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|10.6.04 @ 4:32PM|#
Scientists have so little excitement in their lives, they are forced to "sex up" their research. Same goes for environmentologists.
Granted, there will be repercussions from having too many boys, but I'm not going out on a limb to predict what they'll be.
Except in jest, of course.
|10.6.04 @ 4:48PM|#
I think Ron Bailey hits it on the head at the end: Regardless of your opinions on sex selection, sex selection is less common (and hence less of a concern for those who disapprove) where women are better-educated and more economically viable.
Whether it's because that gives women more power to refuse a husband's demands for sex selection, or because female offspring aren't seen as a burden is unimportant. Either way, the fact remains that the liberal (in the best sense of the word) goal of educational and economic empowerment for women is a much better approach than hand-wringing by bioethicists and calls for regulation.
|10.6.04 @ 5:01PM|#
Wouldn't sex selection be the ultimate Darwin Award? Entire nations and populations wiped out because they've painted themselves into a non-reproductory corner? Oh, the irony!
|10.6.04 @ 5:02PM|#
"a physician from India claimed that if MicroSort became widely available in his country, 90 percent of parents would choose to have only boys...He also noted that in families in which the women were literate, the sex ratios are also close to the natural rate."
Seeing that the female literacy rate in India is around 50%, one of these statistics is off the mark. The pessimistic argument is augmented by the fact that some of the wealthier and more developed states in India, such as Punjab and Haryana, actually have some of the most skewed gender ratios at birth.
Female literacy per se won't end the prevelance of gender selection; substantial changes in cultural attitudes towards women, accompanied by a decline in dowry payments for weddings, are needed. I'd add here that in much of the country, dowry payments have become a larger problem in educated, middle-class families that are active members of India's growing consumer culture than among the illiterate poor.
|10.6.04 @ 5:40PM|#
Last time I checked with the unwashed masses, most people seemed to feel that the ideal modern American family would have a mommy, a daddy, and two kids, one boy and one girl.
In fact, I know thousands of people, and none of them wish they had dozens of boys or nothing but girls (except my cousin's old school EyeTalian cop husband and even he gave up after the 4th baby girl).
|10.6.04 @ 6:39PM|#
I wouldn't be surprised if China starts a war in a decade or so, just to burn off their surplus male population. Or, on a more optimistic note, maybe the Chinese would open their borders and allow people to leave if they want to. They could even abandon their one-child policy if they did that.
Speaking of sex selection, if I were a chemist I would LOVE to invent some colorless, odorless, and tasteless chemical that, if ingested by a male, would make it impossible for him to produce Y-chromosome sperm, thus guaranteeing that said male would have nothing but daughters. Then, I'd travel to hard-core misogynistic countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and dump said chemical into their water supply. Just imagine what anguish those woman-hating fucks would feel if they had nothing BUT women added to their populations!
Maybe the Chinese guys could marry all those girls. I dunno.
|10.6.04 @ 6:48PM|#
Geez Jennifer,
Half way through your post I became frightened (because I'm male)! Then I realized what you'd do with the technology, and I liked it. Damn, you nearly gave me a heart attack. By the way, I want one boy and one girl. If my wife and I have more kids, I could care less about the gender. (I'd never want three of a kind though. That scares me--too much testosterone or estrogen.)
|10.6.04 @ 6:57PM|#
Bill-
Hmm. Oh my. I never considered the possible ramifications of what would happen if this spread out of control. (Blush) I'm so embarrassed. I feel like a member of the Bush administration.
All right, to my above fantasy please add the following modifications:
1. I only make a limited amount of the chemical, just enough to destroy the son-spawning capabilities of the pre-selected countries.
2. I do not write down the formula for said chemical.
3. I keep my identity a secret.
4. I make sure that I'm really truly cataclysmically stoned when I make the chemical, so that even if evil Andrea Dworkin radicals kidnap me and try to torture the formula out of me, I won't have a goddamn clue how I did it anyway.
5. And something to ensure that the chemical can't be found, analyzed and reproduced.
Wouldn't that be cool?
|10.6.04 @ 11:15PM|#
Ooh ooh, and could I have a pony?
|10.7.04 @ 12:26PM|#
Sure! In Fantasy World you can have whatever you want.
|10.7.04 @ 12:45PM|#
Jennifer,
German researcher Gunnar Heinsohn is predicting just what you wrote about China. He also suggests that the so-called "youth bulge" may be in part responsible for terrorism in the Middle East.
Not to say that he's right, but it's an interesting idea.
Highway|10.7.04 @ 1:30PM|#
Point of discussion:
Is there a possibility that these kind of unbalanced situations might be self-correcting? As more boys grow up that cannot marry or have kids, because there are no women to marry them or bear children, wouldn't the value of women, and consequently baby girls, rise to counter the historical bias against them? If 4 Indian boys want to marry one Indian girl, wouldn't one expect a sort of bidding war for the bride? That would seem to have the effect of driving out dowries provided by bride's families.
|10.7.04 @ 1:43PM|#
Highway,
I would think that through most of history one of those 4 boys would kill the other three and mate with the woman whether she liked it or not.
|10.7.04 @ 2:25PM|#
Eric-
Literacy isn't the only measure of education, nor is 50% a particularly high number. Our literacy rate is 97%, and generally speaking any number under 90 is seen as being a sign that improvement is needed.
|10.7.04 @ 3:14PM|#
Jennifer,
"I wouldn't be surprised if China starts a war in a decade or so, just to burn off their surplus male population."
It's possible, particularly given the rise of ultra-nationalist sentiments that have a lot in common with those of Imperial Japan, but it would have to be a pretty big war, and against an enemy that's unlikely to nuke them during the course of the conflict. Russia and India already have nukes, and Japan and South Korea could have them in short order if they felt it was necessary. And there's always the economic factor to keep in mind.
All of this leads me to think that China won't be doing much outside of a potential invasion of Taiwan, an issue where public sentiments have gone completely outside the realm of rational self-interest.
Shem,
"Literacy isn't the only measure of education, nor is 50% a particularly high number."
My point wasn't to state that literacy = education, but rather to bring into question the validity of the argument - stated in Ronald's article - that the gender ratio among children of literate Indian women is close to the natural ratio. Given some circumstantial datapoints, I think it might actually be more skewed for literate women.
|10.7.04 @ 4:10PM|#
This article has convinced me that I don't have to worry about sex selection in the United States.
It has also made me even more certain that I have to worry about sex selection in China. And added India into that equation.
|10.7.04 @ 4:11PM|#
But in general, my thoughts on sex selection come down to -
Pick ME! Pick ME!
|10.7.04 @ 7:49PM|#
joe,
Pick you for what?
|10.7.04 @ 9:50PM|#
I just hope we can avoid J. Neil Schulman's dystopia, The Rainbow Cadenza.
http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/framedex.html
Kevin