Accounts such as these make me both terribly sad and angry. Especially coming from a culture that revers goddesses as divine power and 'shakti'. It's sick that educated people think like this too. Don't they realize that in this day age, neither your son nor your daughter is going to stay with you, so why give such a big hoot about what sex your first born is.It is tragic that cultures across the world still consider females second class citizens and end their lives even before they begin. Argh!!!

This is such a sore thorn on the side of India that keeps seeing the light of day. The term "educated" is very misleading. When you compare the lower middle class with access to an "abortion" and prenatal care you are bound to find people with some level of education. Education does not make a 5000 year old culture go away. I still battle demons of my culture and family pressure 20 years out of India in the west so you can imagine what it is like in India.

Also the "educated" are compared to the vast majority of "illiterate" in India who may not always have access to an abortion but rather will kill a girl baby after it's born or is the group with the high mortality rate among girl children in the first 5 years of their lives because of neglect.

My mother who is an ob/gyn and practiced medicine in India for some 20 years informs me that sex determination is illegal in India though doctors will do it for $$. It's a dirty business. Also she informs me that the number of doctors performing sex selective abortions drops considerably as you get into the upper middle class. It's the doctors catering to the lower middle class who aren't that well to do themselves and are in more rural areas that have a higher tendency towards this kind of practice.

It is also common knowledge that there is a renegade unspoken group of doctors all thru India who actually sever the fallopean tubes so that a woman can no longer conceive in cases where she has gone thru too many abortions or has had too many girls already in hopes of a boy. These are the same doctors that will force the couple to get the man tested after the couples can no longer conceive and inform the man that he's shooting blanks. Absolutely unethical though you can debate that.

Of course this isn't scientific proof, just her experience.

The only thing I keep thinking when I read things like this is that at some point it has to change. A 'male-heavy' society will have to start evaluating its complicity when there are no marriageable women. I worry though that it won't lead to a re-valuing of women but rather will lead to different mechanisms for finding wives (forced marriages, kidnapping, etc.) instead.

My cultural background is matrilineal though certainly arguably not matriarchal or above sexism. Nevertheless, I truly think girls are valued. Primacy is placed on education for both genders, and there is no real incentive to kill your girl babies when they are the ones through whom property is passed down, and with whom you live when you are old. Advocating for that sort of structural change may not be possible in most Indian cultures, but even replacing it with the Western one of financially planning for retirement ;) might be a better option.

Nux2: Just curious, but where are you from? Your culture sounds really interesting.

This really is quite sad though. I suppose this also ties into this odd turning point in Indian history, where modernisation is more at odds with tradition than ever before. Though in this case, instead of being at odds with each other, modern technology and Indian culture come together to create a monster twice as terrifying. I guess now parents would be considered as murderous for killing a baby before birth as opposed to after it. Though, I could be wrong.

It is tragic that cultures across the world still consider females second class citizens and end their lives even before they begin. Argh!!!

True. But is a culture with a more egalitarian sex-ratio in the murders of baby fetuses really much better ?

I wish I could remember the documentary I saw a few months ago that was based on this very subject. Men in a remote village in UP were concerned with this problem when the male population outnumbered the female count by over 50%. One of the villages 'Panchayat' elders was very vocal about the female infanticide etc. He said that feudal and caste quarrels didn't help much either because men from village A couldn't marry women from village B or C and so on. I believe it was on the Discovery Channel.

I was surfing the net on this subject and this article breaks down the 'demographic black hole' numbers by state.

"Don't they realize that in this day age, neither your son nor your daughter is going to stay with you, so why give such a big hoot about what sex your first born is."

actually, in this "day and age" especially in the middle class, the children _do_ stay with their parents, and the men are entitled to all the property and a stake in the business while the girls are married away. even in this "day and age", my extreme upper class marwari friend is constantly told by her grandmother "your days as a member of this household are numbered, girls are born to be given away".

the most insidious practice that i have come across is the following.

a couple goes to get the ultrasound done, the doctor is bound by law not to reveal the baby's gender, so instead as they are leaving he uses the following tactic...

when saying goodbye if the baby is a boy the doctor will say, "Jai Shri Krishna", and if the baby is a girl he will say, "Jai Mata Di" ....

But is a culture with a more egalitarian sex-ratio in the murders of baby fetuses really much better ?

These murders are evil, period. But we hear more about female fetuses being aborted then male one. I know of educated people who still resort to gimmicks to choose the gender of their kids.

actually, in this "day and age" especially in the middle class, the children _do_ stay with their parents

Theresa,

I guess I should have added that I personally don't know of anyone in my generation, whether male or female, who lives with parents after having finished college and especially after marriage. More often that not, work, school and indeed life takes people around and away from home. The only time that I have seen parents come back and live with their kids is when they are very old and perhaps ill. And when that happens, they don't care whether it is the daughter or the son who assists them.

