性别选择

　　Cat got your tongue?

　　哑巴啦？

　　Aug 6th 2011 | from the print edition

　　Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men. By Mara Hvistendahl. Public Affairs; 314 pages; $26.99 and ?17.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

　　《非自然选择：选男不选女和世界挤满男人的后果》。马拉?赫弗斯坦托尔（Mara Hvistendahl）。公共事务出版社; 共314页; 价格为$ 26.99美元和17.99英镑。可从Amazon.com和Amazon.co.uk网站购买。

　　AS HE walked into the maternity ward of Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan Hospital in Delhi on his first day at work in 1978, Puneet Bedi, a medical student, saw a cat bound past him “with a bloody blob dangling from its mouth.” “What was that thing—wet with blood, mangled, about the size of Bedi’s fist?” he remembers thinking. “Before long it struck him. Near the bed, in a tray normally reserved for disposing of used instruments, lay a fetus of five or six months, soaking in a pool of blood…He told a nurse, then a doctor, I saw a cat eat a fetus. Nobody on duty seemed concerned, however.” Mara Hvistendahl, a writer at Science magazine, is profoundly concerned, both about the fact that abortion was treated so casually, and the reason. “Why had the fetus not been disposed of more carefully? A nurse’s explanation came out cold. “Because it was a girl.”

　　1978年，普尼特?贝迪（Puneet Bedi）还是名医学院学生，当他上班第一天走进德里人民领导杰布里卡什?纳拉扬医院的产科病房时，看见一只猫 “嘴里叼着一个血淋淋东西”快速经过他身边跑掉了。“那是什么东西---湿淋淋，血肉模糊的，大约贝迪的拳头大小？”他想着记起来了。“不久，他被震惊了。看到床边通常留着为清理使用过的手术工具的一个托盘里放着一个五六个月的胎儿，浸泡在血液里……他先告诉护士，然后医生，‘我看到了猫正在吃胎儿’。然而，值班的人似乎并不关心。”《科学杂志》的作家马拉?赫弗斯坦托尔（Mara Hvistendahl）既深刻地关注着随便对待堕胎的事实，也深刻关注堕胎的理由。“为什么胎儿不能小心地处理呢？护士冷冷地解释到，‘因为那是个女孩。’”

　　Sex-selective abortion is one of the largest, least noticed disasters in the world. Though concentrated in China and India, it is practised in rich and poor countries and in Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim societies alike. Because of males’ greater vulnerability to childhood disease, nature ensures that 105 boys are born for every 100 girls, so the sexes will be equal at marriageable age. Yet China’s sex ratio is 120 boys per 100 girls; India’s is 109 to 100.

　　性别选择性堕胎是这个世界上最大的灾难之一，然而受到的关注却最少。虽然大部分集中在中国和印度，不过，无论是富国还是穷国，无论是佛教，印度教还是穆斯林社会，都在为这项灾难“添砖加瓦。因为男性更容易受到儿童疾病的影响，自然出生确保了每100个女孩出生就有105个男孩，所以性别比例在结婚年龄时会达到持平。然而，中国的性别比例是每出生100个女孩有120个男孩；印度的性别比例为100个女孩比109个男孩。

　　The usual view of why this should be stresses traditional “son preference” in South and East Asia. Families wanted a son to bear the family name, to inherit property and to carry out funerary duties. Ms Hvistendahl has little truck with this account, which fails to explain why some of the richest, most outward-looking parts of India and China have the most skewed sex ratios. According to her account, sex-selection technologies were invented in the West, adopted there as a population-control measure and exported to East Asia by Western aid donors and American military officials.

　　男女比例为什么失衡，人们普遍观点认为东南亚人强调传统的“重男轻女”思想。家庭需要儿子来传宗接代，继承财产以及养老送终的职责。赫弗斯坦托尔女士的看法跟这个叙述几乎毫无共通之处。因为该叙述还是未能解释为什么印度和中国一些最富裕的，最开放的地方性别比例最不正常（或最倾斜）。根据她的解释，性别选择技术是在西方发明并被作为人 口控制措施而采用的，而且被西方援助者和美国军官传播到了东亚。

　　The ultrasound and other technologies that identify the sex of a fetus started out as diagnostic devices to help people with sex-linked diseases, such as haemophilia, conceive healthy children. They were greeted rapturously in America in the 1960s. “Ultrasound Device Takes Guessing Out of Pregnancy” ran one headline. “Control of Life: Audacious Experiments Promise Decades of Added Life” ran another.

