Wednesday, February 6, 2013

"Rape in India: A Result of Sex Selection?"

From Erika Christakis at Time magazine:

The horrific gang rape and murder of a 23-year old medical student in New Delhi may seem unrelated to fundamental demographic forces, but it isn’t. The public outcry following the victim’s death from catastrophic internal injuries has rightly focused on calls to reform India’s criminal justice system. Yesterday, five men were formally charged and the case is being put on a fast track set up in the wake of the incident to handle crimes against women, in contrast to the years of delay rape victims often face. 
But behind the angry protests is an even deeper story: the preference for male babies in India and much of the world may be at the root of this senseless violence. 
Growing evidence suggests that in countries like India and China, where the ratio of men to women is unnaturally high due to the selective abortion of female fetuses and neglect of girl children, the rates of violence towards women increase. “The sex ratio imbalance directly leads to more sex trafficking and bride buying,” says Mara Hvistendahl, author of Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men. A scarce resource is generally considered precious, but the lack of women also leaves many young men without marriage partners. In 2011, the number of cases of women raped rose by 9.2 percent; kidnapping and abductions of women were up 19.4 percent. “At this point, we’re talking correlation, not causation. More studies need to be done….[But] it is clear from historical cases and from studies looking at testosterone levels that a large proportion of unmarried men in the population is not a good thing,” says Hvistendahl. 
In a natural state, slightly more male babies are born than females (roughly 105 male infants to 100 females). Male infants are a little more fragile than females at birth, and women generally have a slightly longer life expectancy, so absent conditions such as warfare or unequal access to health care and nutrition, we would expect to see a nearly 1:1 ratio of adult men and women of marriageable age. 
India’s 2011 census showed 914 females to one thousand males, the most skewed ratio since India’s independence in 1947. In some regions, such as the Northern state of Haryana, there are only 830 females to 1000 males. More than twenty years ago, Nobel prize winner economist Amartya Sen warned of more than 100 million “missing” girls from India as a result of this preference for male children. 
The imbalance has squeezed poor and uneducated men out of the marriage market in particular, so there is a surplus of young men who are unable to find partners and assume standard adult roles in their societies. According to the Economist, China has nearly as many unmarried young men, known as ‘bare branches,’ as the entire population of American men. Ironically, the men themselves are harmed by the gender preference shown to them: unbalanced sex ratios may also increase the odds of ill health and early death in men. Something similar has been observed in a number of animal species: it is stressful to compete for mates and this stress can shorten lives. 
We’ve seen spasms of outrage before after random acts of barbarism, but violence towards women in the developing world continues unabated, and unremarked upon. India was recently rated the worst country for women among the G20 group of wealthiest nations. Yet sex discrimination rarely rises to the level of diplomatic action; we don’t apply economic sanctions to countries like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan where the violation of women’s freedom and safety is routine. But it’s long past time to recognize the problem of “missing girls” as an issue of international security. Alarmingly, the imbalanced sex ratios arising from what some have called “Gendercide” are wreaking havoc on the fabric of many growing societies, not just in Asia but in Eastern European countries such as Albania, Georgia and Armenia. Perhaps this reality will finally get the world’s attention when the shortage of women worldwide has downstream economic, health, and security effects, and we realize that the missing girls are a devastating loss to us all.

Population control is the real war on women. Its consequences are obvious. There are 100 million missing women in Asia. Each missing girl was killed by sex-selective abortion or female infanticide, both utterly predictable consequences of population control policies championed by Western scientists and fanatics and enacted by Asian nations.

There is an epidemic of sex trafficking, bride buying, rape, kidnapping and abductions of women in Asia. And there are a 100 million young men who have no chance at romance or marriage or a family. You don't need a PhD in psychology to predict what men do when 100 million women are missing.

Population control isn't just junk science. It is perhaps the most lethal public policy in human history, and it will rip nations apart, especially poor Third World nations.

When the consequences of population control are so obvious and so predictable, why are there still people who advocate it? 

22 comments:

  1. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyFebruary 6, 2013 at 7:39 AM

    "You don't need a PhD in psychology to predict what men do when 100 million women are missing."

    No, but you do need a PhD in Psychology, or some equally inane transvesto-science like Eek!ology (aka Rapture Science), to recommend voluntary mass depopulation. It takes practice to get that stupid.

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  2. Ok conservatives; remember this post when you inevitably assert, as you often have in the past, that there is no logical reason for supporters of abortion rights to be against sex selective abortion.
    -KW

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    1. @KW:

      If you are concerned about the sex imbalance, why don't you just encourage aborting more boys to make up for it? Accomplishes the same thing, right?

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    2. That’s right. Personally I believe 10-15 females per male would be optimal. The few remaining men would be so busy that violent crime, mass killings, and war, would become a thing of the past.

