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Sex selection
性别选择
Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, andthe Consequences of a World Full of Men. By MaraHvistendahl. Public Affairs; 314 pages; $26.99 and?17.99.
《非自然选择：选男不选女和世界挤满男人的后果》。马拉?赫弗斯坦托尔。公共事务出版社; 共314页; 价格为$ 26.99美元和17.99英镑。
AS HE walked into the maternity ward of Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan Hospital in Delhi onhis first day at work in 1978, Puneet Bedi, a medical student, saw a cat bound past him with abloody blob dangling from its mouth. What was that thingwet with blood, mangled, aboutthe size of Bedis fist? he remembers thinking. Before long it struck him. Near the bed, in atray normally reserved for disposing of used instruments, lay a fetus of five or six months,soaking in a pool of bloodHe told a nurse, then a doctor, I saw a cat eat a fetus. Nobody onduty seemed concerned, however. Mara Hvistendahl, a writer at Science magazine, isprofoundly concerned, both about the fact that abortion was treated so casually, and thereason. Why had the fetus not been disposed of more carefully? A nurses explanation cameout cold. Because it was a girl.
1978年，普尼特?贝迪还是名医学院学生，当他上班第一天走进德里人民领导杰布里卡什?纳拉扬医院的产科病房时，看见一只猫 嘴里叼着一个血淋淋东西快速经过他身边跑掉了。那是什么东西---湿淋淋，血肉模糊的，大约贝迪的拳头大小?他想着记起来了。不久，他被震惊了。看到床边通常留着为清理使用过的手术工具的一个托盘里放着一个五六个月的胎儿，浸泡在血液里他先告诉护士，然后医生，我看到了猫正在吃胎儿。然而，值班的人似乎并不关心。《科学杂志》的作家马拉?赫弗斯坦托尔既深刻地关注着随便对待堕胎的事实，也深刻关注堕胎的理由。为什么胎儿不能小心地处理呢?护士冷冷地解释到，因为那是个女孩。
Sex-selective abortion is one of the largest, least noticed disasters in the world. Thoughconcentrated in China and India, it is practised in rich and poor countries and in Buddhist,Hindu, Christian and Muslim societies alike. Because of males greater vulnerability to childhooddisease, nature ensures that 105 boys are born for every 100 girls, so the sexes will be equalat marriageable age. Yet Chinas sex ratio is 120 boys per 100 girls; Indias is 109 to 100.
性别选择性堕胎是这个世界上最大的灾难之一，然而受到的关注却最少。虽然大部分集中在中国和印度，不过，无论是富国还是穷国，无论是佛教，印度教还是穆斯林社会，都在为这项灾难添砖加瓦。因为男性更容易受到儿童疾病的影响，自然出生确保了每100个女孩出生就有105个男孩，所以性别比例在结婚年龄时会达到持平。然而，中国的性别比例是每出生100个女孩有120个男孩;印度的性别比例为100个女孩比109个男孩。
The usual view of why this should be stresses traditional son preference in South and EastAsia. Families wanted a son to bear the family name, to inherit property and to carry outfunerary duties. Ms Hvistendahl has little truck with this account, which fails to explain whysome of the richest, most outward-looking parts of India and China have the most skewed sexratios. According to her account, sex-selection technologies were invented in the West, adoptedthere as a population-control measure and exported to East Asia by Western aid donors andAmerican military officials.
男女比例为什么失衡，人们普遍观点认为东南亚人强调传统的重男轻女思想。家庭需要儿子来传宗接代，继承财产以及养老送终的职责。赫弗斯坦托尔女士的看法跟这个叙述几乎毫无共通之处。因为该叙述还是未能解释为什么印度和中国一些最富裕的，最开放的地方性别比例最不正常。根据她的解释，性别选择技术是在西方发明并被作为人 口控制措施而采用的，而且被西方援助者和美国军官传播到了东亚。
The ultrasound and other technologies that identifythe sex of a fetus started out as diagnostic devicesto help people with sex-linked diseases, such ashaemophilia, conceive healthy children. They weregreeted rapturously in America in the 1960s. Ultrasound Device Takes Guessing Out ofPregnancy ran one headline. Control of Life:Audacious Experiments Promise Decades of AddedLife ran another.