　　在开始的时候，确认胎儿性别的超声波扫描和其它技术是作为诊断设备来帮助有伴性遗传的病人帮助孕育健康儿童（译者注：超声波技术有助于早期检测胎儿性别，以此可以知道孕妇是否可到健康婴儿），如血友病。美国20世纪60年代，这些技术得到了狂热的欢迎。报纸刊登标题为“超声波设备使得怀孕期间无需再猜”的文章。另一篇文章为“生命控制：大胆创新的实验有望为人类增寿几十年”。

　　But 1960s America was also a period of growing concern (hysteria, even) about population in developing countries. Policymakers, demographers and military men all thought rapid population growth was the biggest single threat to mankind and that drastic measures would be needed to rein it in. One such figure was Paul Ehrlich, whose book, “The Population Bomb”, became a bestseller in 1968. Mr Ehrlich pointed out that some Indian and Chinese parents would go on having daughter after daughter until the longed-for son arrived. If, he argued, they could be guaranteed a son right away, those preliminary daughters would not be born, and population growth would be lower. Sex selection became a tool in a wider battle to stop “overpopulation”.

　　但20世纪60年代的美国也是日益（甚至是歇斯底里的）关注发展中国家人口的阶段。政策制定者，人口学家和军人都认为快速的人口增长是人类的最大威胁，并将需要采取极端措施来严格控制。保罗?埃尔利希（PaulEhrlich）就是这样一位人物。1968年，他的《人口炸弹》成了畅销书。埃尔利希先生（MrEhrlich）指出，印度和中国的一些父母在生了一个个女儿之后是不会停止生育的，直到他们想要的儿子出生为止。他认为，假如他们能被立马保证会生一个儿子，那么，那些起先出生的女儿就不会出生了，因而人口增长率就会降低。性别选择在阻止更广泛的“人口过剩”的斗争中成了一项工具。

　　But how did an obsession of Western policymakers turn into the widespread practice of destroying female fetuses in Asia? Partly, argues Ms Hvistendahl, through aid. The Ford and Rockefeller Foundations gave over $3m to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the 1960s, helping it to pioneer India’s first amniocentesis tests, initially for genetic abnormalities and later for identifying fetal sex. India at that time was the World Bank’s biggest client, and the bank made loans for health projects conditional on population control.

　　然而，西方政策制定者们的痴迷如何转变成了破害亚洲女性胎儿的普遍做法呢？赫弗斯坦托尔女士（Ms Hvistendahl）认为，在一定程度上是通过对外援助来达到这点的。20世纪60年代，美国福特和洛克菲勒基金会向全印医学科学研究所（AIIMS）提供了300万美元，帮助该研究所创办了印度首次羊膜穿刺检查，开始是为遗传异常（畸形）检查，后来则为鉴别胎儿性别检查。那时，印度是世界银行最大的客户，而世界银行卫生项目贷款条件就是人口控制。

　　No less important, American military officers helped make abortion the population control tool of choice in those Asian countries where they wielded influence, first in Japan in the late 1940s and 1950s, then South Korea in the 1960s. USAID, America’s aid agency, provided Jeeps for mobile clinics which roamed South Korea performing abortions. At one point, a quarter of the country’s health budget was going on population control and the number of abortions hit an all-time record in Seoul, where, in 1977, there were 2.75 abortions for every live birth. “What would have happened if the government hadn’t allowed for such easy abortion?” asks one sociologist. “I don’t think sex-selective abortion would have become so popular.”

