Gendercide Issue Resurfaces in Light of Chinese Activist Fight
Washington, DC – A new public opinion poll released today by the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) finds that strong majorities of American adults of both sexes, in every region of the country, and irrespective of age or race, favor enactment of legislation to make sex-selection abortions illegal.
The CLI poll of 1,016 U.S. adults found that, overall, 77 percent of respondents answered “yes” when asked, “When the fact that the developing baby is a girl is the sole reason for seeking an abortion, do you believe that abortion should be illegal?” Only 16 percent of all respondents said that abortion should be legal in this circumstance.
Among women, support for a law making sex-selection abortion illegal is higher (80-13 percent) than it is among men, who favor such a law by a margin of 74-18 percent. Support for a protective law is found among all age groups, but is highest among those age 45-54 where a ban is supported 87-11 percent. By region, support for a ban ranges from a high of 81 percent in the Midwest and South to 68 percent in the West.
A fact sheet on sex-selective abortion including the poll results is available online here.
“The issue has received renewed attention because of accounts of the life of Chen Guangcheng, who has highlighted forced abortion and sterilization under the one-child policy of the People’s Republic of China,” said Chuck Donovan, president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute. “Americans seem comfortable with the idea that the deliberate abortion of girls is a form of unacceptable sex discrimination.”
The poll was conducted as part of an omnibus survey by the polling company, inc./Womantrend. The survey was conducted from May 10-13, 2013 and has a margin of error of ±3.1 percent.
Sex-selection abortions are procedures that some parents procure when they find that the child they are expecting is not of the particular sex they desire. The practice of sex selection abortion, almost always carried out against females, has been a growing concern to a spectrum of human rights bodies worldwide. Estimates of the number of “missing girls” as a result of sex selection procedures, including abortion, range as high as 163,000,000.
To date, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Arizona have all banned sex-selective abortion. Similar bans have been enacted in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, India, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam.
