经济学人下载:性别选择,哑巴啦?

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给毁了。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”。