In the shadow of Mother’s Day…

… Can there be a more self-contradictory notion than an unwanted child? Be that as it may, invariably unwanted children remain unwanted adults:

In China, there is a name for unmarried men over 30: Shengnan, meaning “leftover men” have yet to find a wife – and in a country with a growing gender gap, that’s a big problem.

China has many millions more men than women, a hangover of the country’s one-child policy, which was overturned in 2015, though its effects will last decades more. The gender imbalance is making it hard for many men to find a partner – and the gap is likely to widen. By 2020, it’s estimated there will be 30 million more men than women looking for a partner. In his book, The Demographic Future, American political economist Nicholas Eberstadt cites projections that by 2030, more than a quarter of Chinese men in their 30s will not have married.

(From BBC report: “Why millions of Chinese men are staying single,” Rob Budden.)

What goes Unsaid:

What this BBC report doesn’t say – because it is not to be said according to their editorial policies – is the dirty little secret that the one-child policy exposes the extent to which China’s national practise of female gendercide/feoticide reflects its cultural preference for boys over girls. Even The Guardian observes: “in reality – due to sex-selective abortions, a traditional preference for sons and the country’s one-child policy – there’s a far larger cohort of ‘leftover men’.”

To be fair, there has been no such “one child” policy in India, where the same female gendercide has been happening.

And to be more forthcoming: female foeticide is being practiced in Canada just as well.  Recently the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada published a shocking study.  The Globe and Mail (finally) reported:

“Study finds gender imbalance in children born to Indo-Canadian women”

One of the most surprising findings of the study, published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada, is that the preference for boys does not diminish, regardless of how long women from India have lived in Canada.

The article goes on to say that “for many Indian immigrants who express a strong desire for sons, the study found, the practice of sex selection remains entrenched. Women who already have two female children are most at risk for abortions in the second trimester, when parents can learn the sex of the fetus. The study builds on previous research led by Dr. Urquia that found a deficit in Canada of more than 4,400 girls over two decades.

The latest study shows that women born in India who already have two daughters gave birth to 192 baby boys in Ontario for every 100 girls. The sex ratios are so distorted, they cannot be explained by natural causes, Dr. Urquia said…

A woman has a fundamental right in Canada to decide whether to have an abortion, and should not come under pressure from a spouse or other family members to deliver a male child, Ms. Sekhar (executive director of the South Asian Women’s Centre in Toronto) said.”

This is an issue of choice that is taken away from a woman,” she said. “In many ways it is very abusive.

Is it really only about choice?

What Ms. Sekhar need not have to say in this day and age is that if the mother carrying the female foetus decides to end the pregnancy because she finds she’s carrying a female, then that’s okay (!?).

It is remarkable hypocrisy to suggest that the problem of aborting females lies with who decides to end the female foetus’ life. It is tragic logic twisted on its head.

As you can imagine, the current government does not want to open up the abortion debate despite the abuses of gender-selection abortions.

What do you get when you have Unwanted Girls?

Answer: You get leftover males – boys who will become men who, for all intents and purposes, are left out of natural female companionship and child raising, for they were the unlucky ones to be lucky enough not to be aborted in preference to their genocided sisters.

What do Unwanted Girls say about Personhood?

It says a lot.

It says that personhood is sequestered only for those considered worthy by the most tenuous of reasons: cultural preference.

Personhood is bestowed by the One who made us for Himself. In this culture of death, where humanity is diminished by reductionistic labels, it has never been more important to sound a prophetic voice for the enigma of our worth.

If personhood is exclusive only to boys in-vitro over girls, what we will find is that little boys will become leftover men – – men who will increasingly diminish in value just like (ironically) the little girls who were aborted in their favour years earlier.

But then, we are already there, aren’t we? For with the loss of transcendence comes the loss of understanding our worth as persons made in the image of God.

As Green Day laments in “Troubled Times“,

What good is love and peace on earth?
When it’s exclusive?
Where’s the truth in the written word?
If no one reads it…

Addendum:

See: ‘My parents say hurry up and find a girl’: China’s millions of lonely ‘leftover men‘ by Wanning Sun, September 29, 2017.