Marvin Olasky writes: …in India, where cars stop for sacred cows but abortion or infanticide of little girls is rampant, the problem is very visible on streets where young men without women prowl. Skewed birth statistics tell the story. For example, look at the district-by-district birth figures for areas surrounding the ancient pilgrimage region of Madurai in south India. Usilampatti in December 2002 had 910 male births and only 690 female ones. Chellampatti had 848 male births and 623 female ones.
The situation is much the same in China, and will get much worse as access to pre-birth sex-identification technology improves. In Italy, the birth rate has already dropped to 1.2 per woman, far short of the 2.1 needed to keep the population stable. As in India, a son is usually preferred. The irony is that the historically dubious notion of female equality is looking increasingly likely to kill off entire societies in less time than some of the most savage wars in history, mostly by significantly reducing the number of women. Freud asked, famously, what women want. Judged by the results, the feminist answer appears to be divorce, lesbian chic and dead little girls.
Environmentalists and those worried about population explosion may cheer declining birth rates, but I expect that in 25 years or so, when the demographic chickens seriously begin to come home to roost, they’ll feel rather differently. And as Denmark, Holland and France are learning, importing individuals from manifestly different cultures to make up the gap creates significant new problems of its own.
On a tangential note, here’s an interesting essay on Italian demographics and the immigration issue. It’s even got two quotes from Umberto Eco’s Cinque Scritti Morali. Che bello!