Something to think about ...

An article out of Canada is claiming that there's enough pre-natal sex selection going on in that country these days to skew the demographics much like they skew in China and India.

Although the initial reaction to such a report may include no little shock that this is happening in a progressive Western country, it's apparently the immigrant population perpetuating discriminatory practices learned in their former homes that is causing the shift.

Extrapolation from Statistics Canada census data reveals that in several areas highly populated by immigrants from India and China, the gender ratios are often as out of proportion as they are in Gujarat. Boys and girls aren't supposed to be born with equal frequency, of course. Mother Nature accounts for the higher male mortality rate by producing, under normal circumstances, 105 boys for every 100 girls. But in Surrey, where Heather Stilwell noticed she was handing out more dinosaur books and fewer pink book bags, and where the total population of nearly 350,000 includes 114,725 immigrants—35,380, or nearly a third, of whom are from India—the number is dramatically different. In 2003, instead of 105 boys to every girl, there were 109. In 2000, it was nearly 111, in 1999, 107, and in 1998, 110.

In Coquitlam, B.C., where Chinese immigrants currently make up 12 percent of the population, for every 100 girls born in 2003, there were 112 boys. In 2001, it was 109, and in 2000, there was a startling 16 percent gap—116 boys to 100 girls. In 1998, it was 115 boys. It's the same story in Richmond, B.C. In the city of 164,345, roughly 64,270 people arrived via China or Hong Kong. There, it was 112 baby boys to every 100 girls in 2003. In 2000, the ratio was 111 to 100. In 1997, 114 to 100.

In areas around Toronto boasting large clusters of arrivals from India and China, the numbers are every bit as aberrant. In north Etobicoke, where the population is made up of large numbers of Indian immigrants, the 2001 boy-to-girl ratio for kids under age four was 110 to 100. In heavily Sikh areas of Brampton, parents had 109 boys to every 100 girls. In the neighbourhood encompassing Toronto's eastern Chinatown, 108 boys to 100 girls. In southern Scarborough, where large numbers of Indian immigrants have settled, it was 107 boys to 100 girls.

Compared to other areas of Canada, the deviation is as obvious as it is sobering. To put all of it into perspective, since the communities mentioned above have seen hundreds of thousands of live births in the last decade, the number of missing daughters may be somewhere in the thousands.

After extrapolating the consequences of a population unevenly divided male/female both globally and in Canada, the article eventually takes on the issue of abortion on demand, every woman's right in Canada.

Proponents of a woman's right to choose, most often proponents of women's rights in general, are now faced with the impossible dichotomy that is reproductive control resulting in female foeticide.

One view, from an obvious anti-abortion stance:

The irony isn't lost on pro-lifers, such as Joanne McGarry, executive director of the Catholic Civil Rights League. "The National Action Committee on the Status of Women must have a heck of a time with this one," she says. "All that successful lobbying on the slogan 'the issue is choice,' only to discover that for some, the choice is to eliminate the girls."

The other side of this always contentious fence:

Joyce Arthur, spokeswoman for the pro-choice Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada established last fall, says that abortion is a woman's choice alone, and should remain so. ARC has even issued a position paper on sex-selection that makes its support for the practice clear. "Being pro-choice means supporting a woman's right to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy for whatever reason, even if one personally does not agree with her reason," the paper reads. The group suggests that those offended by the practice should place blame on the societal norms that motivate couples to abort female fetuses for want of a boy. "The root issue is the value and respect—or lack of value and respect—that society and certain cultures give to girls and women," explains the position paper. "The answer lies in education and raising the status of girls and women over the long-term, not in restricting abortion."

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