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This page is not a forum for general discussion about Sex-selective abortion. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about Sex-selective abortion at the Reference desk.

Template:WAP assignment

This article was the subject of an educational assignment in Fall 2013. Further details were available on the "Education Program:Rice University/Human Development in Global and Local Communities, Section 1 (Spring 2014)" page, which is now unavailable on the wiki.

Female preference?

"Sex-selective abortion (also referred to as son preference or female deselection)"

If sex-selective abortion refers specifically to choosing a son over a daughter what would you call it if you were choosing a daughter over a son? Would that not be sex-selective abortion? Can we reword this? Though I personally believe it would be extremely rare I find it hard to believe it has never happened. Freikorp (talk) 04:32, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

This is valid - though no action has been taken for a looong time. Made the change. This article needs much work. DigitalHoodoo (talk) 21:22, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

someone must actualize this article about korea ,korea today is developed and the last korean census showed in actual korea male and female population have almost the same proportion, a developed korea have more respect for women and can't be compared in that field with developing countries like china and india —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.127.104.195 (talk) 01:26, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

>Implying that being developed means that there are no socio-societal problems That argument makes little sense at all, since you're taking two irrelevant premises together, and forming a false conclusion. If Japan is so developed, why does it have such a high suicide rate? If the United States is so developed, why does it have such high firearms death rates? Being economically developed means nothing. If you have a disagreement with the contents in the article, prove it using reliable sources, we can't just take your word for anything. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:57, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Who decides abortion?

Do both the parents agree to the abortion or does the father force the abortion? It seems odd that the mother would want to kill her daughters before they are born is she's a woman. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.237.222.73 (talk) 20:21, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

That's a very naive comment, It's not about a desire to "kill", it's about accepting reality. Unfortunately raising a girl in some of these countries will be a burden compared to having a boy. Freikorp (talk) 16:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

It's indeed naive to assume that women would never harm other women/girls. But (@Freikorp) the reality is that e.g. in India wealthier women are more likely to abort than poorer ones , so these abortions apparently don't just happen for absolute economic necessity. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 17:49, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't necessarily follow that since wealthier families are more likely to abort girls that it is not a financial decision. Sex-selection requires access to ultrasounds, which is available disproportionately to wealthier families. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.196.224.210 (talk) 00:15, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Developed countries in the West

The article should probably include a specific section about the existence of the phenomenon in the developed countries of the Western World, such as Canada, the United States and Western Europe. For instance, there was an article in the Western Standard in 2006 which asserted that Canada had a slightly reduced rate of females born in the country because of sex-selective abortions. ADM (talk)

The article already includes a paragraph about this happening in the US. Feel free to expand it for Canada (or other countries), if there is solid evidence.--Roentgenium111 (talk) 17:51, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

How can a lady allow to remove her body part and that too to kill. It seems to be a self made story — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.187.203.246 (talk) 14:20, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Several revisions for style, grammar, OR, NPOV

I've made a few changes and done some source checking to try and remedy the OP and POV issues on the page; I don't think there's anything controversial. Mainly, I wanted to mention that the edits by IP 156.98.129.16 made on 22 September 2010 were mine (forgot to sign in when working on public IP). DigitalHoodoo (talk) 19:07, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

"Sex-selective infanticide" should not redirect here!

Redirecting "sex-selective infanticide" to this page inappropriately conflates abortion with infanticide - a conflation that is consistent with many points of view, but is in no way a neutral or agreed upon. This is too important and controversial an issue to justify the redirect just based on the two topics being related. Either "sex-selective infanticide" should be moved to its own page (perhaps with a "See also" link to here), or the title of this page should be changed to encompass both practices. Evzob (talk) 17:13, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

"On the rise in the United States" is unsubstantiated

"Sex-selective abortion is on the rise in the United States."

