The problem of sex-selective abortion is not limited to China and
India, but is increasing in communities within Western countries, a new
report by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute says. “I think for a long time we’ve been denying that sex-selective
abortion happens in the United States,” said Anna Higgins, J.D.,
associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute. However, she told CNA, “it does happen here.” Countries like China, with its miserable human rights record, are
notorious for sex-selective abortions because of the country’s long-time
forced one-child family policy, now a two-child policy. Human rights
activists have termed the situation “gendercide” because so many
families choose only to have a boy to carry on the family name. The practice has led to demographic disaster, with 33 million more
men than women in the country, according to human rights activists. Yet sex-selective abortion happens not just in China and India, but
within Western countries as well, Higgins argues. In certain immigrant
communities in the U.S. – including some Indian-American,
Korean-American, and Chinese-American communities – the ratio of baby
boys to baby girls can actually be much higher than China’s. “Although not every country prohibits sex-selective abortion
specifically, there is obviously a global awareness that prenatal
sex-selection is unethical based on the sheer number of countries that
prohibit preimplantation sex-selection techniques,” Higgins said of the
numbers. “The United States is, in fact, lagging behind the rest of the world on this front.” Higgins, along with the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, is
pushing for the House to pass the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act which
would prohibit sex-selective abortions, along with the solicitation of
funds for these abortions or any “coercion” of woman to obtain an
abortion on basis of sex, which happens in some communities, Higgins
said.
The spiritual climax of the Gospel of John, as Father John Waiss points out, occurs at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus utters his parting words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). While these words were addressed to the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Church has long understood this moment as a universal adoption. To truly image Christ, we must share in His parentage; if we embrace God as our spiritual Father but reject Mary as our mother, we treat Christ as a half-brother rather than our "firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). As Origen noted as early as the third century, the profound depths of the Gospel are only accessible to those who, like John, rest their heads on Jesus’ breast and receive Mary into their own homes. This maternal role is deeply rooted in biblical typology, positioning Mary as the fulfillment of the great mothers of the Old Covenant. She is the New Eve , the mother of all the living according ...