I’m not what most people would describe as “pro-life” or “anti-abortion,” but I do acknowledge the moral problems posed by abortion. (I cannot, for example, see how there could be a simple right to — depending on your view of the matter — a “late-term”/”partial-birth” abortion; if that isn’t wrong, it’s hard to know what would be wrong.) This story (“India ‘loses 10m female births’“) on the BBC News raises important questions about gender-based abortions. It also was striking for the language used to describe killing of females:
Experts in India say female foeticide is mostly linked to socio-economic factors.
When it’s just a baby, it’s an abortion. When it’s a baby girl, it’s “female foeticide.”
Dear Tom,
There is good cause to doubt the conclusions reached in the BBC article.
In the study referred to in the news report, the authors disclose the following information regarding their methods:
“Questions asked that were pertinent to fertility and, therefore, this study included current age, age at marriage, husband’s age at marriage, educational level of the woman and her husband, and number of stillbirths, livebirths, and children ever born. Relevant questions about all children born in 1997 included date of birth, birth order, sex, age of the mother, interval between most recent and previous birth, and type of medical attention received at birth. To avoid reporting bias, no direct questions were asked about whether parents had a preference for boys or girls, or about use of prenatal sex determination or abortion.”
Neither in the interviews with families nor anywhere else in the study do the researchers actually report on the number of abortions performed in India, much less abortions performed for the purpose of sex selection. Indeed, the authors simply make the observation that fewer girls than boys are being born in India, and suggest that sex-selected abortion may (emphasizing the “may”) be the reason.
Of course, there are a host of other possible reasons for the discrepancy. When Amartya Sen described this trend in the NY Review of Books several years ago, he drew a similar conclusion as to cause. However a recent paper by Emily Oster (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~eoster/dasgupta.pdf) suggests that hepatitis B may be the reason for the observed population discrepancy, since women infected with hepatitis B are more likely to give birth to males rather than females.
This point is neither here nor there regarding the morality of abortion, much less sex-selection. But the enormity of the allegation, I think, imposes a higher burden of proof on the accusers, including entertaining equally plausible (but rather less exciting to the MSM) explanations.
bh
Oops. I pasted the wrong link to Oster’s paper. This is the correct link:
http://economics.uchicago.edu/download/Oster_Hepatitis_Febuary_7th.pdf
Apologies,
bh
“In cases where the preceding child was a girl, the ratio of girls to boys in the next birth was 759 to 1,000. This fell even further when the two preceding children were both girls. Then the ratio for the third child born was just 719 girls to 1,000 boys. However, for a child following the birth of a male child, the gender ratio was roughly equal”
BH- wouldn’t the above excerpt remove the possibility of hepatitis B or any other biological variable acting as the sole or major cause of the gross disparity given the obvious pattern? I admit to being ignorant of what could be innumerable biological factors going into the determination of gender in a human but the glaring discrepency seems to cry out as artificial sex selection.
Seperately- Scientist Richard Dawkins often talks about people’s thinking being plagued by what he refers to as a discontinuous mind. He describes it as people not being able to see gradual intermediates between any two “absolutes” . He makes reference to this in regards to evolution but it’s a grave shame we don’t apply it elsewhere- especially as it ties into the abortion debate.
I could not agree more with Mr. Palmer’s concern regarding a late-term/partial-birth abortion. I also agree with Mr. Palmer’s concern expressed towards the language used by the reporter. I too see little evidence to support the claim that gender is the determinig factor of whether the killing of a human is moral or not. This assuming the writer seemingly has as little remorse for the killing of boys as his poor, yet, possibly unnoticed choice of words leads one to believe.
Speaking of language, it’s interesting that people celebrate birthdays and consequently begins counting one’s age when it simply leaves the physical location of inside the mother. It seems to me that if we were to know the date of conception with as much certainty as we know the date at which a human leaves the mother’s body, that that might serve as a better birthday and moment in time to start accumulating age (after all, 9 months quicker to drinking age!).
If ever there was a dangerous consequence of people losing focus of reality by substituting in our limited perception of it, continuing to focus in on the arbitrariness of “birth” rather than the reality of conception, this is it. How else could 500,000 females deaths in India, and millions more across the world EVERY year, fly under the moral radar of so many people…
I would urge everyone to look at an organization called Libertarians for Life http://l4l.org/ Its sole purpose is to refute the ludicrous claim that abortions are anything but a pre-birth murder of a young human being by drawing on entirely scientific and philosophical reasoning, absent of any religious undertones. It houses a broad range of essays covering the many excuses given to justify an abortion like rape and impending endangerment of the mother. Collectively, I believe the essays here should provide people, right-respecting libertarians in particular, with a solid case to uphold a pro-life/anti-abortion stance.
Matthew,
As to your first comment: If Oster’s data is correct, I think hepatits B may account for the vast majority of the discrepancy. She writes:
“Overall, families with an HBV carrier parent
had 350 male children and 243 female children (sex ratio of 1.44), while families without an
HBV carrier parent had 2083 male children and 2043 female children (sex ratio of 1.02). The
difference is statistically signicant overall and in each individual study.”
