Female feticide, etc.

I wonder if the abortion movement realizes how the procedure is used in developing countries? It’s a cruel irony that what is sold as “a woman’s right to choose” is so often used to decrease the population’s percentage of women.

Everybody knows (but few advocates admit) how prevalent sex-selective abortion is in China. The “one-child” policy that is so emblematic of the collectivist mindset has now been around long enough to have produced its first generation of adults. Since the policy was enacted, China’s birthrate has been 119 boys for every 100 girls.

What is less well-known is that the practice is also standard in India. Nationwide the female birthrate has declined to 90 girls for every 100 boys, and in some Punjabi cities the rate is, remarkably as low as 30 girls to every 100 boys. Indians in Great Britain give birth to 114 boys for every 100 girls.

Sex-selective abortion is also on the rise in Africa, in tandem with an increase in the availability of abortion itself.

And it’s not as if females in the good old USA are spared, either. Among Chinese, Korean and Indians in this country the combined ratio for firstborns is 105 boys for every 100 girls, a slight but significant effect. But here’s the kicker: if the firstborn is a boy, the same 105-100 ratio continues for subsequent children in a family. But if the firstborn is a girl, the ratio rises to 117 boys for every 100 girls for the second child, and if the first two children are girls the ratio rises to an amazing 151 boys for every 100 girls for the third child.

Colleen Carroll Campbell (from whom, along with Mark Steyn, the statistics quoted in this post originate) writes that abortion was “touted as the key to liberating future generations of women” but has instead become “the preferred means of eradicating them.”

As with so much of the “social progress” promoted by the various flavors of progressive and leftist political thought in the last century, said progress comes with a steep price. The abortion movement began with the desire for keeping down the black population, and having moved past that is now widely used as a means for keeping down the female population.

How long will women in free countries put up with the feminist movement’s suicidal tendencies before revolting?

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I’ve seen a lot of concerts better than the Tom Petty show I saw on Wednesday, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one more visually stimulating. 6 large video boards ringing the top, 5 cubic video boards hanging halfway up, and one massive video board in the back, along with an impressive array of lights and superb production, it was a concert that a deaf man could enjoy.

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Wall Street Journal correspondent Bill Walsh nails it: "I can think of only one liberal that Obama ought to start talking like: John Locke."

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New England last season was the first team in NFL history to use the shotgun on more than half of their offensive plays (per Pro Football Prospectus). That sound you heard was Woody Hayes rolling over in his grave.

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Hopefully the easing down of oil (and thus gasoline) prices will end any ideas for a “windfall profits tax” expropriation on oil companies. We tried that in 1980, and it decreased domestic production from 9% to 6% and increased OPEC imports from 8% to 16%. And as with all taxes it would be passed on directly to consumers, driving up already high energy prices.

That a scheme to drive up prices, lower production and increase our dependence on foreign oil is even discussed is unfathomable. They must really think we are ignorant.

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One of the funnier talking points of this election year has been the repeated claim that NAFTA causes American jobs to be sent overseas.

I’m not sure if it’s the Great Lakes, the Rio Grande or both that the protectionists consider to be seas/oceans.

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Football prep and a busy social life have kept blogging light lately, but that should ease up some now. Whether or not that's a good thing is left as an exercise for the reader.