Consider this excerpt from an article in the Boston Globe:
Population experts have documented for years the use of abortion for sex selection in regions of the world where sons are more highly prized than daughters.
The problem is particularly acute in Asia, and especially in China and India, the world's two largest countries.
The natural sex ratio at birth is slightly male-biased at roughly 1.05-to-1, meaning that about 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. But in China the current ratio at birth is about 120 boys per 100 girls - and in more prosperous parts of the country, such as Guangdong and Hainan, the imbalance has reached an even more lopsided 135-to-100.
In India, census data from 2001 show that among children younger than 6, there are just 927 girls per 1,000 boys. There too, the greater the prosperity, the greater the discrepancy: In the high-income state of Punjab, notes Joseph D'Agostino of the Population Research Institute, there are only 793 girls for every 1,000 boys. He cites a report by UNICEF, which calculates that "7,000 fewer girls are now born in India each day than nature would dictate, and 10 million have been killed during pregnancy or just after in the past 20 years."
There is nothing new about the high cultural premium placed on sons in developing countries. What is relatively new is easy access to cheap ultrasound scans for determining the sex of an unborn child, and the availability of inexpensive abortions for parents who don't want a baby of the "wrong" sex.
Consider Vietnam, where a decade ago the sex ratio of newborns was a normal 1.04-to-1. Today, with the rise of ultrasound and abortion clinics, the number of newborn males has surged ahead of females.
"Vietnamese women who find they are carrying an unwanted female baby often head immediately to an abortion clinic," the Straits Times of Singapore reported last fall. "A walk-in abortion at a state hospital can be performed for $10, and at private clinics for about $20."
Most Americans rightly regard sex-selective abortions as odious; in a 2006 Zogby poll, an overwhelming 86 percent of Americans agreed that such abortions should be illegal.
Are sex selection abortions covered by Roe's abortion liberty? What arguments would you make both ways?
What about race selection abortions? Permissible under Roe?
Suppose a woman discovers that the child she is carrying is a Downs Syndrome baby. Is it permissible to abort a child because it has a disability?
Would a law prohibiting abortions
performed because of the unborn child’s race, gender, or disability violate Roe and the abortion liberty? What are your best arguments both ways? Explain.
