“Aborting baby girls proves Britain’s multiculturalism experiment has failed”, writes ex-Guardian writer Suzanne Moore in the Telegraph:
“…there are those who so value sons over daughters that they pressurise the women in their communities to abort female foetuses. This grim practice is called sex-selective abortion, and while most might assume that it only happens in the likes of China and India, it is in fact taking place in Britain too, among both first and second-generation immigrants whose roots lie in the Indian subcontinent.
It is rarely spoken about, but has come to light of late after the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which provides abortions to more than 100,000 women across the UK annually, was criticised for suggesting that termination on the grounds of “foetal sex” was not illegal.
Official advice, however, begs to differ. “This Government’s position is unequivocal: sex-selective abortion is illegal in England and Wales and will not be tolerated,” the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said this week. “Sex is not a lawful ground for termination of pregnancy, and it is a criminal offence for any practitioner to carry out an abortion for that reason alone.”
Later in the article she gives her own view:
I may believe in a woman’s right to choose but this is not about choice. This is about maintaining “traditions” which dictate that sons are prized breadwinners and girls are to be married off.
I do not see any good reason for the scare quotes Suzanne Moore put around the word “tradition”. A tradition of which Suzanne Moore disapproves is still a tradition. Nor do I see any good reason for her saying “this is not about choice”. It quite obviously is about choice. Unlike Ms Moore, I am closer to being “pro-life” than “pro-choice”. Here’s an old post of mine that talks about that. I do not agree with the view that the question is simply one of a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body; there is another life involved. The exact weight to give the competing rights of the foetus depend on a lot of factors, primarily how developed – how far from being a clump of cells and how near to being unquestionably a baby – the foetus is, but also including other factors such as the risk to the mother and whether the foetus is developing normally. However if one grants that a woman’s right to choose abortion does override the foetus’s right to life in particular circumstances, then the nature of a right to do something is that the person with that right does not need the approval of others to do that thing.
Putting it another way, how can it be justified that a female foetus that is solemnly decreed not to have a right to life suddenly gains that right if the woman wants to abort because of sexist tradition? Does that still work if the foetus is male and the woman wants to abort it because she’s a radical feminist?
However if one grants that a woman’s right to choose abortion does override the foetus’s right to life in particular circumstances, then the nature of a right to do something is that the person with that right does not need the approval of others to do that thing.
I was with Natalie, logically, until the last sentence.
I don’t see why a right can’t be conditional on all sorts of things. It’s a conditional right. Maybe the condition is that the wee bairn is less than six months old (measuring from conception.) Maybe the condition is a payment of five thou to the doc. Maybe it’s consent from hubby. You can have a stock option giving you the right to buy some shares in your employer at such and such a price ….. so long as you’re still employed by the company.
Lee Moore, the factors such as age, consent of husband/partner and many other possible factors is what the part about “particular circumstances” was meant to say. Perhaps I did not phrase it well. I meant that it is absurd that the difference between a particular abortion in particular circumstances being justified and not being justified should hang on whether the woman is doing it out of a traditional preference for boys.
Aborting mainly female fetuses is just plain dumb. It gives an uneven divide between the sexes — too many men, not enough women. That means a lot of frustrated males, and who knows what frustrated males might do. It can make them awfully mean.
Of course for some populations, a surfeit of mean, frustrated males isn’t a bug. It’s a feature.
Allow me to drone on a bit about the preference for sons.
Yer basic biological theory says that sexually differentiated creatures will evolve to make equal investments in male and female offspring (which is not necessarily quite the same as equal numbers of male and female offspring – eg if one type is cheaper to make than the other type.)
But with humans it pretty much does mean equal numbers.
However because male humans have greater variability in mating success than female humans, and because a male human’s mating chances are helped by his social status, whereas a female human’s are not, it would be rational to prefer sons if you are a parent of high social status, and daughters if you are of low social status. The equality between the sexes would therefore be an aggregate thing.
The abortion math would be tricky though, because aborting offspring writes off the investment to date; while saving the investment yet to come. The latter is probably more important as human offspring take a very long time to get through the production line and are very costly to produce as finished goods.
PS moral considerations contributed not a thing to this comment.
Although it’s framed as “a woman’s right to choose”, it’s a hell of a lot more common for men to pressure
women into getting abortions they don’t want than to keep babies they don’t want.
Moore is asserting that in most of these cases the women aren’t choosing to abort girls, they’re more or less forced to.