The answer to your question, as to whether the *diminishing* ratios can be accounted for by hepatitis B alone, really depends on whether or not the difference between 759:1000 and 719:1000 is a statistically significant difference with reference to the measured population.
None of this precludes either other factors, such as gender differences in infant mortality etc., and doesn’t preclude the possibility of sex selection. But this study is a bad example of post hoc ergo propter hoc. If it turned out that the diminshing ratios are statistically significant, then identifying an “at risk” cohort for sex selection could serve as the basis for further study, to see if sex selection accounted for some of the difference. But the researchers didn’t do that, so we’re left with the flawed product of a logical fallacy.
So, before lamenting the “loss” of hundreds of thousands of women in India to sex-selected abortion, it is worth knowing whether one follows from the next.
Finally, your (favorable ?) quote from Dawkins is ironic, given your view that life should be viewed as beginning at conception. Why is this less an example of “discontinuous” thinking than the view that life “begins” at birth? Whatever one may think of Roe (and it is a muddle), Blackmun’s opinion is an example of the “continuous” thinking extolled by Dawkins, since Blackmun labors over the relationship between development and viability, reaching all the way back to Aquinas (40 days for boys, 80 days for girls) and Augustine (“quickening” after 3 months gestation). Roe placed significant restrictions on abortion after the second trimester based on a continuous view of the relationship of viability and being a bearer of rights.
Yours,
bh
Tom, I don’t quite see what point you’re trying to make about language here. The article is about the trend of women/couples choosing to abort once they discover the female sex of their foetus. The article makes clear that abortions of female foetuses are now taking place at a significantly higher rate than abortions of male foetusus. Writing something like “the rate of female abortions” wouldn’t make grammatical sense, and “the rate of abortions on female foetusus” is kind of unwieldy. Why is “female foeticide” indicative of some sort of bias? It’s simply descriptive of the issue at hand.
BH- It just seems more than coincidental that such a stark discrepancy could be seen by the isolation of just one variable- the preceding child’s gender. It might be entirely possible (indeed probable), however, like you said, that more than this one factor can be attributed to this phenomenon.
I’d agree the Dawkins remark could be answered by anyone willing to draw a line in the sand, Justice Blackmun included. What I meant was that to do this in the “gray” area of life- any time after conception and prior to death- will lead to a mistake because I do not think there are any clear lines that can be given a line of demarkation. I think a clear scientific case has been made that humans and hence their life begins once conception has taken place.
I thought (perhaps mistakenly) Justice Blackmun made this decision on the grounds of the right to privacy, not on its morality. He seemed to justify the court’s decision by arguing that since medicine (science), philosophy and theology can not come to a decision on abortion, the court can not make a decision regarding morality either. I was unaware he placed much emphasis on “its” existence and potential for being a bearer of rights although I’m unsure as to whether the fact that he screwed the decision up on moral grounds rather than just on ignorance makes me feel better or worse.
That being said though, hearing that Blackmun looked into the arguments of scientifically-ignorant, medieval theologians lends support to the argument that he was indeed in no position to make an educated decision on the scientific principle of when a human becomes a human. It appears to me anyway that he ignored the moral reasoning against abortion while hiding behind the “right to privacy” claim.
Let’s assume ignorance is a justified excuse for Justice Blackmun. We are no longer ignorant except by our own choosing as the scientific literature http://l4l.org/library/mythfact.html can prove the claim that humans and their lives begin when they are created- not when they leave a mother.
Science has come a long way since ’73. These embryologists can determine when a human being is created. To delay, suspend or deny “personhood” to a human being who is innocent and can’t offer consent to his or her own undoing is to say the least- quite troublesome.
Finally, in the never ending era of the abusement of rights, shouldn’t the tie go to the runner? In this case, if Blackmun was in fact ignorant of the moral repercussions of abortion since the debate was still ongoing in science and philosophy, would it not have been a better decision to side with the least of two wrongs? I’m a big advocate of capital punishment but I want proof WAY beyond a reasonable doubt to implement it. In this case, even if the question is still undecided as to when a human life begins, why not side with the argument that does not advocate the end of a life, only a (often self-inflicted) disruption of one rather than the argument that could POTENTIALLY advocate the end of a life if future scientists and philosophers do in fact end up seeing it that way.
I don’t know how you or Mr. Palmer feels on abortion but just as rights deserved to be studied as they are too valuable to be ignorant of, it seems to me a shame that there are some so woefully ignorant (NO presumption being made towards anyone) of the rights of the pre-born, yet by all means, living human beings.
Matthew, you write “since the debate was still ongoing in science and philosophy, would it not have been a better decision to side with the least of two wrongs? I’m a big advocate of capital punishment but I want proof WAY beyond a reasonable doubt to implement it.”
But you fail to recognize that this standard means that abortion should not be criminalized, since to criminalize it pits the force of the state against those who would have abortions or provide them. Neither you nor anyone else has any right to initiate force — which is exactly what you are doing if you concur that the matter is uncertain.
