I'm pro choice but.....

[genieroze]

India is missing 10 million daughters

* 12:59 09 January 2006
* NewScientist.com news service
* Shaoni Bhattacharya


India is missing about 10 million daughters since the widespread use of ultrasound, estimates a new study.

Over the last 20 years, about 10 million female fetuses may have been selectively aborted following ultrasound results in India, suggest Prabhat Jha at the University of Toronto, Canada, and colleagues.

Their study of 1.1 million households across India reveals that in 1997, far fewer girls were born to couples if their preceding child or children were also female. “There was about a 30% gap in second females following the birth of any earlier females,” Jha told New Scientist.

When the firstborn child was a daughter, the sex ratio for second children among the 134,000 births in 1997 was just 759 girls for every 1000 boys. For a third child, just 719 girls were born per 1000 boys, if both the older children were girls. However, if the eldest children were boys, the sex ratios for the second and third child were about 50-50.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8551

[TahitiNut]

1. It's a self-correcting problem.

As the number of single men unable to find a bride increases, the social pressures will become intenable.

[thinkingwoman]

2. abortion is the method, not the reason

girls are missing from the current generation because society does not value them. Period.

[Nikki Stone 1]

3. Yes. The same thing happened in China with the one child rule

People wanted that one child to be male. It has to do with the devaluing of women, not abortion itself.

[Divernan]

5. Traditionally, Chinese sons provide care for elderly parents.

Since the Chinese govt. only allowed one child per couple, trying to address the country's massive population explosion, couples decided that their one child better be a son if they didn't want to end up in some gutter when they became too old or infirm to support themselves. Furthermore, the Chinese govt. forced abortions on women who already had one child, and denied housing, education and employment to couples who had more than one child. So I really don't think it was about devaluing women.

[seabeyond]

4. gotta agree with you thinking woman, as much as i may be

bothered by such prejudice........ if not abortion, there are other ways like drowning in the river, in china.

[Book Lover]

6. So? If they could not abort, they would commit infanticide

instead. Thinking that females are of lesser value than males is the problem here, not the availability of abortion on demand.

[Divernan]

8. Absolutely - visitors to China see dead babies floating down the river.

Throughtout history, infanticide has been how poor people, lacking birth control or abortion, have responded to the birth of children they could not afford to care for.

[ultraist]

10. Exactly. If they didn't know prior to birth, they'd committ infanticide

Gender bias is the problem, not the availability of ultrasounds or abortions. India has a long history of infanticide of female babies.

http://www.kit.nl/frameset.asp?/ils/exchange_content/html/female_infanticide_-_sexual_he.asp&frnr=1&


Female infanticide in India and China

Adam Jones

Female infanticide is as old as many cultures and has likely accounted for millions of gender-selective deaths throughout history. It remains a critical concern in a number of countries today, notably the two most populous countries, China and India. Female infanticide reflects the low status accorded to women in many parts of the world and is arguably the most brutal and destructive manifestation of existing anti-female bias. It is closely linked to the phenomena of sex-selective abortion, which targets female foetuses almost exclusively, and neglect of girl children. While men tend to be the main victims of war and political-military genocide, the example of female infanticide reminds us that there are institutionalised forms of discrimination and violence that are at least as destructive as the more "traditional" forms of mass killing.

Female infanticide can be defined as "the intentional killing of baby girls due to the preference for male babies and the low value associated with the birth of females." Gendercide Watch, a Web-based educational initiative, founded in February 2000 to confront gender-selective atrocities against both women and men, considers female infanticide to be one of the major forms of "gendercide" – gender-selective large-scale killing. Some would dispute the equation of infanticide with genocide, because it is not the result of central State planning and because killings occur singly rather than en masse.

[SujiwanKenobee]

7. I decry the ridiculous preference for males and the dowry situation, but--

I suppose a slightly positive outcome from this *may* be that India's population could be reduced since there will be fewer couples to give birth.

[Mz Pip]

9. I find it interesting

that the RWers are so willing to go along with the outsourcing of jobs to places like China and India knowing this is happening. Where is their outrage? Perhaps they would be more upset if it were boy babies that were being aborted. They don't seem to value women in this country either, except as breeders and care givers.

Guess I answered my own question.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[Divernan]

11. Plus, these are not WHITE fetuses being aborted.

I want to point out that once an impoverished couple in a third world country has as many children as they can manage to feed, subsequent newborns may be killed whether they are male or female. In the middle ages in Europe, the traditonal method was that the mother simply rolled over them in bed and smothered them. I know these grisly details because I used to teach an Intro to Womens Studies class where we researched the history of abortion, and I came across some scholarly research articles on infanticide.