This is unsubstantiated. The article in question says that studies of Sex-selective abortions in the US are inclusive, and the gender ratio at birth is within normal parameters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.226.103.86 (talk) 15:09, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Please read the entire reference. It supports the statement. If you find notable sources that state otherwise, you are free to edit accordingly. However you do not have grounds to remove the entire section. 214.13.69.132 (talk) 04:41, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

"on the rise" is not substantiated by either reference. Neither reference describes the incidence let alone some increase over time. I am editing to indicate that it occurs, which at least one reference support, even if the research paper was of a qualitative study. Wonderbreadsf (talk) 01:38, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

actually the sentence as it was written before my edit is more problematic. It calls out "certain Indian and Asian communities." The qualitative study deals only with certain Indian communities. The other reference goes no further than "may also occur among Asian communities." I split the diff and added 'may' occur. There's other ways to remain faithful to the sources (e.g. don't names specific communities). Feel free to introduce a better one. Wonderbreadsf (talk) 02:21, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

China section

The china section begins "Similar situation is going on in China, too. Every year, about a million girl fetuses is aborted and tens of thousands of girl babies go missing. "

The grammar and style is atrocious. This seems to be written by a child with no attention to grammar, encyclopedia style or conjugation. Could someone please fix this, I'm not good enough at editing to even attempt and this page is part of the reason wikipedia is frowned upon as a scholarly source.

Someone correct this, its making us look bad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.167.136.2 (talk) 05:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Edits

Hello! I am a Rice University student studying Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities. As part of my coursework, I will be revising this article. Specifically, I will be correcting grammar concerns addressed here and changing the structure of the page. Specifically, my changes are as follows:

- Keep/ expand the prenatal sex determination subsection

- Combine the various abortion methods subsections and link to the full abortion article

- Expand each individual country's subsection and the general "other nations" subsection. I might also add a subsection(s) dealing with sub-Saharan African nations.

-My main focus will be expanding the sections about motivations for and implications of sex-selective abortion. Here, I plan to discuss both the argument against and the counterargument for the process and explain (in detail) the demographic implications.

While I think the subsections about individual countries are important, I plan to spend most of my time writing about global and societal impacts. Please tell me if you have any suggestions, advice, or concerns!

168.7.255.168 (talk) 17:34, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

NPOV tags on India and China sections

The new additions lack balance, due weight and neutrality.

For China, the Zhu, Lu and Hesketh paper is not properly summarized. The article needs to include a discussion of sex selective abortion from the particular variant of the one child policy allowing a second child if the first is a girl, which leads to the highest sex ratios. Due weight must be given to the overall scale of problem in China: males under the age of 20 exceeded females by more than 32 million in China, and more than 1.1 million excess births of boys occurred. China will see very high and steadily worsening sex ratios in the reproductive age group over the next two decades. Sex ratio is over 160 for second order, and over 225 for third order births in some regions. The current summary on provinces of China and sex ratio is also confusing.

The last paragraph of China section starts a good and necessary discussion on efforts in China to address sex selective abortion. A similar discussion and style is needed for India for balance, and due weight. See UNFPA on India · Restoring the Sex-ratio Balance. SamanthaBooth (talk) 01:39, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Peer review 1

Great job in improving this article! I can tell that you have done a lot of work on this. You have tons of information in your article, which is great.

I would really work on formatting the article so the information is not so much thrown at the readers at once as it is a logical flow of idea with a beginning, middle, and end. I would also work on trying to format the arguments of different scholars in your sections, especially the case studies sections on India and China, so that the readers can follow the main points of your article well. When you start citing the arguments of different scholars, it gets overwhelming at times to follow your main point as the readers get lost in the ideas of different scholars.

More illustrations can really help back up the numbers and statistics that you have, which can get overwhelming at times. You have a lovely picture of a road at the bottom of the article, but I was really hoping to see some good graphs and data in the case studies section. This really brings your information to life and helps the reader get a clear picture of what you're trying to get at!

As always, keep trying to remain neutral in your article. Whenever you discuss China and India, even when you talk about what different scholars and studies have done, I feel that you have a bit of bias, such as when you say things are "not entirely accurate" and that sort of thing.