Also, regarding the definition of when “personhood” begins… it is clear that human consciousness doesn’t begin until *after* birth. If human consciousness is taken to be the defining characteristic of a human and the point at which personhood begins, then using the moment of birth is a very conservative standard. And if human consciousness isn’t the standard, then what is?
Mr. Steele, in regards to the choosing the lesser of two evils when a verdict is in doubt, I meant that if abortion in ’72 was open to debate, rather than permit what may be murder and grant the mother’s right to privacy, enforce the prohibition of what may be murder and deny the right to privacy that a mother would otherwise enjoy. Any decision Blackmun landed on might in time, pending the findings of philosophical and scientific studies, violate someone’s rights: in this case a pre-born’s to life or a mother’s to privacy. On a side note, a woman who engages in sex compromises her right to privacy like a bear wrestler compromises their right to life. Also, by no means is state sponsored force unjust when preventing a murder or punishing a murderer. If abortion does constitute murder, then I’m sure we’d both agree just like other murders, this one deserves the same strict yet legal recourse. Whether done by the state or privately is another matter…
“Personhood” I confess is a muddy subject. Again, I think to postpone or deny personhood to someone is very dangerous. If personhood is dependent on consciousness, does that mean that all people without consciousness are denied personhood? There’s a long list of people that would be subject to murder (or whatever a post birth murder will be called) if this is the sole criteria for personhood. In your opinion, do you think there are other factors that personhood is contigent upon? Seems solely based on human consiousness, too many people fall under the “not a person” status.
Two other brief considerations. One, is the santicty of consciousness reserved to humans? P. Singer makes a compelling argument that consciousness should apply to the other great apes to a high degree and to all others who have the capacity to experience suffering. Two, in my opinion, human consciousness has some ambiguity to it. Would that entail just a brain, a capacity to understand its own existence or the ability to have hopes for the future? I’ve found that some people have different characteristics of what it means to be conscious.
My standard for “personhood” would be, to be specific: personhood. By that I mean the point of conception when a zygote is formed and a human being is created with no respect paid to his or her consciousness. When a human being is formed, they are self-perpetuating, independent and carry human genetic material. There is what to me seems like a clear line of when a human becomes a human and everything prior to that line in not human. A sperm or egg is clearly not human while a single cell with humanity written in its genetic material seems to me to constitute humanity. I don’t see this stage in a life as being nothing more than a potential life or just a non-living human.
The interests of a mother or a research team both have agenda’s when aborting the preborn, whether its their own economic and social status or the health of others. A person might as well kill another person walking on the street for money or respect or have the sick kill an otherwise healthy person for the heart or kidney. Little moral difference in my eyes. Regardless of intentions- noble, moral or otherwise- the murder of a person, born or not should not be permitted.
Matthew: on the first issue, I follow what you are saying, but I don’t grant the “lesser of two evils” notion. Using the power of the state to ban abortion is violence. Implicitly, at least, this involves the threat…and perhaps explicitly, if abortion is treated as murder and abortionists as murderers.
Re the right to privacy analogy — sex & and the bear wrestler — the right to privacy refers here to privacy from state intrusion into one’s personal life. Regardless, by engaging in heterosexual intercourse, a woman doesn’t somehow compromise her rights, nor do the state nor “society” suddenly acquire some new authority over her.
Personhood is indeed a very muddy issue, but it seems the crux of the matter. (Although there’s an interesting argument in the ethics literature on this.) I find it hard to accept that a freshly fertilized human egg constitutes a person with full human rights thereof. This cell has no thoughts or feelings, no brain, etc. and is far less complex — physically, mentally, emotionally — than, say, a beef cow.
It indeed has the capability of eventually developing these things, but that’s also true of the sperm and ovum microseconds before fertilization…or seconds before, minutes before, etc. If potentiality is the criterion, there’s no clear line either, and it is hard to see why this argument doesn’t make contraception a rights violation as well.
Finally, re the health of the mother exception: we all agree that murder is a violation of rights, and “noble” causes do not justify it. But this is a different issue. Even were we to agree that the fetus is a person with full rights thereof, it doesn’t follow that those rights include the right to survive at the expense of the mother’s life. Nor that third parties (e.g. legislators) are the proper ones to decide who lives and who doesn’t here.
Tom: re dilation and extraction (D&X, the so called “partial birth” abortions)… from the little I have read, the medical literature calls for these for quite sensible reasons, e.g. severe hydrocephaly in which the head of the fetus is too big to pass through the birth canal. The options are D&X operation or caesarian section. The determination of which is better is a matter for patients & doctors, not politicians. The hydrocephalic fetus/infant dies regardless. Why shouldn’t women be able to choose D&X if it entails less risk to them? A
I believe this is the sort of situation in which D&X abortions are performed, and outlawing this is, well, a violation of the rights of women.
My third sentence above should read “Implicitly, at least, this involves the threat of death…”