Ellen, I agree that the results of a surplus of males will probably be as you say. It’s a bad tradition and I’d be quite happy with it being opposed by such means as a campaign of public services adverts on TV and posters in doctors’ waiting rooms. What I cannot explain is why those who passionately support a woman’s right to abortion as her individual human right then say it can be overridden by social engineering considerations.
Yes – logically if it is O.K. to get rid of babies, then it is O.K. to get rid of babies because-they-are-girls. Either before or AFTER birth (remember the American Democrats are quite happy with getting rid of babies after birth – not “just” before).
However it is NOT O.K. to get rid of babies.
The Soviet Union was the first power in modern times to legalize abortion – but Stalin decided it was going too far.
The policy was too extreme even for Joseph Stalin. Someone tell the pathetic Mr Putin that – as abortion proceeds apace in his “Holy Mother Russia”.
By the way – this is nothing much to do with religion, as the Scholastic philosophers pointed out – natural law (moral good and moral evil) is the law of God, BUT if God did not exist the moral law would be EXACTLY THE SAME.
In my youth the most famous atheist was Christopher Hitchens – he was also pro life.
As for the British state – during the Covid lockdowns it did not bother with cancer (it still does not bother – when I went for my prostrate exam I was told “don’t you know there is a strike on?”) – but abortion was declared “essential medical care” and this chopping up of babies was to continue regardless of the Covid lockdown.
This shows all that needs to be known about the British state.
ggeorge m weinberg, although Moore is asserting, probably correctly, that in many or most of these cases the women aren’t aborting girls by choice, nothing she has said in the article is less than fully approving of the law that says that sex-selective abortion is illegal even if the woman does want it.
It is also worth noting that the British state believes abortion is more importation than the “devolution” it claims to believe in.
For example, abortion was forced on Northern Ireland – because a judge said that abortion was mandated by some “human rights” Convention or Declaration.
Which shows all anyone needs to know about modern “human rights” “Declarations” and “Conventions”.
And “liberal” judges are the same in the United States – they would also use “international law” to push this, and many other, evils.
Real liberals, such as Gladstone and John Bright, would know how to respond to such judges.
That sounds like a really painful way to do it.
(Yeah, ok, bad taste. Moving on . . . )
“You’re not killing enough boys” really does appear to fit in with the progressive anti-masculine times, doesn’t it? Empowering women wasn’t supposed to turn out this way, and so the new fem PTB are outraged.
If it’s a woman’s right to choose, they can’t hardly get mad when they . . . you know . . . choose. And if they have to choose the way you want them to choose, then it’s not really THEIR right you’re speaking of. Language can be such a bother for a committed ideologue.
There also appears to be an expectation of reverse causality going on.
High social status families preserve high social status by having boys. Therefore, if we only have boys we will be high social status.
If you’re aborting a foetus purely because its a girl, how is that not eugenics?
As i understand, in China, and probably elsewhere (but not everywhere), boys are a better investment because they are expected to take care of their parents when they grow old. Girls are expected to take care of their husbands’ parents.
Robots will eventually solve this problem.
So, question: if it is not OK to abort female fetuses because that is discriminatory and girls’ and boys’ lives are equally valid. Why then is it OK to abort a fetus with a trisomy like downs’ syndrome? Are we to say that a kid with downs has a life that is less valid than a person who doesn’t?
In some respects and in some societies a girl IS a bigger burden on a family, just as a kid with downs is. But both girls and disabled kids can go on to live a delightful and happy life of course.
Just in case my daughter ever reads this, in the society I live in my daughter is the opposite of a burden, she is the thing that brings me more joy and happiness than anything else in this world, and I know for sure I am FAR more likely to end up living in her basement than my sons who are also my wonderful people, who fill my heart with joy.
It’s simple Orwellian reasoning:
A fetus is government property, and aborting a fetus is a privilege that can be arbitrarily granted to or withheld from the woman bearing the fetus, with the only limitation being that the government cannot grant or withhold its permission for reasons that are ‘Right Wing.’ Because the only sin, the only evil that exists is the sin and evil of being ‘Right Wing.’
bobbyb wrote:
“If it’s a woman’s right to choose, they can’t hardly get mad when they . . . you know . . . choose. And if they have to choose the way you want them to choose, then it’s not really THEIR right you’re speaking of. Language can be such a bother for a committed ideologue.”
Nominate for SQOTD.
llater,
llamas
I very much doubt that Stalin objected to abortion on moral grounds. Shortage of cannon fodder and factory fodder more like.