Overall, fantastic article! Deniselee26 (talk) 01:42, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Update

I plan to discuss the societal effects of sex-selective abortions in later sections of the article. The country-specific sections are only meant to be an overview of the research performed and past and current data. Specific information about the effect of the One-Child Policy will be added to the subsection about the policy.

Missjenga (talk) 16:50, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Peer Review 2

Overall, I would say that your edits to the article have substantially improved the content of the article. In terms of referencing and the addition of new content especially, the article has obviously been significantly improved.

One primary area which could stand to be improved is in the neutrality of the geographically focused subsections on India, China, and the United States. I would especially focus on discussing in greater depth the methodology of the studies you cite, and avoid non-neutral commentary on these sources. That being said, you have managed to remain relatively neutral for such a polarizing issue. I might also focus on readability within each section, since some paragraphs include enough different types of information that they can be a bit confusing. Beyond these improvements, I might also consider adding further images or illustrations to break up the large blocks of text.

An excellent contribution on the whole! GavinCross (talk) 21:56, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Off topic content, OR and POV

1. The section on abortion and the global abortion law map is off topic and misleading. This is an article about 'sex selective' abortion. A map about 'sex selective' abortion would be better.
2. The article does not summarize the controversy on how and if 'human sex ratios' prove 'sex selective abortion', or whether it is even necessarily implied? William James and dozens of other scholars have published 250+ peer reviewed papers on this question. This is an open, much debated topic - on both sides of the controversy. There are nations and ethnic populations in Europe and the United States with birth sex ratio above 1.08, as well as below 1.02. Does that mean female fetuses are being aborted in former, while male fetuses are being aborted in latter? Can this birth sex ratio be for not-yet-understood natural causes? A summary of this scholarly controversy belongs in this article.
3. Some sub-sections have off topic discussion on abortion policy, rather than sex-selective abortion policy. Once again, this can be misleading. Some claims about China and India seem like OR and POV.

In coming weeks, I will try to constructively edit this article, to address above issues. If someone has objections, please let me know on this talk page. SamanthaBooth (talk) 21:56, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

sex ratio link

See Klasen and Wink in the journal Feminist Economics for an excellent article on missing women. There are quite a few updates to Sen's original excellent work. Don't have time to list them now, but can send references to anyone interested in working further on this topic. Main point: sex ratio may be partly due to sex selective abortion, but also is caused by women and girls unequal access to resources needed for survival.DStrassmann (talk) 18:21, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Any objections

To my adding Female infanticide to the see also section? Darkness Shines (talk) 20:28, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Missing females

Darkness Shines are you referring to the Amartya Sen article? That was published back in 1990. Certainly the numbers are much higher now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/opinion/27douthat.html?_r=0

See Female infanticide. Academic sources only please, not news papers. Darkness Shines (talk) 22:48, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

So we should discard all the many references to non-academic sources? Why should newspapers be excluded as sources? Is this a Misplaced Pages rule? What is your source for the 100 million figure?Jimjilin (talk) 02:09, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

First off, WP:RS does not require "academic sources", whatever those might be. It only requires a reliable source. Well-established news outlets are considered to be reliable for statements of fact. Secondly, Jimjilin's most recent reference is not a newspaper article. It is a book published by a reputable publishing house, in this case PublicAffairs. This meets the criteria for wp:rs unless you can show us evidence to the contrary.

I personally don't think this material belongs in the lede, but numbers that give some indication of the total scope of this practice are needed somewhere in the article. All we seem to have at the moment are ratios, but no indication of what that translates to in terms of numbers. Total global numbers would be ideal, but numbers for Asia, the most heavily affected continent seem notable enough for inclusion. I also think the wording is a little clumsy/emotive, but that doesn't justify removal. Just reword or tag; no need to delete.Mark Marathon (talk) 04:18, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I thought the wording was over the top: "Over 160 million females have been eliminated from Asia’s population..." To me, this sounded like congratulatory high fives, thanking all those who have made the effort be successful. Instead, I used the wording "Over 160 million females have been prevented from being born in Asia..." Binksternet (talk) 08:50, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

