For the skeptical, though, I advise pulling up the study yourself and flashing ahead to page 16, where the authors admit: “Our study of pooled ACS data confirms Almond and Edlund’s study with regard to the third births of foreign-born Chinese, Indian and Korean families that have already given birth to two girls.” Wait, what? This wonderful, up-to-date study confirms the very point that was most critical to the pro-life argument all along? So… then… what are all these pro-choice advocates so excited about?

It’s possible they just didn’t read the study closely. And, in fairness, the authors pulled a bit of a fast one on their journalistic admirers by burying the single most important piece of information in a forest of far-less-relevant facts, graphs, and meanderings about methodology. Amazingly, they don’t even bother to tell us what sex ratio they found for the single most critical, two-daughter case. Did they figure people wouldn’t be interested in that niggling little number? Or do they just prefer to hide unwelcome data in plain sight by shining a bright spotlight on those statistics that are friendlier to their political agenda? It’s a neat little bit of misdirection. Move over, David Copperfield.

Now, in a way, I can sympathize. It’s got to be frustrating when you bring together a lot of important-sounding organizations to do a big, splashy study, and it ends up confirming the piece of data that most sticks in your craw. But now that we’ve descended to throwing around accusations of racism, I think the truth should be spoken. Asian-born American parents with two daughters are significantly more likely to have a son for their third child. Combined with Puri’s qualitative study, and ample data confirming the use of sex-selective abortion in some Asian cultures, that constitutes strong evidence that it also happens here in the United States. My compliments to the University of Chicago for confirming this with their new, comprehensive study.