to raise awareness about the country's very low birth rate. It sparked controversy when the organizers requested women students in the audience to submit a sworn statement that they would have children.When I visited Ethiopia 2 years ago we traveled on roads built and being built by the Chinese government. The road building is extensive throughout the country. Our tour guide said that they set up camps for the workers who did not spend any time with the locals. There is absolutely no interest in mingling with the population. All their food was prepared for them. If anyone gets sick, the managers join the workers. Quotas were always met.As the demand for wives grows, will the men of female-starved countries seek out women from other ethnic groups?From my column, The Devil's Hammer for Feb. 6, 2012. The fantastic Australian Bee Gees Show at Excalibur, "Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men", Apollo 16 astronauts found alien ship, remote viewers say, Happy Pizza, and more... [...]

Mara Hvistendahl makes an interesting point. It is evident that easy availability of abortion clinics (Marie Stopes) and of ultra-sound diagnostic tests has helped make it easier for Indians to get rid of unborn daughters with less fuss and qualms than before. Secondly, the Government's vigorous promotion of a two-child family norm and its wide-spread social acceptance would tempt many into 'ensuring' they had a son while sticking to the two-child norm. Kishore Mahbubani (Can Asians Think?) has also pointed to the influence that Aid agencies and rich nations exercised over population control in Asian nations. This appears to be true - for India at least.However, the preference for sons over daughters appears to an ancient one, and widely reflected in Hindu literature and mythology. King Pandu, in Mahabharat, asks only for sons and ends up with five. His elder brother, Dhritarashtra has 100 sons, and only one daughter. King Dashrath has four children in old age - all sons. King Sagar has 60,001 children - all male. Ultrasound technology probably means that what was once sought as a divine boon is now available over the counter, for a few thousand rupees.The shortage of women in ancient India may also be corroborated by the practice of bride-price, which was later condemned as uncivilized behaviour, amounting to sale of daughters.Secondly, mid-wives in India had a versatile tool-kit for killing off unwanted children (whether illegitimate sons or merely female). This indigenous technology certainly did not come from the West. However, it worked only when the child was born.To counter this, the smritis (codes of conduct) recommended social ostracism for those who aborted a foetus. This stigma, possibly never very strong, appears to have been completely extinguished by the Government's vigorous, no-questions-asked promotion of abortions.All in all, Ms. Hvistendahl argument is valid to the extent it helps us understand that it is not just local culture that is to blame for this ongoing silent genocide in Asia. Rich Western nations may also have some blood on their hands, when it comes to killing of the never-born.

What the author covered in this book she covered well. But I found the finger pointing irritating. MH spends a lot of time blaming the West for choices made in the East. Nobody told China or India to destroy their women. They were given the tools and 'encouraged' to control their population growth by various agencies but sex selection in favour of sons and the consequences thereof are all their own doing. It's like saying 'you are to blame for the house burning down because you gave the child matches to play with'. But we aren't talking about children and we should not demean either China or India by absolving them for choices they made or allowed by apportioning the blame elsewhere. My biggest problem with the book was with the subtitle 'the consequences of a world full of men'. This was so lightly touched upon and hardly covered at all. What will be the consequences of living in a world full of men? I bought and read the book for this very reason and I have come away as ignorant on the subject as I was before I read it. What does the author think the consequences of a world full of surplus men will be on the world stability and world economics? I did read the chapters about trafficking, buying poor, uneducated wives and prostitution. I just don't think that really covers the question of long term consequences globally in an adequate manner. Will there be long term consequences globally and if there are what will they be? I feel the title promised to answer this question and came nowhere near broaching it.

This is an excellent book which is made more powerful by the fact that the author did not start out with any anti-abortion or anti-planned parenthood agenda. The societal preference for male children has already skewed the population balance in many parts of the world. Acting on this preference by the use of selective termination, or by the more sophisticated techniques of embryo selection and sperm sorting, is being led by the educated middle classes and filtering down to all segments of the population. While many countries have enacted legislation prohibiting prenatal sex selection, particularly termination of the 'wrong' sex, this is rarely enforced. While 'backward' or 'misogynist' cultures are often blamed for these practices,the promotion of termination as a method of contraception in the developing world, the acceptance of sex-selection as the lesser of two evils ("better to let people have the sex of child they want so they don't go on reproducing") and the technology to make these practices possible were all pushed by western democracies. The author suggests that the outcome of sex selection resulting in populations containing an excess of young males who cannot find partners are societies that are violent, politically unstable and surprisingly misogynist. Where women are scarce, rather than being highly valued, they are more likely to be treated as commodities to be controlled, trafficed and abused. The sad thing is that the pitfalls of prenatal sex selection, and also of the preference for male children seem glaringly obvious. Aren't there any social scientists in China, for instance, who could see that where families only wanted male children, they were much less likely to ever become grandparents!I'm making this book compulsory reading for my final year midwifery students. It's an important book that should be read by all healthcare professionals, social scientists and politicians the world over.

Do you want a male child by all means necessary ?read this book

Hervorragend geschriebene Analyse über ein Problem, das noch wenig thematisiert wird, uns alle aber betrifft oder sehr bald betreffen wird. Einziges Manko: Die Schrift ist so klein, dass es mühsam zu lesen ist.Es ist ein abolut wichtiges Buch, für die Welt insgesamt und auch seit neuestem für Deutschland.In Gesellschaften, in denen es einen deutlichen Männerüberschuss gibt, steigen Kriminalität und insbesondere Verbrechen gegen Frauen deutlich an. Dies ist zu beobachten z.B. in Indien.In Schweden ist das Verhältnis Männer zu Frauen im Alter von 16-17 duch die Zuwanderung von insbesondere männlichen unbegleiteten Flüchtlingen bereits (Stand Ende 2015) auf 125 Jungen zu 100 Mädchen angestiegen. Das Resultat kann man im Internet nachlesen.In Deutschland findet die Zuwanderung durch Flüchtlinge vor allem in jungen Altersklassen statt. Die deutsche Bevölkerung im Alter zwischen 20 und 30 beträgt ca. 10 Millionen. In dieser Altersklasse findet die meiste Zuwanderung statt und zwar mit einem ungesunden Geschlechterverhältnis. Die im Buch beschriebene Problematik trifft insofern auch auf Deutschland zu.Das beschriebene Problem ist unabhängig von Kultur, Religion oder Herkunft der Menschen und ist in mehreren Kontinenten und sehr unterschiedlichen Gesellschaften zu beobachten.Wenn man sich fragt, wie es möglich ist, mehr als 300 Seiten auf eine relativ einfach erscheinende Beobachtung zu verwenden, wird man überrascht sein, wie viele neue und teils überraschende Aspekte in dem Buch zu finden sind. Sehr spannende Lektüre für alle, die geopolitisch interessiert sind!