“Gendercide” has been in the news recently with Live Action’s undercover films demonstrating Planned Parenthood clinics’ repeated willingness to perform abortions based on the mere fact that the pre-born child was a girl. Is this practice very common in America? A Patheos writer discusses:  

A Gallup poll taken last year found that 54% of young men prefer to have a boy, compared to 19% who prefer a girl. Young women showed no statistically significant preference and older women slightly preferred a girl.

Another study, this one published by Arthur Shostak in 1984, surveyed 1000 men who accompanied their wives or girlfriends to abortion clinics; 45% confessed that they had pressured their partners to abort (and these were the men who were “supportive” enough to accompany their partners to the clinic). If young men are likely to pressure their partners to abort, and young men also show a stark preference for boys, it would seem to follow that young men are more likely to press for an abortion when the baby is a girl. Even the ultra-pro-life Guttmacher Institute acknowledges that sex-selective abortion appears to take place among some American populations.

Did early advocates of legalized abortion imagine this scenario? The article “Fathers, Don’t Abort Your Daughters” was written by a father admittedly disappointed when he found out his wife was carrying a girl. His change-of-heart has turned to an emotion plea, and it’s well worth a read.