“According to a recent United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) State of the World Population Report, these practices, combined with neglect, have resulted in at least 60 million ‘missing’ girls in Asia, creating gender imbalances and other serious problems that experts say will have far reaching consequences for years to come.
“‘Twenty-five million men in China currently can’t find brides because there is a shortage of women,’ said Steven Mosher president of the Population Research Institute in Washington, D.C. ‘The young men emigrate overseas to End brides.’
“The imbalances are also giving rise to a commercial sex trade; the 2005 report states that up to 800,000 people being trafficked across borders each year, and as many as 80 percent are women and girls, most of whom are exploited.
“‘Women are trafficked from North Korea, Burma and Vietnam and sold into sexual slavery or to the highest bidder,’” Mosher said.
“Mosher, the first American social scientist allowed into China, puts much of the blame on Beijing’s one-child policy, which took effect in 1979.
“The policy encourages late marrying and late childbearing, and it limits the majority of urban couples to having one child and most of those living in rural areas to two. Female infanticide was the result, he said.
“‘Historically infanticide was something that was practiced in poor places in China,’ Mosher said. ‘But when the one-child policy came into effect we began to see in the wealthy areas of China, what had never been done before in history — the killing of little girls.’…
“Since the 1970s, India’s government has promoted a two-child family as ‘ideal.’…But the government has done more than just suggest this number.
“‘In India it has been done state by state, village by village,’ Mosher said. ‘There have sterilization campaigns and there is enormous pressure. Villages that won’t comply have been denied fertilizer, access to irrigation water, etc.’…
“Abortion is legal in India under certain conditions, but sex-selective abortions or female feticide is a crime.
“In 1994, the government enacted the Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PC or PNDT), which prohibited those conducting such tests from telling or otherwise communicating to the woman or her family the sex of the fetus. The law was amended in 2003 to prohibit sex selection before or after conception .… However, China has pledged to keep its one-child policy in place until the year 2050, a policy which it admits is ‘related’” to the large sex imbalances in the country.
“‘The implications are potentially disastrous,’ Mosher said. “The answer is economic development, not restricting the number of people.’
“This year, the United States sponsored a resolution at the U.N.’s Commission on the Status of Women that called for eliminating infanticide and gender selection. The resolution was withdrawn due to opposition from several countries, including China and India; however, the issue of prenatal sex selection was included in the final conference document.…”
Source: Sherry Karabin, “Infanticide, Abortion responsible for 60 Million Girls Missing in Asia,” Fox News, 13 June 2007, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,281722,00.html
“Ellen Sauerbrey is a leading Bush administration official who handles population-related issues for the president. She represents the United States at the United Nations and other worldwide gatherings but abortion advocates are targeting her because she carries the president’s pro-life policies wherever she goes …. In her capacity she’s urged that the United Nations not use documents to coerce nations into approving legalized abortion and she called on China to release Chen Guancheng, an attorney who was jailed on bogus charges after calling for the nation to end forced abortions.
“Because of her actions, the Population Research Institute says Sauerbrey recently received a harshly worded letter signed by 19 European Union politicians .… Colin Mason, PRI’s media director, tells LifeNews.com that “The EU politicians told Sauerbrey that by going to Warsaw she would “provide an official U.S. government stamp of approval to extremist and intolerant views held by some participants and attendees.”’
“The letter went on to list some of these pro-life ‘intolerant extremists’ by name, including Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo of the Vatican, the head of the Pontifical Council on the Family, and PRI director Steven W Mosher.
“They criticized Mosher for speaking openly of Europe’s demographic decline and falsely assert that PRI ‘claims that Muslims are to blame’ for all of Europe’s problems.
“‘We stand by our statement that Europe is facing demographic catastrophe,’ says Mosher. “Anyone looking at the falling birthrate in countries from Ireland to Russia Cannot help but conclude that present-day Europeans are committing a kind of national suicide.’
“Mason says ‘The letter may have been the work of the pro-abortion group, Catholics for a Free Choice who first leaked it to the press in an April 17 press release.’
“CFFC president Jon O’Brien called Sauerbrey’s decision to address the conference ‘scandalous’ and accused her of ‘hypocrisy,’ Mason added.
“PRI is pleased that Ellen Sauerbrey has rejected this kind of intolerant bullying, Mason said.
“Secretary Sauerbrey’s appearance at the Congress will help Europe face up to the grim realities of demographic decline,’ Mosher added on behalf of the group.
“‘We welcome the wrong-headed and probably barren politicians who signed this misleading letter to join us at the conference as well,’ he said. ‘They might learn something.’
“Mason says the politicians represent only a handful of the EU Parliament’s 726 members.”
Source: Steven Ertelt, “Abortion Advocates Target Leading Pro-Life Bush Administration Official,” LifeNews.com, 23 April 2007, http://www.lifenews.com/int260.html
