A new survey of birth ratios has been launched by the British government recently, “amid fears that sex-selective abortions are taking place in Britain.” Earl Howe, a UK health minister, “wants to ‘monitor the situation’ and ‘remain vigilant’ following evidence that some doctors in the UK are carrying out selective abortions.”

This is old news. The Daily Telegraph uncovered these practices in 2012. And the British Director of Public Prosecutions’ response? “There may be circumstances, in which termination of pregnancy on grounds of fetal sex would be lawful.” Nice to know the DPP is protecting the weak and vulnerable.

But perhaps Britain is just catching up with global trends. It’s estimated that between 160 and 200 million girls are missing in the world. No prizes for guessing why. So, while the male-to-female birth ratio usually hovers around 103:100, according to the British Medical Journal, the sex ratio for the generation of children born in China between the years 2000-2004 hit an unprecedented 124:100.

Oh, the irony: After demanding abortion-on-demand for decades, where are the feminists on this one?

But we in Ireland will have sound, water-tight systems in place to prevent similar proliferation – assuming that one day we end up with a British-style abortion law, hopefully something that will never happen.

If you’re honest, you have to accept that arguments against sex-selection abortions, when made by those who otherwise “support a woman’s right to choose,” are untenable.  Either you can terminate a pregnancy at will or you can’t. Once you can, all else is superfluous to the point. Once you succeed in arguing that a child in the womb does not have an inherent, unalienable right to life, it inevitably ends up as one amoral, utilitarian argument against another. And so we now have the parents’ desire not to have a girl trumping the girl’s non-existent right to life.

On the bright side, this is a teaching moment. Will the Irish be so naïve, so lacking in wisdom, to swallow the assurances of the abortion lobby? Will Ireland avoid following Britain, and the world as a whole, towards abortion being used as a contraceptive and selection process? Want to bet?

With the ongoing, slanderous attacks in the US about conservatives “waging a war on women,” isn’t it nice to be on the side that protects all women?