On consideration, I would suggest "This has resulted in the abortion of over 160 million female conceptions" or similar. But I will leave it to other editors to decide the exact wording. (talk)

More Edits

Hello! I am a Rice University student and I plan to continue the edits that have been made recently. Specifically, I hope to:

- Resolve the issues regarding POV/ OR in the India and China subsections - Add information to the China subsection (especially about possible causes and implications) - Expansion of "Other countries" subsection - Additional information about sexual discrimination and its possible role in disparate sex ratios - Additional information about the Trivers- Willard hypothesis

If I have more time, I will try to polish other sections of the article. Please contact me about these edits-- I would love input and suggestions!

Missjenga (talk) 04:45, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Peer Review

This article is a well-done, thorough discussion on sex-selective abortion. This article demonstrates some very good qualities including appropriate illustration, mostly good readability and neutrality, and excellent sourcing and content. Here are a few changes that I think may benefit the overall article. I wonder if it is possible to reconcile some of the content between the separate China and One Child Policy section. Also, it might be beneficial to improve the sourcing and discussion regarding the recent developments with China’s One Child Policy. More images and illustrations could also help improve the flow of this rather text-heavy article. Also, it seems like this article is becoming a little too long for the average reader. Are there areas that perhaps could be condensed or even eliminated?

Overall, however, I think that this article is in a good place. General editing and consolidating can help send this article to the next level! Hihappy21 (talk) 23:31, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Peer Review 2

I agree with much of what the previous reviewer said. One thing I noticed was some awkward titles of subsections in this article, particularly under the "Human sex ratio at birth" heading, but throughout the article as well. If there is a way to make these a little more concise, that would add to the article. In addition, adding some images to the article or splitting parts of it into new articles could help improve the article's readability markedly. Overall, great job - this is very complete and is a great resource. Ktpost68 (talk) 08:09, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Edit Warring Over Categories

User:Binksternet, you appear to be edit warring over page categories on the Sex-selective abortion page which has a 1RR policy, and you have reverted my changes twice now. Furthermore, your edits appear indefensible by removing specific categories. According to Misplaced Pages:Categorization#Categorizing_pages, "each categorized page should be placed in all of the most specific categories to which it logically belongs. This means that if a page belongs to a subcategory of C (or a subcategory of a subcategory of C, and so on) then it is not normally placed directly into C." --7157.118.25a (talk) 18:30, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Categories must be a defining characteristic of the topic. You are the one who needs to demonstrate that each category you wish to add meets that standard. For instance, the category "abortion debate" has not been shown to be applicable, as it is not discussed in the article, nor is sex-selective abortion discussed at the abortion debate article. Basically, both sides of the abortion debate are against sex-selective abortion, so that's why it's not relevant here.

Also, you are not following your own advice. Your desired category "feminism and health" is not as specific as its sub-category Female foeticide and infanticide. Same with your wished-for category violence against women which also has female foeticide as a sub-genre. Binksternet (talk) 20:19, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

If both sides of the abortion debate were against sex-selective abortion, then why is sex-selective abortion so prominent today that there are 200 million missing women caused by it? Regardless of whether some pro-choice figureheads decry the practice, the fact that 200 million women are missing in large part due to sex-selective abortion shows this is a practice adopted by the wider abortion movement. Furthermore, since legislation to stop sex-selective abortion is being proposed (and failed in 2012 due in part to Democrat opposition), this is clearly a part of the public abortion debate.