It’s the old saw about the man who offers a woman in a bar $10million to have sex with him, then hands her a $10 bill when they get to the bedroom. “But you said $10million!” she protests. “Ah,” he replies. “But we’ve already established you’re a prostitute, now we’re just haggling over the price.”
With most of the western world generating births at below the replacement rate, the practice is unsustainable. Orphanages no longer exist as the adoption demand far exceeds the supply of infants.
Societies which don’t value girls don’t have a tradition of “bride price”, a perfectly reasonable system whereby a husband compensates a father for raising his future bride.
Incidentally, child brides make perfect sense if you consider daughters to be a financial liability to be disposed of as soon as possible.
If it is O.K. to kill babies for no reason – then it is O.K. to kill babies for the reason that they are girls, or for the reason that they are the “wrong” race – after all (for example) the left teach that white people are inherently evil.
At least the Democrats in the United States are consistent – they teach that babies can be eliminated after birth as well as before birth.
But to return to the specific point of the post – yes, if it is O.K. to kill babies for no reason, then (logically) it must also be O.K. to kill babies because they are girls – or because they are boys.
As Senator Mike Lee (along with many others) has pointed out – the Harvard magazine (Harvard is the oldest and most “prestigious” university in the United States), and many other establishment left organs, call for the “destruction of the white race” – “not deconstruction, destruction”, “bashing” “white males” and “white females” till this ethnic group is destroyed.
Abortion and other means (such as feminism – mass contraception, rejection of traditional marriage, and-so-on) to reduce the fertility rate to below replacement level would be a logical way of proceeding towards such an objective.
However, the left also consider other ethnic groups inherently “capitalist” and, therefore, “exploitative and oppressive”.
Hence, for example, the long term campaign to eliminate the Japanese and other groups – by undermining the traditional family, with the intent of reducing the fertility rate to further-and-further below replacement level.
To seek to destroy an ethnic group, whether it be the English (the dislike of the establishment in the United Kingdom for the British people, especially the English people, is extreme) or the Japanese, or any other ethnic group, is to seek to commit genocide – over time.
Genocide used to be considered a bad thing – but then so did baby killing, before the 1960s.
Today it appears that the international establishment consider any means, any means at all, legitimate – if it furthers the aim of destroying “capitalist” ethnic groups, guilty of such crimes as “punctuality” and “work ethnic” – which are considered “exploitation” and “oppression” – which is against “equity” and “Climate Justice”.
I watched Mayor Elect Mamdani (today to become Mayor of the largest city in the United States – and once the leading “capitalist” city on Earth) announce the various people he is appointing to senior positions – they each made little speeches about “equity” and “climate justice” and so on, and it was clear that they consider traditional Westerners to be their enemies and that they wish to wipe such “capitalist” populations from the face of the Earth.
As for the wealthy members of the international establishment (such as Mr Soros – Junior) who back all this – I can only assume they believe they are somehow not included among the “exploiters” and “oppressors” to be eliminated.
As with Mr Larry Fink, head of BlackRock and now the World Economic Forum, who, for many years, backed groups who want to wipe Jews from the face of the Earth – backed the forces of “Equity” “Diversity” and “Inclusion” – who made their position very clear after October 7th 2023.
How can people who have so much money, people such as Mr Fink, be so stupid?
I do not understand it. I have tried to understand it, I really have, but I do not understand it.
Why are these rich people backing forces who want to rob and murder them – and their families?
For those who do not know – Mr Soros Junior is from a once Jewish family, and Mr Larry Fink is Jewish.
Yet such people seem unable to grasp that Jews are, to the modern left, a “capitalist” population that must be eliminated to push the agenda of “equity” and “Climate Justice” (itself a new name for the old genocidal enemy – “Social Justice”).
Again how can people who are so successful in life (I freely admit that I myself am a total failure) not have the faintest idea about basic political matters – not understand that they are backing forces that wish to exterminate them?
Perhaps the ability to make money and the ability to understand political matters are totally different parts of the human mind.
Perhaps when such people hear terms such as “Equity” and “Climate Justice” they really do not understand that this means “we are going to rob and murder you – and rob and murder your family, wipe your “capitalist” ethnic group from the face of the Earth – you exploiters and oppressors”.
Paul Marks poses a question that i have been wondering about for quite some time.
My tentative answer is that there is a crucial distinction between intelligence and sanity.
Intelligence is the talent of solving puzzles, such as: where do i invest my money?
