Talk:Sex-selective abortion and female infanticide

Muhammad Ali?
What in the world does the quote from Muhammad Ali have to do with India? (If there's a connection, it's not revealed in the article.) Jdavidb 00:49, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I removed the quote.--Paul McMahon 17:34, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC):

advertisement?????????
its true that there is large scale prevalance of female infanticide and foeticide in Inida but where does these advertisements come from,PNT(prenatal diagnostic tests)are long declared illegal in India and the diagnostic centres need a license to buy a ultrasound scanner,and the tests are permitted only for medical tests under strict regulation,this may not stop sex-selective abortions but no one would dare to advertise as u said in this article,this is a misinformation,pls remove it.I am not cotending that there is no sex-selective abortion and infanticide in India it is much more prevalent in India than anywere else with some districts having sex ratio of less than 750 females for 1000 males in the age group of 0-6.(There is also influence from advertisements saying that it was better to spend $35 to $40 to terminate a female fetus than to spend $3,500 to $4,000 later on her dowry.)

Americans rescuing China's lost girls
Sex selective abandonment is the non-fatal alternative to sex-selective abortion and infanticide. Many Chinese baby girls have been sacrificed for China's one-child policy. 95% Chinese children up for adoption are females. Most Chinese male children up for adoption had disabilities. It also has a positive result in the long run. Many Americans embrace Chinese culture, such as eating Chinese food, buying Chinese ornaments, and, more surprisingly, adopting Chinese baby girls. American and Canadian families are on a mission to rescue China's lost girls from the darkness of the "Dying Rooms." In 1998, China toned down adoption restrictions, letting many unwanted infant girls find homes in my country the United States. These little Chinese baby girls are the most rejected and discarded Chinese people, and their healthy male counterparts living with their biological parents have been dubbed "the little emperors." Chinese baby girls are left in boxes, on the streets, in the woods, on the parks, and in the subways. An increasing number of Americans and Canadians are spending US$3,000 to adopt Chinese baby girls. In 1995, 2,901 Chinese infants were adopted by U.S. citizens, and more and more are adopted in the years afterward. In 2003, 1,108 Chinese infants were adopted by Canadians. Most American parents desire to adopt more than one Chinese baby girl, but one every few years. When Chinese girls are adopted by Americans, they are given western names instead of Chinese names. When they are brought to the United States, they become educated, but learn English instead of Chinese. Chinese baby girls are usually adopted by Caucasian parents. I do not know of any Chinese baby girls who were adopted by African-American parents. Like Lisa Ling, I believe that one day when the lost Chinese girls adopted by the Americans are grown up, they will learn Chinese, and return to China, and change China. Not only that, but I also believe that, as adults, they will get the opportunity to meet their Chinese biological parents, especially the mothers who abandoned them. Decimus Tedius Regio Zanarukando 06:29, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think Lisa Ling is adopted, btw, but that is neither here nor there. pikachupacabra

Article's premise is inappropriate
Combining infanticide and abortion is subscribing to a particular "faith based" view of abortion, and should not be presented as it is here. I believe we all agree that infanticide is murder. We do not all agree on abortion being in any sense equivalent. I would ask the editorial review group to split this article and so remove any bias towards one view rather than another.


 * I don't particularly see any "faith-based" reasonings or logic here. Absolutly no reference to religion is made, and the article establishes a clear link between abortion and infanticide, in that when the abortion does not occur due to law, infanticide does.  I do see POV issues, particularly in the introduction, however.  Specifically pointing out that "even feminists dislike this kind of abortion" seems like a jab, and is unproffessional.  The fact could remain, worded differently though.
 * Facts cannot be POV. This article mostly deals with facts, except in some of the wordings, as I've mentioned.  I would not reccomend splitting the article up.  I haven't read the page proposed for merging yet though... it's possible all the information would fit there. Fieari 02:07, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, I just checked. The other article is basically present in-toto here, so should be simply deleted. Fieari 02:08, 28 January 2006 (UTC)


 * It's possible to be anti-abortion and completely atheistic, and vice versa. Correlation with religious views does not imply causality.  It's also possible to be pro-infanticide, anti-abortion and pro-choice.  That said, putting the terms together in the article title is an insinuation that they are somehow related, and, in this case, they are (i.e., we're talking about only those subsets of abortions and infanticides that are performed/committed on the basis of the fetus's/infant's gender).  In any event, a truly NPOV article would be neither pro- nor anti-infanticide, and simply document the history and the statistics.

This is blasphemy
this article is feminist blasphemy againist indian and chinese beleifs and should be DELETED and whoever wrote it prosecuted for blasphemy!!Pʰil 07:39, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Blasphemy isn't a crime here in the united states. Do you have any problems with the factuality or nuetrality of the article? Could you cite specific problems? Fieari 22:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Just because India and China are the usual suspects here doesn't make it their exclusive problem. I think the neutrality could be better showing data from a larger pool of nations.  That's always easier said than done.  Also, just because it's against their beliefs doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Ojcit 04:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

from consequences
I know this will remain in the edited versions of the page, but the following text was removed (by me) from the conclusion section because it appears to be unverifiable and unsourced. the numbers and studies information that still remains there is also apparently unsourced and uncited and I think that should be rectified. This section I'm pasting below IS INTERESTING but without citation, it just seems to be conjecture, and largely irrelevant to the more serious consequences and problems with selective abortion and infanticide. It needs to be cited.