在开始的时候，确认胎儿性别的超声波扫描和其它技术是作为诊断设备来帮助有伴性遗传的病人帮助孕育健康儿童，如血友病。美国20世纪60年代，这些技术得到了狂热的欢迎。报纸刊登标题为超声波设备使得怀孕期间无需再猜的文章。另一篇文章为生命控制：大胆创新的实验有望为人类增寿几十年。
But 1960s America was also a period of growing concern about population indeveloping countries. Policymakers, demographers and military men all thought rapidpopulation growth was the biggest single threat to mankind and that drastic measures wouldbe needed to rein it in. One such figure was Paul Ehrlich, whose book, The Population Bomb,became a bestseller in 1968. Mr Ehrlich pointed out that some Indian and Chinese parentswould go on having daughter after daughter until the longed-for son arrived. If, he argued,they could be guaranteed a son right away, those preliminary daughters would not be born, andpopulation growth would be lower. Sex selection became a tool in a wider battle to stopoverpopulation.
但20世纪60年代的美国也是日益关注发展中国家人口的阶段。政策制定者，人口学家和军人都认为快速的人口增长是人类的最大威胁，并将需要采取极端措施来严格控制。保罗?埃尔利希就是这样一位人物。1968年，他的《人口炸弹》成了畅销书。埃尔利希先生指出，印度和中国的一些父母在生了一个个女儿之后是不会停止生育的，直到他们想要的儿子出生为止。他认为，假如他们能被立马保证会生一个儿子，那么，那些起先出生的女儿就不会出生了，因而人口增长率就会降低。性别选择在阻止更广泛的人口过剩的斗争中成了一项工具。
But how did an obsession of Western policymakers turn into the widespread practice ofdestroying female fetuses in Asia? Partly, argues Ms Hvistendahl, through aid. The Ford andRockefeller Foundations gave over $3m to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences inthe 1960s, helping it to pioneer Indias first amniocentesis tests, initially for geneticabnormalities and later for identifying fetal sex. India at that time was the World Banks biggestclient, and the bank made loans for health projects conditional on population control.
然而，西方政策制定者们的痴迷如何转变成了破害亚洲女性胎儿的普遍做法呢?赫弗斯坦托尔女士认为，在一定程度上是通过对外援助来达到这点的。20世纪60年代，美国福特和洛克菲勒基金会向全印医学科学研究所提供了300万美元，帮助该研究所创办了印度首次羊膜穿刺检查，开始是为遗传异常检查，后来则为鉴别胎儿性别检查。那时，印度是世界银行最大的客户，而世界银行卫生项目贷款条件就是人口控制。
Sex selection
性别选择
Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, andthe Consequences of a World Full of Men. By MaraHvistendahl. Public Affairs; 314 pages; $26.99 and?17.99.
《非自然选择：选男不选女和世界挤满男人的后果》。马拉?赫弗斯坦托尔。公共事务出版社; 共314页; 价格为$ 26.99美元和17.99英镑。
AS HE walked into the maternity ward of Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan Hospital in Delhi onhis first day at work in 1978, Puneet Bedi, a medical student, saw a cat bound past him with abloody blob dangling from its mouth. What was that thingwet with blood, mangled, aboutthe size of Bedis fist? he remembers thinking. Before long it struck him. Near the bed, in atray normally reserved for disposing of used instruments, lay a fetus of five or six months,soaking in a pool of bloodHe told a nurse, then a doctor, I saw a cat eat a fetus. Nobody onduty seemed concerned, however. Mara Hvistendahl, a writer at Science magazine, isprofoundly concerned, both about the fact that abortion was treated so casually, and thereason. Why had the fetus not been disposed of more carefully? A nurses explanation cameout cold. Because it was a girl.
1978年，普尼特?贝迪还是名医学院学生，当他上班第一天走进德里人民领导杰布里卡什?纳拉扬医院的产科病房时，看见一只猫 嘴里叼着一个血淋淋东西快速经过他身边跑掉了。那是什么东西---湿淋淋，血肉模糊的，大约贝迪的拳头大小?他想着记起来了。不久，他被震惊了。看到床边通常留着为清理使用过的手术工具的一个托盘里放着一个五六个月的胎儿，浸泡在血液里他先告诉护士，然后医生，我看到了猫正在吃胎儿。然而，值班的人似乎并不关心。《科学杂志》的作家马拉?赫弗斯坦托尔既深刻地关注着随便对待堕胎的事实，也深刻关注堕胎的理由。为什么胎儿不能小心地处理呢?护士冷冷地解释到，因为那是个女孩。
Sex-selective abortion is one of the largest, least noticed disasters in the world. Thoughconcentrated in China and India, it is practised in rich and poor countries and in Buddhist,Hindu, Christian and Muslim societies alike. Because of males greater vulnerability to childhooddisease, nature ensures that 105 boys are born for every 100 girls, so the sexes will be equalat marriageable age. Yet Chinas sex ratio is 120 boys per 100 girls; Indias is 109 to 100.
