Choosing to eliminate unwanted daughters

By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / April 6, 2008

THE UNFETTERED "right to choose" is a progressive value, we are instructed by the abortion lobby - one indispensable to the empowerment of women. But a new study in PNAS (the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) prompts an awkward question: How exactly are American women empowered when abortion is deployed to prevent the existence of American girls?

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 rest image