The slaughter of unborn and baby girls throughout the third world is receiving greater attention, reaching the level of the United States Congress, the European Parliament, and the United Nations. But concrete actions to outlaw the practice are thwarted because they cannot but conflict with a “woman’s right to choose.”
Sex-selective abortion is no longer confined to the third world. It is now a reality in more advanced countries. On April 17, 2012, in the article Gendercide is Here, CalCatholic documented the practice right here in California:
“Continuing a trend identified for prior years, several California counties had abnormally low female-to-male birth ratios among Asians in 2010, a development that was associated with the proliferation of keepsake ultrasound centers that offer gender-determination services…For several years, Lin has been examining birth-gender ratios (female births per 1,000 male births) to investigate if commercial access to 4D keepsake ultrasound studies could be facilitating gender-specific abortion among Asians in California.
“In 2010, (Dr. G. Sharat Lin) presented research at the AIUM meeting that hinted at a relationship between keepsake ultrasound and birth-gender ratios in the state….Lin found that Asian ethnic groups in the county who were known to have a traditional gender preference for boys had clearly lower female-to-male birth ratios than those Asian ethnic groups who did not have a preference…. Statewide, Asians have had the lowest birth-gender ratio (considered to be less than 930 female births per 1,000 male births) among ethnic groups in California from 1995 to 2010.”
In 2012, Congressman Trent Franks sought to make the sex-selective abortion illegal in the U.S. with the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, but it was unable to pass congress. The bill needed a two-thirds majority to be fast tracked and although it passed 246-168 on a mostly party line vote, that did not meet the required threshold. The U.S. is not alone among first world countries in failing.
On October 8, 2013 the European Parliament adopted the Gendercide Report by Greek delegate Antigoni Papadopoulou with 567 votes in favor 37 against and 54 abstentions. What “adopted” means is not exactly clear: the report condemned the practice of sex-selective abortions but offered no legislative remedies whatsoever. As National Right to Life News reported: “…it fails to support legislative measures to stop any and all abortions that are based solely on the child’s sex and appears to issue an exemption for those sex selection abortions based on the mother’s ‘choice’.”
The United Kingdom is not part of the European Union. But the country is confronted with the same issue. And on October 7, 2013 the day before the EU’s parliament adopted the Gendercide Report, the Daily Mail reported that Keir Starmer, the UK’s director of public prosecutions “declared that nothing in abortion law prevented a woman from terminating her pregnancy because she did not want a girl.”
Three days after that, on October 10, 2013 the Catholic Herald UK reported that in Australia a Catholic doctor, Mark Hobart, faces sanctions for refusing to abort a healthy 19-week-old girl and for refusing to send the parents to another doctor who might have performed the abortion. Simon Caldwell wrote “The Melbourne-based medic is being investigated by the Medical Board of Australia and also by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency – the Australian equivalent of the General Medical Council – and he could lose his license to practice medicine anywhere in the country.”
One of the first in California to bring awareness of the issue have been Gino and Nyna Caputi. The Caputis are Catholic Bay Area filmmakers, who have been working on a movie called Petals in the Dust, which documents sex-selective abortion and female infanticide in Mrs. Caputi’s native India. The couple was motivated following their experience in trying to adopt a baby girl from India. At that time they were surprised to find that in the part of India they were visiting, there were no baby girls to adopt. They had all been killed. As Mrs. Caputi researched the issue and learned more about the practice of sex-selective abortion and gendercide, she decided to act.
In 2010 Mrs. Caputi established the Global Walk for India’s Missing Girls. This year’s walk will be held on Saturday, October 26 in 25 cities spread out over five countries. The San Francisco walk will begin at 11:00 a.m. at City Hall, and will proceed to the Ferry Building. For more information, visit www.petalsinthedust.com and click the Take Action link.
