Replacing Myths with Facts: Sex-Selective Abortion Laws in the United States
Laws banning sex-selective abortion are proliferating in the United States. Eight states have enacted laws prohibiting sex-selective abortion. Twenty-one states and the federal government have considered such laws since 2009. Those laws prohibit the performance of an abortion if sought based on the sex of the fetus and provide for both criminal and civil penalties in most cases.A great deal of misinformation exists regarding sex selection in the United States. In this report, we have identified six inaccuracies commonly associated with sex-selective abortion and laws prohibiting it. They appear, among other places, in statements made by legislators, testimony submitted to legislatures, and reports issued by legislative committees that have considered or adopted laws banning sex-selective abortion.This Report draws on legal research, empirical analysis of U.S. birth data, field-work, and an extensive review of scholarly publications in social sciences, law and other disciplines to replace these myths with facts.The main empirical support for the view that Asian Americans are obtaining sex-selective abortions based on son preference in the United States is from a study by economists Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund published in 2008. That study, using United States census data from 2000, found that when foreign-born Chinese, Indians and Koreans have two girls, the sex ratios at the third birth in those families is skewed towards boys. However, in analyzing more recent data from the 2007 to 2011 American Community Survey (ACS), we found that the sex ratios at birth of foreign-born Chinese, Indians and Koreans are not male-biased when all their births are taken into account. In fact, foreign-born Chinese, Indians and Koreans have proportionally more girls than white Americans.
Son Preference of Immigrants to the United States: Data from U.S. Birth Certificates, 2004–2013
Son preference has existed for centuries in many cultures and societies. In some Asian countries, including China and India, the sex ratio at birth (SRB, number of male infants divided by number of female infants times 100) is elevated above the worldwide biological norm of about 105. We investigate whether this ratio is elevated in the U.S. for immigrant women. We analyze U.S. birth certificates for 2004–2013 and categorize births by mother’s and father’s race/ethnicity; mother’s place of birth, and birth order of the child. The SRB is elevated for two groups of women: Chinese women born in China for children of birth order 2 and higher, and Indian women born in India for children of birth order 3 and higher. The SRB is not elevated for Chinese and Indian women born in the U.S., nor for Mexican women, Black women, nor White women, regardless of place of birth. The race/ethnicity of the child’s father does not appear to be a strong factor in the SRB. In the early twenty-first century the elevated SRB for Chinese and Indian women born in China and India respectively suggests sex selection for higher order births in the U.S.
Vertebral Fusion in Two Early Jurassic Sauropodomorph Dinosaurs from the Lufeng Formation of Yunnan, China
Here we describe two instances of pathological vertebral fusion in two genera of sauropodomorph dinosaurs from the Early Jurassic Lufeng Formation in Yunnan, China. The first is a specimen, of Lufengosaurus huenei with two fused cervical vertebrae, and the other is a specimen of the Lufeng basal sauropod, with two fused caudal vertebrae. Both pathologies are consistent with spondyloarthropathy and represent the earliest known occurrence of that disease in dinosaurs. The two specimens affirm that early dinosaurs suffered from the same bone diseases as living vertebrates. Spondyloarthropathy in these dinosaurs may have been induced by long-term mechanical stress, such as weight bearing, and/or limited motion at the joint that would otherwise have inhibited such remodeling. In both cases, surface remodeling suggests that the animals survived well beyond the initiation of spondyloarthropathy.