It was Zero-Dark-30 on a bleak December Morning. General Screwtape kind of knew this was coming since the first Tuesday in November. His rather unique and stylish “Master of Puppets” ringtone awakened him. He was not too surprised when he recognized the number as Brimstone HQ.* It wasn’t going to a pleasant morning. The (expletive) – chewing began with gusto.

“Screwtape! You misbegotten spawn of Beelzbubba! I sent you to America to wage a half-way decent War on Women, and the best you could do is have that idiot Romney put them in binders! And those deals where they only get paid $0.70 for every $1.00 the men get – you’ve seen what’s happened to Male U6 Unemployment, you (expletive)! Sandra Fluke is sending you the tab for her birth control. I’m ordering you to pay it as penance for your pathetic screw-ups! Now I’m feeling particularly jolly this fine morning.**Because of that, I’m sending you a file to read that might save your wretched and villainous career. This here tells you how China keeps the Little Ladies in their proper place!”

The conversation above was fictional. As fans of C.S. Lewis know well, Screwtape is a fictional character. The “advice” he received on how to win his War on Women fast and early is tragically real. If the War on Women exists anywhere not compliant with Sharia Law then sex-selective abortion has become the preferred WMD.

The impact of sex-selective abortion has been to eliminate a significant cohort of females from the global population. Typical historical birth ratios feature 1.05 males for every 1.00 females. For example, the Early 1980’s Chinese ratio of 1.085 boys to 1 girl was considered within the realm of the norm. However, that ratio has shifted since 1982. It has gone from 1.085 boys per girl to 118.9.

China had expressly outlawed the practice, but this has worked about as well as The Volstead Act or The Gun Control Act of 1968. Researchers studying Chinese gender imbalance have discovered the following:

• In a 2002 survey conducted in a central China village, more than 300 of the 820 women had abortions and more than a third of them admitted they were trying to select their baby’s sex.
• According to a report by the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the vast majority of aborted fetuses, more than 70 percent, were female, citing the abortion of up to 750,000 female fetuses in China in 1999.
• A report by Zhang Qing, population researcher of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the gender imbalance is “statistically related to the high death rate of female babies, with female death rate at age zero in the city or rural areas consistently higher than male baby death rate.” Only seven of China’s 29 provinces are within the world’s average sex ratio. Zhang Qing’s report cited eight “disaster provinces” from North to South China, where there were 26 to 38 percent more boys than girls.
• In the last census in 2000, there were nearly 19 million boys more than girls in the 0-15 age group. “We have to act now or the problem will become very serious,” said Peking University sociologist Prof. Xia Xueluan. He cited the need to strengthen social welfare system in the countryside to weaken the traditional preference for boys.

This trend has been duplicated to a lesser extent in India. Shwetlana Sabarwal described it in a 2007 presentation to The University of Granada entitled “Son Preference in India”.

… we find that despite considerable economic development and social change, son preference remains high. In recent years the processes of fertility decline and advent of sex selection technologies have meant that families translate their preference for sons into prenatal discrimination against the female fetus, as can be witnessed by the worsening sex ratio at birth in India.

This tragic policy has led to predictable negative externalities. The Economist describes the potential black lining around the cloud of sex-selection abortions.

The crime rate has almost doubled in China during the past 20 years of rising sex ratios, with stories abounding of bride abduction, the trafficking of women, rape and prostitution. A study into whether these things were connected† concluded that they were, and that higher sex ratios accounted for about one-seventh of the rise in crime. In India, too, there is a correlation between provincial crime rates and sex ratios. In “Bare Branches”††, Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer gave warning that the social problems of biased sex ratios would lead to more authoritarian policing. Governments, they say, “must decrease the threat to society posed by these young men. Increased authoritarianism in an effort to crack down on crime, gangs, smuggling and so forth can be one result.”

So that’s what a really well-executed War on Women should look like.

But Amerikan women believe in equality. They believe in fairness and women’s rights. They would rise up in anger against such a barbaric practice and…Oh, Wait! Here’s what Planned-Parenthood USA chose to do instead.

Yep, there you have it! The War on Women is being won – one sex-selection abortion at a time. Not just in China, not just in India but even in the Good Ol’ US of Aye!*** We can do this, Screwtape! Just keep telling people it’s all about equal pay and birth control….

*- Proud Home of the Fiery Lake of Woe.
** -His French Roast to start the morning must have involved some actual Frenchmen.
*** – Just another reason to be proud of Amerika! (sarcasm off)