Where are the feminists, fighting for their own gender?
good cause asks, “Where are the feminists, fighting for their own gender?”
good cause, So called feminists are similar to so called Catholics who voted for Obama and so called Catholics who undermine the clear teachings of the Church. A famous so called feminist will rage about protecting women from very violent men on one television show and then if you turn the channel the very same so called feminist is raging about the right of a woman to pay a violent man to murder her living and developing baby daughter in the womb. This particular style or pattern of reasoning is what Sister Lucia of Fatima warned us about. This is the wave of diabolical disorientation that has swept up many in their very misguided way of rationalizing and thinking.
That is a very reasonable question that you asked good cause and a truthful observation but there is much more to it then to just ask that question.
good cause, You have been asked on more than one occasion, “Just what is your good cause?” Your own posting history is much like the inconsistent sounding feminists. You on rare occasion talk about a “good cause”. This pattern of behavior in feminists and your own posting history exposes the reality that these terribly inconsistent styles show that these individuals do not truly care about all women nor do many so called Catholics care about or accept all of the teachings of the Catholic Church. The bottom line is that someone ends up serving the wrong master…. all the while thinking that they are working for a “good cause”.
This is a faithful Catholic website and Church Teaching is clear. Our posts should be consistent.
My heart breaks at this ugly reality on other parts of the world. I wish I can take those innocent baby girls and adopt them all. Just even thinking about it makes me want to cry.
In biblical times, you read about how they killed off the first born sons….now look, its the girls. Joseph had to protect Jesus from being killed. Praise God he took Virgin Mary, baby Jesus and fled. Just as he was warned.
Lord please save these baby girls. The poor mums too having to feel so helpless and unable to do anything or sometimes they themselves don’t want their daughters. Growing up I was told (by the secular) that girls weren’t important and the message was that girls are more likely to get pregnant or be sexually abused. I wanted to prove them wrong. Even now you hear about how its easier to raise boys than girls. Yes perhaps in a dark way they are correct because this wicked society is sexually exploiting our girls. The message from almost everywhere, they give out the message that girls have no self control, so they push the pill on them. The message is that they are nothing if they are not sexy, pretty, skinny and intelligent. But the reality is that we are also to be concerned with our boys too. But in this case, where girls are murdered because of simply being, its heartbreaking. God help us….
Don’t forget Molech.
So babies are being aborted here in California just because they are girls. This article suggests that this is an “Asian” practice. Don’t expect any outcry from any of the California Archdioceses anytime soon. After all, they are all about encouraging us to embrace and celebrate all the different cultures which make up our population. Aren’t we told that all of these different cultures are a “gift from God”?
So, Tracy, do you think other cultures are a “curse from God,” or what?
EVERY culture has good and evil in it and needs to be purified by the Gospel.
The American culture (whatever that is) need cleansing, and so does the culture of Africa, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and Greenland.
All human beings are sinners, in need of Jesus Christ.
Bill, you are correct in that every culture needs purification via the Gospel. That is why it is paramount that all Catholics cleave to revealed Truth, adopt a truly Catholic mindset, and then live it full on rather than give sway to anti-Catholic practices under the auspices of enculturation or false charity.
That is why you have feminists, those who used to stand for the protection of family, promoting cancer causing birth control (which also adversely effects the water table), unrestricted abortion (which kills both men and women, not to mention the soul and psyche of the mother), and advocating the redefinition and/or deconstruction of traditional marriage.
The ‘curse’ from God is not a curse per se, but rather the reality that, “….all the gods of the Gentiles are demons.” We have been duly warned. Cultures that are founded on false religions/ideologies (sorry Pope Francis) will likely encompass practices that are inherently evil. And they do.
That said, the United States is steeped in all manner of error thanks to confusion on this very issue. So we will reap what we have sewn – tepidity, error, and all manner of punishment (targeted at women if stats in Asia are the forerunner) in return for CHOICE!
What a line.
Ann, excellent post! The only thing I would add for clarification purposes is that when the Israelites chose to adapt to some of the practices of their pagan neighbors, God allowed the Gentiles to enslave them. God actually instructed the Israelites how to live. So you might say He did designed their culture! When Jesus came He established His Kingdom and the stakes where set even higher than before.
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