　　在亚洲国家，同样重要的是，美国军官促进了使得堕胎成为人口控制工具的选择；他们在那儿施加了影响。首先是在日本，在20世纪40年代末和50年代；然后是韩国，在20世纪60年代。美国援助机构---美国国际开发署为韩国流动诊所提供吉普车。这些吉普车漫游在韩国大地上帮助执行人工流产手术。在某种意义上，该国医疗预算的四分之一是用于人口控制。1977年，汉城堕胎数量创历史新高，每个生命降生就有2.75次堕胎。“假如政府没有提供这样容易的堕胎技术，将会发生什么呢？”一位社会学家问道。“我并不认为堕胎会变得如此受欢迎。”

　　Ms Hvistendahl is convincing in telling the little-known story of how Westerners helped create the conditions under which sex selection began in Asia. But her emphasis on the West’s role is less sure an explanation for the practice’s spread throughout China and India. China’s coercive population-control policies were developed in the late 1970s, at the end of the Cultural Revolution and the early reforms of Deng Xiaoping. This was a period of isolation and modest opening-up, when China was not much interested in Western advice. The available records are scanty so it is hard to be sure, but the influence of Westerners on the one-child policy seems modest. Westerners had more clout in India, but it turns out some of them used it against, rather than for, sex selection. One (Indian) doctor from AIIMS, arguing in favour of sex-selective abortions, concedes that “this may not be acceptable to persons in the West…” Oh.

　　赫弗斯坦托尔女士（Ms Hvistendahl）令人信服地讲述了一个不为人知的故事：西方人如何助长性别选择在亚洲开始的情形。但是，她强调，西方的作用并不能解释这种做法在整个中国和印度的转播。中国强制性人口控制政策在文化大革命结束以及邓小平早期改革的20世纪70年代末开始发展。这是个孤立而适度开放的时代，中国当时对西方的建议并没有过多的兴趣。可获得的记载也很少，因而也很难下定论，但是西方人对独生子女政策的影响似乎并不太大。西方人在印度却有着更大的权力和影响，但最后证明，他们中一些人是用这个方法反对性别选择，而不是为了性别选择。一位来自全印医学科学研究所的（印度）医生，主张支持性别选择堕胎并承认此举西方人是不会接受的…”哦。

　　Ms Hvistendahl’s history is marred by the occasional lapses into self-righteousness and polemic. She says others who have written about sex-selection technology have not been critical enough “because blaming backward cultural traditions is simpler.” She dismisses a World Bank report that said South Korean actions to combat sex selection had worked, as “flat-out wrong”, apparently because it would let the bank off the hook for previous support of population control. She calls Western population policies a “plot”.

　　赫弗斯坦托尔女士（Ms Hvistendahl）的故事被偶尔陷入自以为是和激烈的争辩給毁了。她说，其他写了性别选择技术的人批判的并不够，“因为谴责落后的文化传统变得更加简单。”她并不接受世界银行的一份报告。这则报告称，韩国与性别选择作斗争的行动已经起了作用。其理由就是这则报告“彻头彻尾错了”，显然是因为此报告将让世行摆脱以前支持人口控制的责任。她称西方人口政策为一个“阴谋”。

　　Still, the merits of her book outweigh such flaws. Ms Hvistendahl’s distinctive contribution is twofold. She provides a history of the modern practice of sex-selective abortion, based on new and detailed research, and she helps readers think about its possible consequences. Most of them look grim. America’s violent Wild West, she points out, had a huge preponderance of men. Excess males in central and southern China also contributed to the Taiping rebellion of 1850-64, one of the bloodiest civil wars in history.

　　尽管如此，她的书依然瑕不掩瑜。赫弗斯坦托尔女士（Ms Hvistendahl）特殊的贡献是双重的。以新的详细的研究为基础，她提供了性别选择堕胎的现代实践的历史，而且她帮助读者思考这种实践的可能后果。大部分结果看上去很严酷。她指出，美国充满暴力而荒凉的西部绝大多数为男子。中国中部和南部男性过多也促成了1850年至1864年历史上最血腥的内战之一的太平天国起义。

　　Sex selection, Ms Hvistendahl says, still does not get its proper attention. Female genital mutilation is all over the websites of UNICEF and the World Health Organisation. Sex selection, in contrast, hardly gets a mention. One hopes her book will help the subject get its due.

　　赫弗斯坦托尔女士（Ms Hvistendahl）表示， 性别选择仍然得不到应有的重视。联合国儿童基金会和世界卫生组织的网站上到处都是毁坏女性外阴的信息。相反，性别选择几乎不值得一提。谁都希望她的书将有助于这个主题得到应有的承认。