I dislike arguments from authority on internet debating sites because in this environment one person's authority is often as big as the next man's :-). I much prefer to hear people's individual views. Putin, however, has called me out on a view points in this debate and I feel compelled to answer in this more formal tone.
On whether sex selection actually occurs in the USA:
Almond, D., & Edlund, L. (2008). Son-biased sex ratios in the 2000 United States Census. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(15), 5681-5682.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2311342/
You will note the nature of the source. It is not a pro-life or pro-choice agenda group; it is baby as an unbiased a source as one could hope to find.
From the summary:
The ratio of male to female births exceeds the biological norm of 1.05 (1) in a number of Asian countries, notably India (2, 3), China (4, 5), and South Korea (6, 7). Availability of prenatal sex determination and induced abortion have been identified as important factors (3, 8), to the point of the former being (ineffectively) banned in India and China. Sex selection is no less controversial outside Asian countries, but so far there has been little evidence of prenatal diagnostics being used to that end (an exception being ref. 9).
We document male-biased sex ratios among U.S.-born children to Chinese, Koreans, and Asian Indians in the U.S. The male bias is particularly evident for higher parities, echoing patterns in the corresponding Asian countries (4, 6, 10). At third parity, sons outnumbered daughters 1.51:1 if there was no previous son. As a comparison, for India, the corresponding figure was found to be 1.39:1 in a recent large-scale survey (2
Son-biased sex ratios were found despite the absence of many of the factors advanced to rationalize son bias in India, China, and Korea, such as China's one-child policy, high dowry payments (India), patrilocal marriage patterns (all three countries) (11), or reliance on children for old age support and physical security.
A more detailed academic study of the subject is to be found by the following authors. I think that the journal is reputable. It certainly makes interesting reading:
Abrevaya, J. (2005). Are there missing girls in the United States? Evidence from birth data. Evidence from Birth Data (February 2008).
http://atlantis.terry.uga.edu/economics/docs/abrevaya_missing_girls.pdf
•62% of U. S. geneticists had received an outright request for sex selection by prenatal diagnosis. (75% reported that they had received a “suspected request” under alternative pretences).
•When asked about the hypothetical case of a couple with four daughters who desire a son and will abort a female fetus, 34% of the U. S. geneticists would perform prenatal diagnosis for sex selection and an additional 38% would refer the couple to a geneticist that would.
•26% of the U. S. public sample respondents would use a “safe and accurate method of precon-ception sex selection such as separation of X and Y bearing sperm.” 40% of respondents thought that such a method should be available without restrictions
And crucially
The evidence from the California natality data is particularly striking for Indian births between 1991 and 2005: second-born children are 0.9 percentage points more likely to be boys, third-born children 6.6 percentage points more likely, and fourth-born children 8.1 percentage points more likely. Moreover, Indian parents are significantly more likely to have a boy (and a terminated pregnancy since last birth) if they have had only daughters previously. The simple framework of Section 4.5 suggests that the unusually high boy percentages among third- and fourth-born Indian children in California would be consistent with gender-selective abortion rates of around 10% (and gender-determination rates of around 20%).
The authors then go on to discuss the influence of hepatitus B on these figures and conclude by saying:
First, for hepatitis B to account for the estimated birth-parity effects, it would have to be the case that its incidence becomes significantly higher at later births. The California data, however, suggest no such trends in hepatitis B prevalence at later births for any of the races.
And
Second, the most significant findings of Section 4 involve Indian births, whereas the “hepatitis B effect” of Oster (2005) is found to be relatively smaller in India than in China. The reported incidence of hepatitis B among Indian mothers in California is similar to the reported incidence among black mothers in California.
On sex selective abortion in the UK, there is this peer reviewed paper, again from a reasonable journal:
Dubuc, S., & Coleman, D. (2007). An Increase in the Sex Ratio of Births to India‐born Mothers in England and Wales: Evidence for Sex‐Selective Abortion. Population and Development Review, 33(2), 383-400.
http://www.spsw.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/pdf/WP35__Sex-ratio_of_births_to_India-born_mothers.pdf
Again from the summary:
“With more than a 4-point increase over time, the trend among India-born mothers is too sudden and pronounced to have a likely biological or environmental cause.”
And
“In the British context, abandonment or infanticide of concealed (unreported) births on this scale is inconceivable: birth registration is believed to be nearly complete. The most plausible explanation is that, just as in contemporary India and China, prenatal sex diagnosis of foetuses’ and subsequent abortion of female foetuses’ are becoming more prevalent in the context of continuing son preference but declining fertility.
The question then arises why Putin, as familiar as he is with this subject, denies the existence of this phenomenon in the USA and UK. I honestly do not think that he is a mendacious liar, but I do think that he is so blinded by fighting what he perceives to be his righteous corned that he is in a state of denial. Perhaps this happens to all of us on occasion?
Posts may follow on other aspects of this debate, but for now I will leave it there.
I think GameStation own my immortal soul
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