1. China's population control leader wants jail for gender abortions
Yu Xuejun, who oversees law and policy issues at China's National Population and Family Planning Commission, complains to the Financial Times that the Chinese government is not doing enough to fight gender-based abortion. "I believe this is a kind of crime," he told the paper. The country's law code agrees in theory and includes fines and license revocations for doctors who perform sex-selective abortion. (It is forbidden, for example, to use an ultrasound to determine the gender of a baby before birth.) But Yu complains to the British paper that National People's Congress refuses to jail such doctors. This paragraph is particularly interesting:

"All policies have risks," he said in reference to the problems of gathering evidence of illegal abortions and the threat of the practice being driven underground. "We cannot be deterred because there are risks."

The news comes less than a month after Chinese officials admitted they arrested Chen Guangcheng, one of the country's leading opponents of its one-child policy.

In related news, Britain's health minister said the government will introduce a "clear and specific ban" on sex selection, which could apply to IVF implantation decisions as well as abortion.

In the U.S., aborting an unborn child because the parents don't like his or her gender is legal.

2. Jakes, Gray, and Shaw quit Katrina Fund panel
Black megachurch pastors T.D. Jakes and William H. Gray III, co-chairs of Interfaith Advisory Committee of the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, have resigned in protest, The Washington Post reports today. National Baptist Convention head William Shaw has also quit. The Post's Darryl Frears writes:

Gray said board ...