women do too. Bills to ban sex-selective abortion have been introduced in the U.S. Congress for many consecutive years and the text is almost identical across the various versions. The federal bill introduced in 2016 asserts that Asian Americans practice sex-selective abortions in the United States in the same way that people in Asia do: “Evidence strongly suggests that some Americans are exercising sex-selection abortion practices within the United States consistent with discriminatory practices common to their country of origin, or the country to which they trace their ancestry.”28 In Chapter 4, I explain why this conclusion is unfounded.
Advocates for sex-selective abortion bans also decontextualize motives. They assume that Asian American women who sex-select do so with the same motives as women in their countries of origin. They argue that a preference for boys in India and China causes Asian American women to abort female fetuses to avoid having a female child. For example, a report by the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, undertaken in connection with the federal legislative ban on sex selection, states that “the selective abortion of females is … the intentional killing of unborn females, due to the preference for male offspring or ‘son preference.’ ”29 The report explains why “son preference” exists in other countries: girls are a financial burden and do not carry the family name.30
The report further suggests that the motives of Asian American women are the same as those for women in Asia. Our study of recent U.S. Census data, however, finds that Asian Americans do not necessarily have a son preference; they want to have both sons and daughters. Indeed, both a new analysis of sex ratios in the American Community Survey from 2008 to 2012 and a poll of Asian Americans suggest that a few Asian Americans appear to be attempting to balance their families so they have one boy and one girl rather than sex-selecting due to a preference for boys. The results of a national survey of Asian Americans presented in Chapter 4 supports this conclusion.
Supporters of sex-selective abortion bans also decontextualize harms. Based on their understanding of its harms in India and China, they argue that sex selection is harmful in the United States in three ways. First, they believe that because sex-selective abortions have resulted in a significant number of “missing women” in India and China, it will have the same impact in the United States. For example, the federal bill that would ban sex-selective abortion states that “sex-selective abortions have the effect of diminishing women in the American population” and that “sex-selection abortion results in an unnatural sex-ratio imbalance.”31 The magnitude, however, is not the same in the United States. One article found that sex-selective abortions occurring among Asian Americans has resulted in at most 1,000 “missing women” in the United States from 1983 to 2002, which is approximately 50 per year.32 On the other hand, estimates in India reach as high as 700,000 “missing women” per year.33
The preamble further notes, “an unnatural sex-ratio imbalance gives rise to … human trafficking … kidnapping and other violent crime.”34 While some empirical studies have indeed found that societies with a surplus of men are marked by more violence and instability, there is no such surplus of men in the United States. In Chapter 6, I discuss in greater detail the consequences of a sex-ratio imbalance in India.
Second, advocates for the bans believe that most women in India are forced to undergo sex-selective abortion through physical violence and mental abuse. They assume Asian American women are under that same pressure. The problem here is not only that the harm is decontextualized, but also that the understanding of what actually occurs in India is itself distorted. With globalization, information travels quickly across borders but that information is only a snapshot of the complex reality of the situation in other countries. The media often packages information in sound bites that are filtered through stereotypes about foreign peoples.
The mainstream understanding in the United States among anti-abortion advocates and pro-choice voters alike is that most women in India—through physical or emotional coercion—are forced to abort female fetuses. This coercion narrative prevails in the documentary It’s a Girl.35 This film, funded by anti-abortion advocates, has received accolades from Ms. Magazine, the National Organization for Women, and Amnesty International. The filmmakers extensively interview and depict the life of Mitu Khurana, a pediatrician who left her husband because he physically abused her after she refused to abort her female fetuses.36 The film, however, fails to depict what more commonly occurs in India: women make the choice to abort female fetuses without physical violence or overt coercion. There is no doubt that some women in India are coerced through violence, but the documentary presents no other narrative.
The depiction of women in India as coerced is then projected onto Asian American women. The federal bill to ban sex-selective abortion extensively cites from a study by Puri et al. in which she interviewed 65 South Asian immigrant women recruited from a clinic that provides sex determination tests.37 One-third of the 65 women cited past physical abuse and neglect related specifically to their failing to produce a male child.38 But while it is true—and disturbing—that many of the women experienced domestic violence, the emphasis on the women who cited coercion neglects the fact that two-thirds of the women in the study did not cite coercion. Moreover, the sample was not representative of all Indian American women; it consisted of women who specifically sought sex determination tests. The federal bill also highlights the work of the photojournalist Walter Astrada, whose documentary tells the story of a woman from India who was pressured to abort her twins, but resisted that coercion. It turns out that this is the same woman featured in It’s a Girl—who bravely refused to abort her twin girls despite her husband’s threats.39 Some state sex-selective abortion bills specifically include prohibitions on coercive abortions, sanctioning the view that coercion is a part of most sex-selective abortions.40
However, direct physical coercion is not the only explanation for sex selection in India. Women may choose to sex-select to gain status in their household. They may have empathy for the unborn girl: they do not want a girl to endure the gender-based discriminatory society they have had to endure. In Chapter 5, I describe the Indian context in greater detail to compare and distinguish it from the United States. This nuanced narrative is absent from the mainstream American media.
Third, proponents of sex-selective abortion bans point out that sex selection is discriminatory when practiced in the United States. In his submission to a House committee, U.S. Representative Lamar Smith stated: “The reason for opposing sex-selection is uniform: the desire to combat discrimination.”41 The preamble to the congressional bill to ban sex-selective abortion also notes that it is needed to promote equality.42 However, social institutions, history, and other contexts are relevant in defining something as discriminatory, and sex-selective abortion reflects social institutions in India that perpetuate inequality. Many of those social institutions are not prevalent in the United States even though other forms of gender equality still persist.
Moreover, empirical evidence in the United States suggests that the practice of sex selection as carried out in the United States by a few people does not appear to be significantly gender-biased, as discussed in Chapter 4. Some may believe that sex selection is wrong for eugenic, moral, or for other reasons—but it should not be considered discriminatory to women and girls in the United States just because it is carried out in a discriminatory manner in India and reflects unequal social norms and institutions.
Decontextualization is problematic because it homogenizes people in a number of ways. First, the discourse does not adequately distinguish between the situation in various foreign countries. For example, “son preference” is assumed to drive behavior in both India and China. Adequate consideration, however, is