Sanity can perhaps be defined as the talent for recognizing reality; or perhaps the talent for realizing what puzzles need to be solved most urgently.
Intelligence can be applied to any problem; but you need to be sane to identify the problems that need to be solved most urgently.
NB: I do not claim to be entirely sane: only to be more sane than i was 15 years ago, or in fact at any prior time; which is quite an achievement at my age.
(Paul mentions Alex Soros and Larry Fink. I do not think that Alex Soros is relevant here, since he inherited. More interesting is his father. Even more interesting, although less insane — more interesting because less insane — is Bill Ackman, who accepted the reality of American-progressive antisemitism, but only after 2023 Oct 7.)
Snorri Godhi – interesting points Sir.
Traditionally what you call “sanity” was called “wisdom” – and was indeed understood to be a very different thing from intelligence.
Paul: yes, i thought of using the word ‘wisdom’. The problem is, it sounds a bit “elitist”, it sounds out of reach of common people. I think that sanity/wisdom is within reach of anybody (w/o serious genetic defects) who adopts a healthy diet.
Snorri,
A special case of the general question. Why is everyone who takes the government shilling, Whitehall drones, police, teachers etc. working so hard to destroy the very society that they, their family and friends will have to live in?
It’s hard to come up with anything more complex than the scorpion and the frog, the in group destroys the out group because that’s just what the in group does.
What I find most interesting about this discussion is how the meaning of the term ‘rights’ changes depending on the commentor such that it becomes very difficult to follow how the discussion is progressing.
The other interesting thing I noticed is how quickly the subject changed from the original subject.
But the whole point, to me, is that the term “rights” changes for the pro-abortion-but-anti-eugenics crowd which is insisting on access to abortion but complaining about gender selection.
They are claiming that it is a limited right, only exercisable if done according to their preferences.
And I thought that that was one of Natalie’s points.
“My tentative answer is that there is a crucial distinction between intelligence and sanity.
Intelligence is the talent of solving puzzles, such as: where do i invest my money?
Sanity can perhaps be defined as the talent for recognizing reality; or perhaps the talent for realizing what puzzles need to be solved most urgently.
Intelligence can be applied to any problem; but you need to be sane to identify the problems that need to be solved most urgently.”
I have long suggested that the skill you describe as ‘sanity’ is the one found more in people of a practical bent. Because they deal with reality on a daily basis – a builder whose constructions fall down does not remain a builder for long. People who manipulate the physical world learn rapidly that you have to respect the forces of the universe. And work with them, not against them. In the world of ideas there is no counterbalancing force – an idea can ‘win’ through the sheer forcefulness of the person arguing it (a mindset obviously overrepresented in lawyers)
To that end I have suggested that no person should be allowed to stand for public office without having demonstrated his or her practical skills, and that the voters could judge them on those abilities. It would be instructive to give every current MP a set of IKEA flatpack furniture and see what they made of it. I’m sure there would be a lot of bits of furniture not fit for purpose produced.
Snorri yes “wisdom” does sound elitist – but the word should still be used. As “Common Sense” is, sadly, not as common as it should be.
Jim – many people with practical skills are away with the elves and pixies when it comes to matters of policy.
Sadly many people with practical skills, when they gain power, lead their people to disaster.
As for people missing the obvious….
Mayor Mandani has, in his first speech as Mayor of the largest city in the United States (and once the leading “capitalist” city on Earth) pledged himself and his associates to the “warmth of Collectivism”.
My father’s cousins (who lived in the Netherlands) were subjected to this, in the early 1940s. After being murdered their bodies were fed into the ovens.
One million people voted for Mr Mandani (now Mayor Mandani) and they knew what they were voting for – they knew, they knew what he is – what he represents. These were the people who celebrated after October 7th 2023.
And, please remember, it is not just Jews who are considered “capitalist exploiters and oppressors”.
I think most of these people have so many fingers in so many pies that they think they’ll do fine whoever is in charge as they’ve got people and influence on pretty much every side. They may well be right.
Speaking of Soros, I just read that he provided half of the start up finance for the hedge fund Marshall Wace. This is the hedge fund of Paul Marshall. Paul Marshall owns GBNews, The Spectator, Unherd, and the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, a significant chunk of the British centre-right media.
Now I am not saying Marshall is a stooge of Soros, but it does raise a few eyebrows. Soros is perhaps rightly heavily disliked on the right, but right-wing governments in the US and Western Europe never seem to do anything about him outside complain. The only governments that have seemed to have acted against Soros are the likes of Russia and Turkey.