      -KW

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    3. You social engineers are just full of great ideas.

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    4. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyFebruary 6, 2013 at 11:05 AM

      Well, KW, as the old saying goes, "a stopped clock is right twice a day" and, amazingly, I agree with you (the stopped clock in this case) that it is perfectly understandable that Progdolytes encourage sex-neutral abortions. But how one goes about insuring a random selection is not yet clear to me. That would be an Sibelius-worthy regulation. I wonder if it would exceed 2000 pages.

      But I'm sure Kathleen could come up with something.

      No, the nut of the problem is, in a word, culture.

      I leave it to your fertile imagination to come up with some risible, intellectually vacuous approach to convincing billions of people inclined otherwise that they should listen to you and your fellow Progdolytes and abandon their culture.

      The UN, perhaps? After all, they've done so well with the carbon non-problem. And genocide. And human trafficking. And nuclear proliferation. And poverty.

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    5. I don’t believe sex selective abortion is such an intractable problem that it requires the prohibition of abortion to solve. Perhaps in the countries that limit the number of births and have a strong cultural preference for male offspring the government could offer one-time cash payments to those women who have girls. The amount f the payment could continuously be adjusted to ensure a 50-50 sex ratio erring on the side of excess females.

      -KW

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    6. It's ironic to hear the stopped-clock metaphor from the mouth of a conservative. Aren't you, guys, the ones standing athwart history yelling stop?

      Hoo

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    7. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyFebruary 6, 2013 at 2:15 PM

      @KW: Well, good luck. Like a good little leftist, it's always about the "cash payments", right?

      @hoo: I don't speak for conservatives, and I don't speak for "Progressive" reactionaries who lust after 16th century energy generation and 1936-style social programs. As far as abortion goes, I think it's been around for a while, too. Were you thinking it was a Progressive invention?

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  3. I have a feeling Egnor is not so much against population control per se, but only against those forms of population that control that are aimed at people having fewer - and not so much against those that are aimed at people having more children.

    Are you for (like Obama) or against (like Romney) keeping the child tax credit?

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    1. Troy, is this some kind of asinine hypocrisy argument in which you compare killing children, girls disproportionately, to a line on the IRS form that allows taxpaying parents to keep a little more of their own money?

      I don't think that parents will have more kids just because the government allows them to keep more of their own dough. What I think it does it makes life easier for people who have less money and already want to have kids. This is not a handout.

      I didn't know that Obama opposed the child tax credit. Here's some conjecture on my part as to why. Obama wants as many people on welfare as possible. People on welfare vote for him and his party and they believe that they have a stake in the welfare state. So, instead of allowing people to keep more of their own money, he instead takes it from them and hands it back in the form of public assistance. If they were allowed to keep more of their own money and buy those things for themselves, then government wouldn't be able to play Santa Claus and voters wouldn't feel that they owe the government for their very sustenance.

      Repealing the child tax credit would have the effect of putting more people on welfare. That's the intention of it. Supporting the tax credit is not a bribe to have more children.

      Furthermore, I'm not sure that the term population control means encouraging people to have more kids. I checked Wikipedia and it defined population control as such:

      "Human population control is the practice of artificially altering the rate of growth of a human population."

      Okay, that leaves the door open for encouraging more children. It says "artificially altering" but not up or down. It goes on:

      "Historically, human population control has been implemented by limiting the population's birth rate, usually by government mandate, and has been undertaken as a response to factors including high or increasing levels of poverty, environmental concerns, religious reasons, and overpopulation."

      It lists the following methods of population control:

      contraception
      abstinence
      reducing infant mortality so that parents do not increase their family size to ensure at least some survive to adulthood
      abortion
      infanticide
      improving status of women
      war
      emigration
      decreasing immigration
      sterilization
      euthanasia

      Nowhere on there do I see tax credits or any program designed to increase the population. All of them are designed to reduce the population. You're getting very creative. A+ for effort.

      Joey

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    2. You misread, Joey: Romney - not Obama - opposed the child tax credit. Surprised?

      But that aside, governments do use cash incentives and tax breaks with the aim of increasing birth rates, especially in western Europe (including the Netherlands) and Japan. Check out this WSJ story.

      That's clearly a form of population control, wouldn't you agree?

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    3. I see that I did misread. And I am surprised. I guess Obama is for population control via the tax code and Romney is against it.

      Is it a form of population control? I must say that when you asked the question above I was caught off guard. It's a novel use of the term. To me, population control has always meant reducing birth rates, not increasing them. You seemed to be saying that both are forms of population control and that the resident blogger only opposes one of them.