 * "In both China and India there are already growing rates of violent crime, sexual exploitation, and industrial accident fatalities which many attribute to large numbers of single men. The hypothesis is that single men do not have to return home every night to a wife and child, and thus may have less to lose when they engage in irresponsible behavior.  Due to the shortage of Chinese women, Chinese men have also opted to marry North Korean and Vietnamese women.  Some experts have argued that there is a slim but significant risk of political instability in these countries in the near future.
 * Sex imbalance is a maladaptive strategy in the long term as a family in a country with an excess of men would actually be better off having girls. This is because their rarity makes them more valuable, and women can ignore the worst men (who will be the ones who do not get married). They will actually end up marrying better men than they would if there was an equal sex balance, while families who chose to keep male children face a greater probability of ending up with no next generation."

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.170.138.63 (talk • contribs)


 * I support this removal. Looks like either an argumentitive essay (drawing a conclusion) or original research, neither of which is allowed here. Fieari 02:29, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Other causes of sex ratio imbalances
isn't the gender of a child determined by the father? the chromosome he puts forth is either X or Y, while the mother will always put forth X. I am confused by this section. 67.162.66.69 21:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Right, but remember they don't count zygotes, just infants. There's 9 months in between those events and birth for things to get complicated (twins, premature births, etc.)  IIRC there's research into in utero factors that may favor one gender slightly over another.  It's conceivable (no pun intended) that biological factors could come into play asymmetrically. Ojcit 04:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

careful with stats
"...close to 10 million female fetuses aborted in India over the past 20 years." This statement doesn't tell me anything if it leaves out the number of male fetuses aborted. Also, it doesn't give an indication of how many of those were known to be female before the abortion. Ojcit 05:20, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Patrilineal society of India at the root cause of Female Infanticide
"India's patrilineal and patriarchal system of families is that having at least one son is mandatory". This is not entirely accurate. In many parts of India, (for eg. : Kerala), a matriarchal system was followed. Female children were just as important as male children, and kids usually took the name of their mother's ancestral household/hometown.

Links
I have links for this. I tried to put them up in the stub earlier but I seemed to be having problems with them. I would put a link in and then it would conceal everything after the link. I will try to get these up as soon a possible. Thank you for your patience. If anyone would like to assist the links are supposed to be: after disability in the first sentence.

and (after the second sentence)

Pax, jfraatz

Problem fixed. It's visible now.

Problem solved.
Problem solved. The rest of the text is visible now. oh no no no no no it is visible ... SIMPLY KIDDING............... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jfraatz (talk • contribs) 00:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC).

Removed: "Just shy of nonsense" Its just a stub at the moment give a few days for improvement.
Whoa hold on. It's just a stub. It hasn't been developed yet. Give a couple of days before deleteing. I'll renovate and improve it in the mean time. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jfraatz (talk • contribs) 00:15, March 2, 2007  (UTC)

Merge complete
I boldly merged Prenatal discrimination and Sex-selective abortion and infanticide into this new article, as per Articles for deletion/Prenatal discrimination. This article needs a lot of work as it's absolutely filled with unsourced claims, POV statements and original research. I took the liberty of adding tags at the top of the page and inserting various in-line tags as well. Hopefully editors can fill in the blanks with reliable sourcing. -- Scientizzle 03:58, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have moved this article back toSex-selective abortion and infanticide. "Selective abortion" is far too ambiguous, as there is also selective reduction, which is when the number of fetuses in a multiple pregnancy is deliberately reduced by abortion. The title of this article should give some indication of what is being selected. Also, there is no logical basis for lumping together Sex-selective abortion and Genetic-selective abortion into one article, as the term "prenatal discrimination" is neologistic and POV. I will thus be splitting off content related to genetic-selective abortion into Genetics and abortion in order to preserve thematic integrity. -Severa (!!!) 04:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Citation search
Because the article has been tagged for insufficent citations, we need to hire citation hunters, getting the article in accordance to accepted Wikipedia standards. Decimus Tedius Regio Zanarukando 22:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Scope of title
"Sex-selective abortion and infanticide" is not an accurate title for what actually happens. This is about a cultural phenomenon which is widespread. The fact that it is theoretically possible to kill a fetus or infant because it is male should not be used to detract from the persistent, widespread, internationally-recognized cultural phenomenon of murder of female infants and abortion of female fetuses. Joie de Vivre 22:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