I'll concede your point about the Violence against women and Feminism and health categories, but what about the other 4 categories, Discrimination, Abortion law by country, Gender, and Gender-based violence? Gender I suppose is not that specific, and perhaps should be left out. Discrimination however seems clearly applicable, as sex-selection is inherently discriminatory. Similarly with Gender-based violence, the forced abortions involving the sex-selective abortion controversy would seemingly qualify categorical inclusion. Either way, since sex trafficking is addressed in the article as a potential consequence of the gender gap caused by sex-selective abortion, the category seems appropriate. As for the abortion laws by country category, the fact that the page has a section titled Laws and initiatives against sex-selective abortion would seemingly justify inclusion of the category. --7157.118.25a (talk) 20:48, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the abortion debate. Even your references talk about how everybody on both sides of the issue agree that sex-selective abortion is bad. The existence of some failed political maneuvering on the issue by U.S. social conservatives is not important enough to make it a defining characteristic of the topic. The nail in that coffin is the fact that nothing about it is mentioned in the article. Binksternet (talk) 22:27, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be overlooking the entire Sex-selective_abortion#Laws section which addresses how the issue is being addressed through legislation, not only in the U.S. but in Canada and the U.K. as well. Even IF you could argue that the pro-choice movement considers sex-selective abortion wrong, despite the fact that hundreds of millions of sex-selective abortions are being performed and legislation on the subject is being opposed by the pro-choice movement, it still wouldn't negate the fact that the subject is relevant to the Abortion debate. That's because even if both sides of a debate agree that something is wrong, the fact that it is wrong can still be used as evidence in the debate - as is undoubtedly the case here. --7157.118.25a (talk) 22:49, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

In other words, even if you could successfully argue that the pro-choice movement considers sex-selective abortion wrong (and I'm not convinced you can), it still wouldn't stop the issue of sex-selective abortion from being relevant to the Abortion debate. The fact that wrongful sex-selective abortions are being performed in large numbers is strong evidence for the pro-life side which will be inevitably brought up, which is why the NRLC has an entire page devoted to the subject and legislative confrontations are occurring on the issue in multiple countries. --7157.118.25a (talk) 22:56, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Before you can categorize this article as part of the abortion debate, you will have to compose text saying the abortion debate is a defining part of sex-selective abortion, and put that text into the article. Every single category must be verifiable, it must be neutral, and it must be a defining characteristic of the topic. That's the reef on which your boat has run aground. The sex-selective abortion problem is not widely seen as part of the pro-life/pro-choice debate, despite your apparent glee expressed in relating some minor pro-life political maneuvering, which is not at all answered by equivalent pro-life positive support for sex-selection abortions. Binksternet (talk) 23:34, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Please point to the policy wording on categories that requires for an article to be included in a category, it must contain text specifically saying that category is a defining part of the article. You seem to be imposing a double standard unsupported by policy. For example, the page on George Washington categorizes him in Category:American cartographers but does not link to a page called American cartographers, and only mentions his mapmaking briefly in an image caption otherwise. That he is an American cartographer is recognized, as is his appropriate categorizing as one, regardless of page content, just from commonsense.

Again, that the article already contains a section devoted to legislation on the subject shows this is relevant to the abortion debate. Why would there be an entire page on sex-selective abortion if it WASN'T relevant to the abortion debate? It's a page on abortion, and relevant enough for there to be this much material on it, yet you claim it's not relevant to the abortion debate? You seem to be focusing on semantics without any basis in actual policy for doing so. --7157.118.25a (talk) 06:33, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

There are other pages included in the Category:Abortion debate that don't explicitly mention the words "Abortion debate" or link to the page Abortion debate, that is because the standard for inclusion is not whether they specifically mention the phrase or link to a page with the same name as the category, but whether they fit into the topic according to commonsense (as Sex-selective abortion logically does).

For example, the following pages are included in the Abortion debate category despite not mentioning the phrase Abortion debate: Abortion and mental health, Abortion-breast cancer hypothesis, Abortionism, Ensoulment, Evictionism, David M. Fergusson, Fetal rights, and Gendercide. And that's just through 'G.' You seem to be claiming that every page in the abortion debate category needs to specifically link to the page Abortion debate and mention the phrase to show it is worthy to be included in that category. Yet most of the pages in the abortion debate category do not seem to meet that standard because it's a ridiculous standard not based on actual policy requirements. --7157.118.25a (talk) 06:46, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

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