by Patrick Appel
Mara Hvistendahl, author of a book on sex-selective abortion, responds to Ross Douthat's repurposing of her research. She insists that women, not fetuses, are the victims of sex-selective abortion:
Abortion is part of the story of how sex selection became rampant in Asia. But this is because abortion was introduced to much of the continent — with a great deal of Western pressure — as a method of population control, not as a woman's right. Abortion rates soared in countries like Vietnam, South Korea and China as women were forced or strongly encouraged to abort. That dark history of abusing women's bodies has fed into the prevalence of sex-selective abortions today.
No one combating sex selection in China or India now argues that the appropriate reaction to decades of violating women's rights is to swing in the other direction and violate them further. Just as a woman should not be forced to abort a wanted pregnancy, she should not be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.
Douthat fights back.
The Dish 