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FACE TO FACE: Not a natural situation

Once upon a time, there was a people - an entire country, moreover - that professed a great love of all things natural. Except, that is, for one of the most important natural processes of all.

Once upon a time, there was a people - an entire country, moreover - that professed a great love of all things natural. Except, that is, for one of the most important natural processes of all.

The people, let's call them Canadians, praised the natural beauty of their great land. They looked in awe at the magnificent mechanisms of the natural world around them.

They passed laws against pollution, carbon emissions, and the dumping of toxic wastes in order to protect nature. They preserved great expanses of natural eco-systems.

Why, they even bought natural foods and natural remedies in copious quantities.

But these nature-loving Canadians had a blind spot. While they loved, adored or even worshipped the many natural things around them, they ignored a vital aspect of their own natural beings.

You see, nature has chosen to give we humans an equal number of baby girls and baby boys. It's only natural, since one woman and one man come together to procreate.

One would think that Canadians, of all people, should recognize this essential, natural balance. Instead, they have willingly allowed a decidedly unnatural process to take place-the gender-based culling of unborn baby girls.

In fact, Canada has no law whatsoever regulating abortion, with the result that gender imbalances are beginning to show up in some communities, according to a 2006 report, "Canada's Lost Daughters," by investigative journalist Andrea Mrozek, now with the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada.

The problem is more acute overseas, where hundreds of thousands of female fetuses are aborted every year in countries such as India and China, according to a recent Maclean's cover story. Nevertheless, Canada has no official foreign policy opposing sex-based abortion.

My colleague on the other side of the page is ready to sacrifice these unwanted baby girls on the altar of feminism and choice, and also professes to see my opposition to the rampant purging of unborn girls as a none-too-subtle pro-life initiative.

I cannot claim to be without convictions in this matter. But I would rather be guilty of defending the natural goodness and intrinsic beauty of newly created human life than be responsible for abetting the destruction of a class of humanity because of prejudice, ignorance or misguided ideology.