      I asked myself if the term "population control" can ever be used to describe measures that encourage population growth. A bit of lazy internet research was in order. I typed population control into an online dictionary and found nothing. I typed it into Wikipedia and found what I quoted above. Wikipedia's definition of population control is broad enough to cover measures that both encourage and discourage population growth. The whole article, however, is about the latter.

      Here's my thought on the matter. I think of other terms that combine something with "control"--rent control, damage control, gun control, birth control, rumor control, pest control. All of them are designed to keep something down. None of them are designed to encourage anything. So I do not agree that tax credits for children are a form of population control.

      Joey

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    4. I never heard the tax credit issue come up during the election so I didn't know where Romney and Obama stood on the issue. What is your source for that?

      Joey

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    5. Joey

      Here's my thought on the matter. I think of other terms that combine something with "control"--rent control, damage control, gun control, birth control, rumor control, pest control. All of them are designed to keep something down. None of them are designed to encourage anything. So I do not agree that tax credits for children are a form of population control.

      I think your view is a bit too narrow. Population control is more than just keeping population size down. I already mentioned the policies of European and Japanese governments, but here's another example I can think of: the Indonesian government is moving non-aboriginal people to the island of New Guinea in order to swamp the aboriginal population. In my book, that's a form of population control that increases population size. It has been a standard tactic of colonizing powers since forever.

      I never heard the tax credit issue come up during the election so I didn't know where Romney and Obama stood on the issue. What is your source for that?

      I see now that it's a little less clear-cut than I suggested above. Romney has been known to be vague abut his tax plans, after all. A bit of lazy internet research landed me on what seems to be a non-suspect (from your side of the isle) Catholic source: link.

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    6. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyFebruary 6, 2013 at 5:03 PM

      @Joey: "A novel use of the term" indeed. If you're a Wikipedia fan, here's what they have to say:

      "Human population control is the practice of artificially altering the rate of growth of a human population. Historically, human population control has been implemented by limiting the population's birth rate, usually by government mandate..."

      Troy's response is sophistry, or in the American argot, bulls**t. Neither you, nor he, nor I, have ever seen the term "population control" used in any context besides left-wing lunatoonery about reduction.

      And the notion that "population control" is the state's choice not to seize your property so you can better raise your children that they may, in turn, feed the state's ravenous maw... is absurd in the extreme.

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    7. I know that governments do what you describe and I don't dispute that. France, for example, has been paying its citizens to have children for quite some time. It's just that I've never heard it called population control.

      The term "control," when paired with a noun, means to restrict, decrease, or discourage. That's always been my understanding. Gun control restricts gun ownership, weight control keeps weight down, etc., etc. You're now using the term to mean encouraging or discouraging, increasing or decreasing.

      Perplexing.

      If I might compare it to something you would understand, think of atheism versus religion. I've heard some theists say that atheism is just a different kind of religion. Atheists say no way. That's like saying peace is a different kind of war. I get it, and I agree. Atheism is not just a different kind of religion. So think of it this way--encouraging people to have more children is not just another form of population control, the same way that encouraging people to overeat is not a different kind weight control. Spreading pests on your crops is not a different kind of pest control. Subsidizing guns is not a different form of gun control.

      Let's not change the meaning of words in the middle of a debate.

      Joey

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    8. The link you provided was not helpful in understanding Romney's position on the tax credit. It said nothing about Obama's position on the tax credit.

      Joey

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    9. The term "control," when paired with a noun, means to restrict, decrease, or discourage. That's always been my understanding. Gun control restricts gun ownership, weight control keeps weight down, etc., etc.

      Sure, but I can easily come up with wage control, price control, social control, etc., which may indicate ways to increase certain metrics. Price floors, minimum wage, social awareness, etc.

      I agree that population control usually has a negative connotation, but I would argue that's because in practice reducing population growth has been considered much more urgent than increasing it. Only recently this has been reversed in some places.

      Anyway, I didn't intend to get bogged down in semantic games. My question was whether opponents of population control in the negative sense are also opposed to population control in the positive sense. Is it OK for governments to promote increased birth rates, or should governments stay out of that as well?

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    10. The link you provided was not helpful in understanding Romney's position on the tax credit. It said nothing about Obama's position on the tax credit.

      Sorry, but do your own Googling then. I haven't made bookmarks. Bedtime here.

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  4. Troy, here's a little info on the American eugenics movement: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/04/author-edwin-black-discusses-americas-dark-history-of-eugenics/

    Joey

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  5. Very bloggable: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/06/family-research-council-shooter-i-got-the-idea-from-lib-groups-hate-map/

    "Corkins also told FBI agents that it was his intention to “kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in victims’ faces, and kill the guard."

    Geez. It's almost like he's channeling KW.

    TRISH

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