性别选择性堕胎是这个世界上最大的灾难之一，然而受到的关注却最少。虽然大部分集中在中国和印度，不过，无论是富国还是穷国，无论是佛教，印度教还是穆斯林社会，都在为这项灾难添砖加瓦。因为男性更容易受到儿童疾病的影响，自然出生确保了每100个女孩出生就有105个男孩，所以性别比例在结婚年龄时会达到持平。然而，中国的性别比例是每出生100个女孩有120个男孩;印度的性别比例为100个女孩比109个男孩。
The usual view of why this should be stresses traditional son preference in South and EastAsia. Families wanted a son to bear the family name, to inherit property and to carry outfunerary duties. Ms Hvistendahl has little truck with this account, which fails to explain whysome of the richest, most outward-looking parts of India and China have the most skewed sexratios. According to her account, sex-selection technologies were invented in the West, adoptedthere as a population-control measure and exported to East Asia by Western aid donors andAmerican military officials.
男女比例为什么失衡，人们普遍观点认为东南亚人强调传统的重男轻女思想。家庭需要儿子来传宗接代，继承财产以及养老送终的职责。赫弗斯坦托尔女士的看法跟这个叙述几乎毫无共通之处。因为该叙述还是未能解释为什么印度和中国一些最富裕的，最开放的地方性别比例最不正常。根据她的解释，性别选择技术是在西方发明并被作为人 口控制措施而采用的，而且被西方援助者和美国军官传播到了东亚。
The ultrasound and other technologies that identifythe sex of a fetus started out as diagnostic devicesto help people with sex-linked diseases, such ashaemophilia, conceive healthy children. They weregreeted rapturously in America in the 1960s. Ultrasound Device Takes Guessing Out ofPregnancy ran one headline. Control of Life:Audacious Experiments Promise Decades of AddedLife ran another.
在开始的时候，确认胎儿性别的超声波扫描和其它技术是作为诊断设备来帮助有伴性遗传的病人帮助孕育健康儿童，如血友病。美国20世纪60年代，这些技术得到了狂热的欢迎。报纸刊登标题为超声波设备使得怀孕期间无需再猜的文章。另一篇文章为生命控制：大胆创新的实验有望为人类增寿几十年。
But 1960s America was also a period of growing concern about population indeveloping countries. Policymakers, demographers and military men all thought rapidpopulation growth was the biggest single threat to mankind and that drastic measures wouldbe needed to rein it in. One such figure was Paul Ehrlich, whose book, The Population Bomb,became a bestseller in 1968. Mr Ehrlich pointed out that some Indian and Chinese parentswould go on having daughter after daughter until the longed-for son arrived. If, he argued,they could be guaranteed a son right away, those preliminary daughters would not be born, andpopulation growth would be lower. Sex selection became a tool in a wider battle to stopoverpopulation.
但20世纪60年代的美国也是日益关注发展中国家人口的阶段。政策制定者，人口学家和军人都认为快速的人口增长是人类的最大威胁，并将需要采取极端措施来严格控制。保罗?埃尔利希就是这样一位人物。1968年，他的《人口炸弹》成了畅销书。埃尔利希先生指出，印度和中国的一些父母在生了一个个女儿之后是不会停止生育的，直到他们想要的儿子出生为止。他认为，假如他们能被立马保证会生一个儿子，那么，那些起先出生的女儿就不会出生了，因而人口增长率就会降低。性别选择在阻止更广泛的人口过剩的斗争中成了一项工具。
But how did an obsession of Western policymakers turn into the widespread practice ofdestroying female fetuses in Asia? Partly, argues Ms Hvistendahl, through aid. The Ford andRockefeller Foundations gave over $3m to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences inthe 1960s, helping it to pioneer Indias first amniocentesis tests, initially for geneticabnormalities and later for identifying fetal sex. India at that time was the World Banks biggestclient, and the bank made loans for health projects conditional on population control.
然而，西方政策制定者们的痴迷如何转变成了破害亚洲女性胎儿的普遍做法呢?赫弗斯坦托尔女士认为，在一定程度上是通过对外援助来达到这点的。20世纪60年代，美国福特和洛克菲勒基金会向全印医学科学研究所提供了300万美元，帮助该研究所创办了印度首次羊膜穿刺检查，开始是为遗传异常检查，后来则为鉴别胎儿性别检查。那时，印度是世界银行最大的客户，而世界银行卫生项目贷款条件就是人口控制。
