Mara Hvistendahl, the author of the book on sex-selective abortion Ross Douthat relied upon for his argument that the "liberal West’s current vision of human freedom bears responsibility for 160 million (and counting) missing girls," argues that Douthat has it wrong.
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.
This is what I was trying to get at yesterday. International access to abortion is in part a legacy of a time when the U.S. was worried about overpopulation detracting from the fight against communism, not a focus on women's rights. Douthat responds to Hvistendahl here.
But look, if you're positing that banning abortion is the solution to sex-selective abortion, then you have to posit women's rights as the problem, because otherwise you're in the awkward position of arguing that the cure for a symptom of women's lack of agency is...further denying them agency.
