SWARAJ is SURAJ

This very readable WSJ review of the book “Unnatural Selection” by Mara Hvistendhal – which documents the tragic reality of tens of millions of girls being aborted in countries like India and China over the last few decades – caught my eye for another reason, one that I had often thought about during my discussions with American feminists and “liberals” in college. That is, to quote from the review itself:

There is so much to recommend in “Unnatural Selection” that it’s sad to report that Ms. Hvistendahl often displays an unbecoming political provincialism. …Ms. Hvistendahl is particularly worried that the “right wing” or the “Christian right”—as she labels those whose politics differ from her own—will use sex-selective abortion as part of a wider war on abortion itself. She believes that something must be done about the purposeful aborting of female babies or it could lead to “feminists’ worst nightmare: a ban on all abortions.”

It is telling that Ms. Hvistendahl identifies a ban on abortion—and not the killing of tens of millions of unborn girls—as the “worst nightmare” of feminism. Even though 163 million girls have been denied life solely because of their gender, she can’t help seeing the problem through the lens of an American political issue. Yet, while she is not willing to say that something has gone terribly wrong with the pro-abortion movement, she does recognize that two ideas are coming into conflict: “After decades of fighting for a woman’s right to choose the outcome of her own pregnancy, it is difficult to turn around and point out that women are abusing that right.”

So what does she propose?

Late in “Unnatural Selection,” Ms. Hvistendahl makes some suggestions as to how such “abuse” might be curbed without infringing on a woman’s right to have an abortion. In attempting to serve these two diametrically opposed ideas, she proposes banning the common practice of revealing the sex of a baby to parents during ultrasound testing. And not just ban it, but have rigorous government enforcement, which would include nationwide sting operations designed to send doctors and ultrasound techs and nurses who reveal the sex of babies to jail. Beyond the police surveillance of obstetrics facilities, doctors would be required to “investigate women carrying female fetuses more thoroughly” when they request abortions, in order to ensure that their motives are not illegal.

As the reviewer Jonathan Last rightly responds

Such a regime borders on the absurd. It is neither feasible nor tolerable—nor efficacious: Sex determination has been against the law in both China and India for years, to no effect. I suspect that Ms. Hvistendahl’s counter-argument would be that China and India do not enforce their laws rigorously enough.

But then I do not fully agree with the reviewer’s following words:

For if “choice” is the moral imperative guiding abortion, then there is no way to take a stand against “gendercide.” Aborting a baby because she is a girl is no different from aborting a baby because she has Down syndrome or because the mother’s “mental health” requires it. Choice is choice. One Indian abortionist tells Ms. Hvistendahl: “I have patients who come and say ‘I want to abort because if this baby is born it will be a Gemini, but I want a Libra.’ “ This is where choice leads. This is where choice has already led. Ms. Hvistendahl may wish the matter otherwise, but there are only two alternatives: Restrict abortion or accept the slaughter of millions of baby girls and the calamities that are likely to come with it.

It is true that is problematic to imply that abortion is OK, unless you happen to kill girls. If abortion is wrong, so is aborting boys, sick babies (as the reviewer writes) or indeed children being born because of extreme and unusual circumstances like rape, incest etc. That is, IF abortion is wrong. This blogger does not have the philosophical, moral, or theological (Christian, Hindu or otherwise) arsenal to answer that normative question. It is, to use a much-despised phrase, “above his pay grade”.

But I do think that there could be a way of squaring this circle somewhat – short of unrealistic bans of on all ultrasounds, and short of a ban on all abortions. Why not re-direct our welfare states (the existing ones in the West and Japan, and the incipient ones in India and China) towards the young, rather than the old? Generously subsidize every child birth – half in the form of an education savings account for the child to be used in the coming years, say, and half – this is what could be crucial – for the biological mother.

In other words, give women – at least relatively poor women – a monetary incentive to have babies. Now, of course this is, to channel Newt Gingrich, right wing social engineering, which ironically could have various unintended consequences – adverse ones for social conservatives, ironically. For example, would this further encourage single and/or underage motherhood, especially amongst socio-economically underprivileged women? Maybe the monetary incentive should be higher for married women? – but then wouldn’t that a) be less targeted – married women may be marginally less likely to abort babies b) economically “regressive” – married women may also tend to be financially better off, on average. Perhaps, a better way would be to have a “top-up” subsidy for babies which are given out for adoption via the appropriate procedures. Of course, it goes without saying, there is no silver bullet here.

In short, while there is no easy clear-cut answer for one of the great moral debates of our times but to make abortions “rare”, at least one set of tools has to rely on monetary incentives. Subsidize child-birth, especially adoptions, and cut government welfare for the aged (especially those coming from the upper-middle classes). In the US, this could mean partially mean-testing Social Security whereas in India it could mean having more of our healthcare/maternity budgets re-directed towards subsidizing births of female children, and a further subsidy for adoptions (especially that of girls).