China is facing a big problem. In some regions of China, the ratio of boys to girls is 130:100. In a few years, the nation is facing a surplus of 30 million bachelors.
This is due to China’s strict population control “one-child” policy. Although “sex-selection” abortions are illegal, they’re obviously happening, especially in rural areas. If you live on a farm, and the government has said that you can have one child, you want to have a boy. He will be able to do more physical work and be more productive. If the doctor tells you you’re pregnant with a girl, that means you’ll never have a boy, unless you abort the girl.
This problem is rooted in several bad assumptions:
1. Rising birthrates are a “problem” to be “solved”.
2. Abortion is a good way to control population growth.
3. If we tweak abortion laws to outlaw sex-selection abortions, people won’t manipulate the system based on their immediate needs, but will honor the intentions of the policy’s creators.
Are rising birthrates a “problem” to be “solved”? Certainly, a culture has to be concerned with distribution of resources. The Communist system has proven to be a disaster when it comes to distributing resources. A strong argument can be made that people are smart enough to stop having kids when they can’t be provided for, and that artificially lowering the birthrate through abortion creates more problems than it solves (immediate moral arguments notwithstanding). At City on a Hill, we address the moral problems with abortion. China is now dealing with one of the practical problems.
Statistically speaking, married men are more productive than single men. (You’re free to disagree with this assertion, but please do so using data and not anecdotes.) I won’t go into detail about this, but I will point out that my insurance rates went down when I got married. This is because when men get married, they are less likely to take foolish risks and more likely to engage in economically productive activities, because now they have a family to care for. China’s foolish population control policy has left it with thirty million extra risk-takers. They’ve aborted so many girls that these men do not have any prospect for marriage.
Like just about everything else on this blog, it all comes back to worldview. If people are merely resource consumers, then by all means we ought to eliminate a few, regardless of our emotional attachment to them. But if we’re created in the image of God, and He has given us the ability to create wealth, maximize resources and make good decisions, then we cannot overrule His ways and expect to prosper. China’s Marxist assumptions about wealth and human nature have left it with a big problem.
P.J. O’Rourke, though hardly a Christian, has some insight into these types of issues. In his book
All the Troubles in the World, his chapter on overpopulation is titled, “Just enough of me, too much of you.” Try to check it out if you can.
