Sex selection

　　性別選擇

　　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.

　　《非自然選擇：選男不選女和世界擠滿男人的后果》。馬拉?赫弗斯坦托爾。公共事務出版社; 共314頁; 價格為$ 26.99美元和17.99英鎊。

　　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?貝迪還是名醫學院學生，當他上班第一天走進德里人民領導杰布里卡什?納拉揚醫院的產科病房時，看見一只貓 嘴里叼著一個血淋淋東西快速經過他身邊跑掉了。那是什么東西---濕淋淋，血肉模糊的，大約貝迪的拳頭大小?他想著記起來了。不久，他被震驚了。看到床邊通常留著為清理使用過的手術工具的一個托盤里放著一個五六個月的胎兒，浸泡在血液里他先告訴護士，然后醫生，我看到了貓正在吃胎兒。然而，值班的人似乎并不關心。《科學雜志》的作家馬拉?赫弗斯坦托爾既深刻地關注著隨便對待墮胎的事實，也深刻關注墮胎的理由。為什么胎兒不能小心地處理呢?護士冷冷地解釋到，因為那是個女孩。

　　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.

　　性別選擇性墮胎是這個世界上最大的災難之一，然而受到的關注卻最少。雖然大部分集中在中國和印度，不過，無論是富國還是窮國，無論是佛教，印度教還是穆斯林社會，都在為這項災難添磚加瓦。因為男性更容易受到兒童疾病的影響，自然出生確保了每100個女孩出生就有105個男孩，所以性別比例在結婚年齡時會達到持平。然而，中國的性別比例是每出生100個女孩有120個男孩;印度的性別比例為100個女孩比109個男孩。

　　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.

　　男女比例為什么失衡，人們普遍觀點認為東南亞人強調傳統的重男輕女思想。家庭需要兒子來傳宗接代，繼承財產以及養老送終的職責。赫弗斯坦托爾女士的看法跟這個敘述幾乎毫無共通之處。因為該敘述還是未能解釋為什么印度和中國一些最富裕的，最開放的地方性別比例最不正常。根據她的解釋，性別選擇技術是在西方發明并被作為人 口控制措施而采用的，而且被西方援助者和美國軍官傳播到了東亞。

　　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.

　　在開始的時候，確認胎兒性別的超聲波掃描和其它技術是作為診斷設備來幫助有伴性遺傳的病人幫助孕育健康兒童，如血友病。美國20世紀60年代，這些技術得到了狂熱的歡迎。報紙刊登標題為超聲波設備使得懷孕期間無需再猜的文章。另一篇文章為生命控制：大膽創新的實驗有望為人類增壽幾十年。

　　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世紀60年代的美國也是日益關注發展中國家人口的階段。政策制定者，人口學家和軍人都認為快速的人口增長是人類的最大威脅，并將需要采取極端措施來嚴格控制。保羅?埃爾利希就是這樣一位人物。1968年，他的《人口炸彈》成了暢銷書。埃爾利希先生指出，印度和中國的一些父母在生了一個個女兒之后是不會停止生育的，直到他們想要的兒子出生為止。他認為，假如他們能被立馬保證會生一個兒子，那么，那些起先出生的女兒就不會出生了，因而人口增長率就會降低。性別選擇在阻止更廣泛的人口過剩的斗爭中成了一項工具。

　　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，西方政策制定者們的癡迷如何轉變成了破害亞洲女性胎兒的普遍做法呢?赫弗斯坦托爾女士認為，在一定程度上是通過對外援助來達到這點的。20世紀60年代，美國福特和洛克菲勒基金會向全印醫學科學研究所提供了300萬美元，幫助該研究所創辦了印度首次羊膜穿刺檢查，開始是為遺傳異常檢查，后來則為鑒別胎兒性別檢查。那時，印度是世界銀行最大的客戶，而世界銀行衛生項目貸款條件就是人口控制。

　　Sex selection

　　性別選擇

　　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.

