India: In 20 Years' Time, 10 Million Baby Girls Killed

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Geronimo
Maybe a person must have either biological independance, or the ability to reason or both of these?

The former seems a reasonable guideline to use in drawing a point at which a fetus develops some "rights".

I don't believe that this is necessarily a perfect definition. Some fetuses prior to that point have developed further neurologically than some other fetuses ever will. The reason there needs to be a hard line at a certain age of development is twofold:

a) I wish to protect human life. Post-viability seems broad enough to me to avoid mistakenly allowing human beings to be killed. I don't think that any fetus is developed enough prior to this to be confused with a human being. Drawing a line in the sand is preferable to allowing leeway because mistakes may be made. This is the same reason that I do not accept euthanasia of even the most severely brain-damaged individual unless they have expressly asked for it (orally or in a living will). The exception is made solely because I see no problem with suicide, assisted or otherwise.

b) I wish to allow as much reproductive freedom as possible consistent with (a). Allowing the requirements to float backwards could end up restricting it.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Geronimo
I admit I'm a bit creeped out when someone doesn't see a very late term abortion for non-life saving reasons to be immoral.

Depending on how late term I may or may not see it as immoral. Nearer the beginning of the third trimester is when I would see it as morally permissible.

My statements regarding very late term abortions earlier were simply information about the current law in Canada, not about my particular moral position.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper


Hmm. Well, according to the story: "Chowdhury said the fall in the number of females had cost one percent of India's GDP and created shortages of girls in some states like Haryana, where in one case four brothers had to marry one woman."

I suppose a loss of 1 percent in a nation's GDP isn't horrible, depending, of course, on the size of its economy. Still, vast parts of India are not that well-developed as it is, so any loss of GDP due to *preventable* factors is a shame, considering it could be used to improve the lives of the aforementioned folks living in those regions.

Gatekeeper

Given that ten million represents 1% of India's population is this really relevant? If we accept that figure the GDP per capita is similar to what it would have been had all the females reached adulthood.

[Deity Dude]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
0.5 simply represents the number of excess female abortions (or infanticides...which is of course much more reprehensible).

The article did not mention the overall abortion rate.

While on an individual scale I do not see selective abortion as being immoral (since I do not believe that fetuses are persons) it can become a social problem when practiced on large scale. A large excess of males can and will lead to a raft of undesirable effects.

I wasn't referring to the article, because I think anytime you take a life unless it is in self defense it is wrong. The article seems to thonk it is only wrong if it due to sex-selection.

My stats came from the UN statistics on abortions by country. India averages around 600,000 abortions per year (roughly 5/6 are female if you believe the article). US about 1,200,000 per year.

0.5 abortions/1000citizens was a rate I calculated by dividing abortions into population. 4/1000 for US was also calculated. My point was we abort 8 TIMES as many babies per capita in the US as India.

It's shameful.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Smiley
Did this type of thing ever happen in the West back before modern times?

In ancient Rome the law permitted abortion up to the 9th............................................... ..................year.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Smiley
Did this type of thing ever happen in the West back before modern times?

There wasn't such a social stigma attached having girls. In most cases, the only time a boy was preferred was when an heir was needed for some title or position. Even then, they didn't kill the girls because they weren't boys. They just had more babies.

But it's cute that you need the West to have had such a problem to make up for it occuring somewhere else now.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by aneeshm


In case you didn't get it, I am explicitly against this practice - but I'm also against double standards. It is perfectly permissible in the West (which cannot be treated as a monolithic entity, but is being so treated for now) to abort a baby within a certain time period for any reason whatsoever.

There is no double standard. In the West, there isn't a massive amount of people having abortions because of gender to the point that it affects the society. Yet in the West, there is a debate about the ethics of abortion. There's simply no comparison with the atrocity occuring in India and even China today.

[Impaler[WrG]]

The scewing of the populations sex ratio should eventualy self correct as men compete for the remaining females (as in courtship not combat). I remember reading that in a particular west African nation ware the husband pays the brides father a large dowery the economic incentive thus created elevates the status of female children. Despire the aparently Patriarcal nature of the society female children were cared for well and no one would think of harming them.

I would suspect that something similar must develop to push the ratio back to normal or atleast keep it from getting too extream.

[DaShi]

Look at how bad this is now. Just imagine if India placed a one child rule like China. There'd be no Indian girls left. Plus, with all the white guys stealing them.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by aneeshm


In case you didn't get it, I am explicitly against this practice - but I'm also against double standards. It is perfectly permissible in the West (which cannot be treated as a monolithic entity, but is being so treated for now) to abort a baby within a certain time period for any reason whatsoever.

The difference is that, as the article mentions, India allows for the killing of newborn babies.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by MrFun




The difference is that, as the article mentions, India allows for the killing of newborn babies.

WTF? Of course it doesn't! Infanticide is murder under Indian law. In fact, pre-natal sex determination tests (used by people wanting to selectively abort the girl child) are also banned.

Where did you get this crazy idea that we'd allow this sort of sh*t?

[DaShi]

10 million dead baby girls can't be wrong.

This was interesting:

The practice of killing the girl child is more prevalent among the educated, including in upmarket districts of New Delhi, making it more challenging for the government, the minister said.

Usually this type of stuff is blamed on the lower class and uneducated. In China, richer families are more likely to accept having a girl. This is probably because they can afford to have more children and the stigma against girls is not as strong as in India.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by aneeshm


WTF? Of course it doesn't! Infanticide is murder under Indian law. In fact, pre-natal sex determination tests (used by people wanting to selectively abort the girl child) are also banned.

Where did you get this crazy idea that we'd allow this sort of sh*t?

I got it from the article quoted in the OP, as follows:

"Ten million girls have been killed by their parents in India in the past 20 years, either before they were born or immediately after, a government minister said on Thursday, describing it as a 'national crisis.'"

Since this is illegal in India, how can the government in India be so obtuse as to only take notice after ten million (many of which may have been killed AFTER birth) have been killed?

What is lacking in India's government to hinder enforcement of the law prohibiting such killings of newborns?

[SlowwHand]

China is worse, by far.

If India has a problem, I don't know. China is well-documented.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Also they're a very aggressive culture and they're making more men to prepare for an invasion of neighboring countries.

I guess that it's time for white people to once again invade and conquer India and impose our rule of law. As history has demonstrated again and again, it's the that's the only way that anything good can come out of the subcontinent.