Trump’s treasury secretary Scott Bessent is also a former employee of Soros, was heavily involved in ‘Black Wednesday’ back in 1992.
Some may be true believers, others probably just have a mortgage to pay, kids to feed and school, etc. Long-term it may be disaster, but in the short run it pays the bills, and being an impoverished martyr is not fun.
As Martin points out, they do not necessarily all have the same motivation.
One factor not mentioned by Martin is the tragedy of the commons. It might well be against my interest that the total graft increases, but it is still in my interest that my personal graft increases.
This can be seen in Minnesota (and no doubt in many other States). The MN Democrats are paying an extravagant amount of money for every Somali vote; but not all of it is their money, not even MN taxpayers’ money: it is mostly US taxpayers’ money.
Paul Marks.
January 2, 2026 at 10:44 am
There is a crucial distinction here. Mamdani got a million votes. Who knows how many people were involved?
Martin – very rich people do fine, till the moment they do NOT do fine.
The Duke of Orleans was the richest man in France – he financed the Revolution, the Revolutionaries were his close personal friends. And his close personal friends – cut-his-head-off.
Ellen – about 40% of the population of New York City are not from the United States, and most of them have a deep hatred of America – yes hatred.
As for the “native born” – they are “educated” for many years in schools and universities controlled by Collectivists – who (like the immigrant Mamdani family – for the father is as bad as the son) are filled with hatred of the United States.
New York City is one place where the left do not to rig the vote.
The New York City that voted for Rudy Giuliani is dead – and it is not coming back, it will not return.
Practical steps need to be taken – for example getting the stock market (and the other financial markets) OUT of New York.
New York State was the first American State to legalize abortion – and as the e.mails of the newly elected Attorney General of Virginia make clear, the left would like to do children and adults what they do to babies. It is not “just” babies they want to cut up.
Remember the people, government bureaucrats and corporate lobbyists (for that is who dominates Virginia now), of the Commonwealth of Virginia voted for their new Attorney General AFTER they found out he wanted to murder conservatives, and murder their children – indeed they had no other reason to vote for him, as he has no record of achievement and has no plans to reduce crime – on the contrary, he wishes to increase crime (or “Social Justice” or “Equity” which is how he would describe crime).
The new Governor of Virginia (either from the CIA or the Woke military – I can not remember which) is busy appointing people to enforce “DEI” – so much for that being dead, and the people the lady is appointing are sickening, they are the worst people available – outside hospitals for the criminally insane.
The voting in Virginia was not rigged, and the voting in New York City was not rigged.
The “Progressive” voters are as evil as the people they vote for – and I use the word “evil” after due consideration, evil they are. They are rotten to the core.
Utterly corrupted by the education system and the mainstream media – including the entertainment media.
Why do you insist on talking about rights when there are only obligations? Maybe if you started thinking about the obligations you might be able to get somewhere.
If you’re aborting a foetus purely because its a girl, how is that not eugenics?
So how it is not murder?
(except when life of the mother is at risk)
I disagree, the reason is that specialization which leds to success in a specific arena prevents broad knowledge. Most artists are complete idiots about everything outside their subject. Think Soros as an artist of making money in the sort of way he does, he would probably loose a poker game.
Interesting and underrated part in Adam Smith where he warns that specialisation, despite its benefits for economic production, could lead to people becoming ‘stupid and ignorant’.
bloke in spain
There are indeed obligations.
The natural justice obligation to not murder or rob other people.
But also a moral duty (not a matter of natural law – a duty rather than a legal obligation) to come-to-the-aid of a person who is being robbed (or worse).
Martin – yes that is a real danger.
If people do not have basic skills, and are over specialized, a nation (a society) is vulnerable – horribly vulnerable. And the people can be easily deceived.
Thank you for making this point Martin.
lucklucky
I think it varies – some rich people are good at making money and-nothing-else.
Others appear to be people who are thoughtful and have a wide range of interests and knowledge.
There is really no “class” of rich people – they are totally divided in their opinions and in what sort of people they are.
Like everyone else.
Why do you infer that when i specifically posted this “in the sort of way he does” ?
There is significant difference between “new money” and “old money” for example.
Do you have a family or you only start one at 50? that is a significant impact to what you are capable of doing with your time. If your world is stuff filtered by your teams because of you are always busy in dealings what you really know about the world?