　　《非自然選擇：選男不選女和世界擠滿男人的后果》。馬拉?赫弗斯坦托爾。公共事務出版社; 共314頁; 價格為$ 26.99美元和17.99英鎊。

　　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?貝迪還是名醫學院學生，當他上班第一天走進德里人民領導杰布里卡什?納拉揚醫院的產科病房時，看見一只貓 嘴里叼著一個血淋淋東西快速經過他身邊跑掉了。那是什么東西---濕淋淋，血肉模糊的，大約貝迪的拳頭大小?他想著記起來了。不久，他被震驚了。看到床邊通常留著為清理使用過的手術工具的一個托盤里放著一個五六個月的胎兒，浸泡在血液里他先告訴護士，然后醫生，我看到了貓正在吃胎兒。然而，值班的人似乎并不關心。《科學雜志》的作家馬拉?赫弗斯坦托爾既深刻地關注著隨便對待墮胎的事實，也深刻關注墮胎的理由。為什么胎兒不能小心地處理呢?護士冷冷地解釋到，因為那是個女孩。

　　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.

　　性別選擇性墮胎是這個世界上最大的災難之一，然而受到的關注卻最少。雖然大部分集中在中國和印度，不過，無論是富國還是窮國，無論是佛教，印度教還是穆斯林社會，都在為這項災難添磚加瓦。因為男性更容易受到兒童疾病的影響，自然出生確保了每100個女孩出生就有105個男孩，所以性別比例在結婚年齡時會達到持平。然而，中國的性別比例是每出生100個女孩有120個男孩;印度的性別比例為100個女孩比109個男孩。

　　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.

　　男女比例為什么失衡，人們普遍觀點認為東南亞人強調傳統的重男輕女思想。家庭需要兒子來傳宗接代，繼承財產以及養老送終的職責。赫弗斯坦托爾女士的看法跟這個敘述幾乎毫無共通之處。因為該敘述還是未能解釋為什么印度和中國一些最富裕的，最開放的地方性別比例最不正常。根據她的解釋，性別選擇技術是在西方發明并被作為人 口控制措施而采用的，而且被西方援助者和美國軍官傳播到了東亞。

　　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.

　　在開始的時候，確認胎兒性別的超聲波掃描和其它技術是作為診斷設備來幫助有伴性遺傳的病人幫助孕育健康兒童，如血友病。美國20世紀60年代，這些技術得到了狂熱的歡迎。報紙刊登標題為超聲波設備使得懷孕期間無需再猜的文章。另一篇文章為生命控制：大膽創新的實驗有望為人類增壽幾十年。

　　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世紀60年代的美國也是日益關注發展中國家人口的階段。政策制定者，人口學家和軍人都認為快速的人口增長是人類的最大威脅，并將需要采取極端措施來嚴格控制。保羅?埃爾利希就是這樣一位人物。1968年，他的《人口炸彈》成了暢銷書。埃爾利希先生指出，印度和中國的一些父母在生了一個個女兒之后是不會停止生育的，直到他們想要的兒子出生為止。他認為，假如他們能被立馬保證會生一個兒子，那么，那些起先出生的女兒就不會出生了，因而人口增長率就會降低。性別選擇在阻止更廣泛的人口過剩的斗爭中成了一項工具。

　　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，西方政策制定者們的癡迷如何轉變成了破害亞洲女性胎兒的普遍做法呢?赫弗斯坦托爾女士認為，在一定程度上是通過對外援助來達到這點的。20世紀60年代，美國福特和洛克菲勒基金會向全印醫學科學研究所提供了300萬美元，幫助該研究所創辦了印度首次羊膜穿刺檢查，開始是為遺傳異常檢查，后來則為鑒別胎兒性別檢查。那時，印度是世界銀行最大的客戶，而世界銀行衛生項目貸款條件就是人口控制。