This kind of false "egalitarianism" does a disservice to anyone who wants equality between the sexes. Ongoing murder of baby girls and abortion of female fetuses is so prevalent that there is a marked imbalance between the sexes where the practice continues. If anyone happens to dig up references about the selective abortion of male fetuses (or infanticide), if they happen to exist, certainly they could be included as a contrast. In the absence of evidence of such phenomena, "sex-selective" is a terrible, weasel-worded euphemism. Joie de Vivre 23:09, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The definition of the term "sex-selective abortion" at Abortion is "the targeted termination of a fetus based upon its sex." I do not see any reason why this article should by its design exclude cases of male sex-selective abortion and infanticide. Sex-selective abortion and infanticide of females is vastly more common for cultural reasons and the introduction of this article already states this fact clearly. However, there is nothing preventing the intentional abortion and infanticide of males, on a limited, individual basis. If this article currently lacks information on the occurence of male sex-selective abortion and infanticide, then the solution would be to find and add this information, not restrict coverage of this article solely to female sex-selective abortion and infanticide (although I do agree that everything should be covered so as to avoid undue weight). I've read about it happening before, and will try to find these sources again. -Severa (!!!) 23:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * We certainly can create an article documenting the occurrence of Sex-selective abortion and infanticide of males as well. However, I feel that narrowing the scope of this article with a name that fits all of the examples herein will only improve it. Joie de Vivre 23:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I like the current article title. It's similar to Domestic violence. We don't have a Domestic violence against women article even though the majority of DV is against women, and we clearly don't have (or need) a Domestic violence against men article, even though some vocal POV warriors from the men's movement have created the article before. Similarly, I do think think we need to separate this article based on sex. The article can factually and neutrally discuss the prevalence of the phenomena, and who is most effected. There is no need to change the title for the purpose of creating a content fork when none is necessary. If there is verifiable material that can be sourced and cited on male infanticide, then it can be added, but I have my feelings that a stand alone Sex-selective abortion and infanticide of males article would be rather weak.-Andrew c 00:10, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I also agree that division of coverage on the basis of gender is unwarranted in this case. It is probably better to have a single well-researched, comprehensive article doing the job well, than to have two content forks doing the job poorly. Also, consider Abortion-related violence, which is the combined result of a merge of "Anti-abortion violence" and "Pro-abortion violence." The introduction is out of sync with the current title of this article, which Andrew c has stated he finds acceptable, so I will restore the former previous version of the introduction.


 * On an aside, I just discovered two articles, Male infanticide and Female infanticide, which should probably be merged into this one. -Severa (!!!) 00:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a really ugly form of sexism. We are not under obligation to prop the door open for a nonexistent phenomenon. The entire reason this exists is that millions of girls have been killed because of societal preference. There would not be an article if not for the phenomenon of girl fetuses and babies being killed. I think this "unisex" approach is really ugly, it guts the truth. Joie de Vivre 01:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Another merge
Suggesting this is merged with Male infanticide... 82.32.57.70 17:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


 * And female infanticide. Let's keep it all together rather than having a couple of stubby daughter articles that serve no additional purpose. Richard001 (talk) 06:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree with both. - Mdsummermsw (talk) 20:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree with both. - Mdsummermsw (talk) 20:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Psychohistorical meta-perspective
I don't think that the article should be split or that it's pov. It's a most important subject. As stated above, even atheists (like me) are concerned about the problem.

Historically, infanticide and selective abortion are related. Even in Western history both were common and intertwined, as can be seen in Will Durant's book on Greece.

I've added Psychohistorical views on infanticide in the "See also" section because I believe psychohistory theory provides the meta-perspective to understand this phenomenon. Take a look at this essay, ON THE DEMOGRAPHY OF FILICIDE, which appears after the first two paragraphs of the above, capital-letters link.

—Cesar Tort 00:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Add reference, need help
I added a book: page 248, Images of Women in Chinese Thought and Culture, edited by Robin R. Wang. Pub 2003 by Hackett Publishing. It's a Google 'search inside the book'. I don't know how to format refs. -- —CynRN  ( Talk )  03:00, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

page title
There seems to be a controversy as to whether this page should be ad Sex-selective abortion and infanticide or Sex-selective abortion and female infanticide. If the second one is better, it should at least be something like Sex-selective female abortion and infanticide (different location of female). -Zeus-uc 05:24, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Renaissance Europe
Vernon Reynolds and Ralph Tanner: Biology of Religion argues that in renaissance Italy, England, "Germany" the sex ratio was 1.4-1.6 (male):1 (female) in the nobility attributed to hypergamy-motivated infactide, and also argues that it was nearly 1:1 within the commoners. 188.36.168.72 (talk) 07:24, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

"Watering the neighbor's garden
I have added a section on the Caucasus, relying upon Attané, Isabelle, and Guilmoto, Christophe Z., Watering the Neighbor's Garden: The Growing Demographic Female Deficit in Asia, Paris, Committee for International Cooperation in National Research in Demography, 2007. This is a rich source of data, for anyone wanting to explore it, for all of Asia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.62.158.205 (talk) 13:05, 20 August 2009 (UTC)