I recently posted a link to a short essay I wrote explaining why I reject leftism. It was rather broad in scope and abstract in content, but now I have a more particular and concrete example to reinforce what I originally wrote. It pertains to news of Hillary Clinton’s recently declared opposition to “sex selective abortion” – that is, abortion that specifically targets the female unborn.

The moral confusion that reigns on the secular left and even significant parts of the pro-choice religious left never ceases to amaze me, though by now, it really ought to. For decades the overwhelming majority of secular liberals have supported abortion rights in the name of women and their “liberation”, their social advancement. As it turns out, however, in countries such as China, India, and even the United States, the majority of aborted “fetuses” are female. There are both practical economic and cultural reasons for sex selective abortion, but those aren’t really relevant here.

The glaringly obvious point is that there is a terrible contradiction at the heart of  modern feminism, between unconditional support for abortion rights and a desire to stop the extinction of women through female abortion and infanticide. In the irony of ironies, a “woman’s right to choose” more often than not means a choice not to bear a girl that will become a woman. The social consequences of sex selective abortions in countries such as China will be devastating as the male population vastly out-numbers the female population, reducing the pool of potential wives and increasing the number of alienated and frustrated bachelors.

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