Mystery of the Missing Girls
From Paul Kedrosky, I learned today of some new population data from the government of Canada. There is a lot of detailed info but this little stat jumped out at me:
"At birth, boys still outnumber girls by a ratio of about 106 to 100 in Canada."
It has been a long time since I took biology, but I seem to recall that gender is determined by chromosomes that operate randomly. Therefore, over a large population the number of male and female children born should be exactly equal. In Canada it appears that 51.4% of babies are male. This is too big a difference to be random.
So what is going on? Maybe a virus or genetic mutation is causing Canadian women to produce more boys? This seems unlikely. Something about the cold weather? Hard to believe. What could it be?
I have another theory. The key words in the quote above are "At birth." So it's not the case that more boys are conceived. Instead, more boys are born. What happens to the girls? Well, thanks to modern technology parents can now know the gender of their child long before it is born. And thanks to modern ethics if that child is not the desired gender, the parents are allowed to destroy it and try again.
What it looks like is that Canadian mothers are more likely to have an abortion if the child is a girl. Why? I have no idea. I think all children are a blessing. There are other examples of this tendency, though. China's one-child policy causes the death of many infant girls whose parents wanted a boy. The same thing happens in India. Apparently Western parents are not immune from this evil.
The full report from Statistics Canada is here. Warning: 86-page PDF download.
Jen and her readers have some sage comments here.
4 comments:
Jen and her readers have some sage comments
Mmmm...some more sagacious than others. :) Thanks for the link!
If you follow the Kedrosky link above, some other readers who sound knowledgeable say that it is normal for more boys to be born, even in animals, and there are scientific reasons for it. Maybe so. I'm no expert and will defer to those who are.
The broader point stands: gender-selective abortion does happen to some degree, and it is evil.
You have no evidence to support your theory. Though you use weasel words like "apparently" and "what it looks like" to hide when someone calls you out on it, you clearly believe what you are saying. Why do you believe something without evidence to support it?
Furthermore, regarding your December 18 post, YOU should be ashamed for wishing mental illness on a fan of a radio program. What's your problem, not enough hugs from your parents as a child? Jesus would kick you in the nuts if he were still alive.
Andrew, Jesus IS still alive, and he kicks me all the time when I mess up. My point was that Opie & Anthony listeners could use a little kick themselves. I deal with mental illness every day of my life, and I don't wish it anyone.
As for this post, I think there is plenty of evidence to support my point. Do you have any to the contrary? Show it to us if so.
Post a Comment