My Aunt Priscilla once explained to me that China’s enforced one-child policy in a single generation eliminated the existence of brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I will never forget the moment. It put a chill in my spine that never quite went away.
I felt it twinge again last night when I read this New York Times Magazine story on a flight home to New York. It struck a primordial nerve in me that wanted to break down and weep upon learning the news.
The story is about a growing practice among couples with twins on the way. One child is selectively eradicated in Sophie’s-Choice fashion. The Times author calls it a half-abortion, which is an existential affront, I think, to the very whole fetus who is terminated.
The idea of a twin coming into the world absent his or her brother or sister seems like an extraordinary tragedy to me. The fact that the practice occurs on purpose is intrinsically sickening.
This economy we can survive. But this kind of science will damn us all to hell.
Speaking of being damned to hell…
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/11/moore.perry.candidate/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Bill, as much as I am pro-choice, I agree with you on this one. This action of terminating one of the twins because of political agenda (China) is horrific. Being adopted, I tend to be sympathetic to mothers who need to make this choice. You would think that I’m pro-life, but I am pro-choice. This action you are talking about, for the reasons you mentioned…leads us right to the doorsteps of hell…I agree.
[…] in American politics. Gender selective abortions and other growing practices like “de-twining” demand it. And no one should be surprised if heretofore pro-choice Americans begin to shift on […]
[…] as a 48-year-old father, when I read about things like gender selective abortions and “half-abortions” – the in utero eradication of a single fetus in the case of twins – I want to lock myself in […]