I remember a story my dad once told me about the government trying to fix the inflation problem in Brazil. It seemed that the government’s response to the rising inflation was to enact laws to force producers to stabilize their prices. The ultimate extent of this “control” was when the government tried to control the cost of beer so the government enacted a law which controlled he price of a can of beer. So, as you can imagine, the size of the can kept getting smaller.
I mention this here because it seems that every time there is an imbalance here, the government enacts some sort of control. Case in point this time is the imbalance in the population, that is, in the ratio of boy babies to girls. The ratio is actually improving from its worst level in 2008 of 114 boys to 100 girls, this year in Shanghai the ratio is 106 to 100 girls and 111 to 100 overall. What this means is that by 2020, millions of Chinese men of marriageable age will be bachelors. The worst imbalance occurs amongst the migrant farmers where the ratio is 121 boys’ to100 girls.
So this week, the government started a new campaign of awareness and has banned “sex-selective” abortions. It is also banning non-medical sex checks. I must say I agree with bringing critical information to the masses and even showing the issue a little more critically than necessary, but I stop short of enacting laws to “control” the population. In the end the real change needs to happen in the societal views and cultural behaviors which focuses on the equality of the sexes. They have a come a long way in having equal opportunities for men and women but the “son” stigma still exists.
Dear Mark,
ReplyDeleteThere is at least a 2,500 year history of preference for male children in China. This has resulted in the maltreatment of women for many generations. Even shortly before the revolution it would not have been uncommon for women to be "imprisoned" in a kind of sexual slavery. This was often sanctioned by "marriage" to several women. Some of these practices are portrayed in the Chinese film "Raise the Red Lantern," set in 1920's China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raise_the_Red_Lantern). Some of the abortions that you object to being banned are forced on the women by their families (some are not, of course - the women also buy into the idea that boys are better).
It is easy to say that government should have no role in people's lives, but are there not some cases where the cultural practices are so abhorrent that the government must intervene. If you think that that China's abortion laws do not reach this level, what about the laws banning female gentile mutilation that exist in the US (http://mgmbill.org/usfgmlaw.htm) or in other parts of the world (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/population/fgm/fgm.htm). Maybe it seems at first look that laws against (coerced?) female fetus abortion do not deal with such a severe problem, but could that be partially because you and I are both men, and have never had to contemplate the process of aborting a child that we are carrying. Could it be that there might not be as much difference as it first appears between gentile mutilation and abortion for sex choice?
Just some thoughts. I certainly do not know the answer, but when I ask myself what "what would I do if I were faced with the problems faced by the Chinese government," things look a lot less clear to me.