I used to get the same kind of lectures that your upper class Marwari friend is getting from her grandmother about girls being 'guests' etc. My granny's favourite chauvinistic comment is 'True progress in the world only sees the light of the day when the man is on top'. Interestingly, not a lot of her grandchildren, me include believe this. Does your friend believe humbug such as this?

I apologize if I sound like I am hogging these posts...this issue really gets me incensed..:-)

I suppose, India should re-discover its matrilinear past(which I think existed). Malayalis(not only Nairs) and few Tuluvas(Aishwarya Rai belongs to this linguistic group) have been traditionally matrilineal. Unfortunately, this tradition is losing out due to high migration of these people. Well, there are people like my wife, who wants only one girl child so that she can give her name to her, the vast majority is turning patrilineal. I suppose, it's showing in the declining sex ratio for girls between 1-6 years olds in Kerala. Though I don't consider Kerala is the shining example of equality of the sexes(that depends mostly on the attitude of males), the empowerment of Malayali women is greater because of its traditional social rules which somehow went right on few issues.

Abhi,

Sure, there are no two opinions about the harmful and inhuman effect of female infanticide that is practised primarily in India and China. However, there are few things I want to point out if we really want to discuss the problem with some justice:

1) Lancet as a journal has a doubtful reputation, but then Science had a shaky last few weeks too (South Korea, cloning). Their Iraq casaulties are very much under dispute. The article about mad cow disease and Ganges river was firmly disputed by Nature. This said, your topic is important and maybe, using Lancet does not matter. Maybe, the study presented here is on the mark, I do not know. Maybe, you just want to raise an important issue.

2) I was reading the comments - None of seem to keep in mind that still 80% of India still resides in villages, live as extended families, a third of them fully illiterate, still quite poor with no social security in place - therefore, upper class marwari anecdotes, my grandmother examples have no statistical significance (anything more than small talk) in a serions discussion. Talking of western-style social security scheme is not an option right now, maybe 20 years from now. Majority of 20% of the ones who are in urban are still not part of "India Sninning" yet. Therefore, any discussion should accurate demographics in mind.

3) There is also a larger issue at hand - how does a country like India can regulate (some semblance regarding of law enforcement regarding) abortion (male or female) - where majority of them are done without any physician - they are done in most inhuman way, illegally. Issue of abortion in USA and in India are different ball games. How does one enforce such laws in India?

4) I love "Starbucks" intellectuals as anyone else but a problem like this gets solved by empowering organizations like SEWA which are giving micro-credit to women, giving incredible opportunities to women in India. Maybe, off-sourcing business has been a start in such a direction too. There are people like Ella Bhat who should be recognized and really helped by all of us in ways we - Are we really doing that? Just talking aimlessly...........

I suppose, it's showing in the declining sex ratio for girls between 1-6 years olds in Kerala. Though I don't consider Kerala is the shining example of equality of the sexes(that depends mostly on the attitude of males), the empowerment of Malayali women is greater because of its traditional social rules which somehow went right on few issues.

It's hard to ignore that Kerala is the leader in women's progression in the entire country. A higher rate of literacy for women, lower mortality rates for girl children, and a more healthier male to female ratio as compared to the rest of India. They are definitely doing something right and the government should use the example to model an approach for the rest of India.

India, indeed is a land of contrasts. All this in a country which a little more than thirty years ago had a woman prime minister take charge for several years to come. As progressive as America is, it's only now that she is warming up to the idea of a female president. Even today a foreign born woman is India's most powerful person!

Clickable Sex Ratio Map of India

Also as families start planning smaller families, son preference gets amplified.

theresa,

i wanted to tell you that through your sepia mutiny comments in past - i gather you are doing some very important work in inda.

keep in up..........we salute you efforts.

as kenyandesi pointed out, the above problem might more pronounced when families becomes smaller in India, like it happened in China.

I am an Indian urban woman pregnant with my first child. My instinct tells me its going to be a girl, in India sex-determination is banned. Reason being women normally abort female babies, thinking them to be a liability. It is common even among the middle-class women.

Women are often coerced by other women and family to abort/abandon if it is a girl. Feminity and the birth of it is an issue not many people understand, especially to Indians all strata included. Money, Men and More Money is the mantra in society that fights to ensure survival.

Look at adoption, in India mostly it is only girls babies up for adoption. Well all statistics are available, but is is deplorable that India still doesn't trust its BABY GIRL power.

There is this movie called Matrubhoomi - a nationw ithout women which talks about the future where women are in the minority ans subjected to even more torture.

The film explores a futuristic rural India wherein due to rampant female infanticide, women are practically extinct. The impact of the absence of women on men sees them finding alternative sources of release - pornography, homosexuality, bestiality, violence, the works. When a girl is actually spied, she is promptly sold and married to five brothers. All five - and the father-in-law-exercise their conjugal rights in turn. She starts coming closer to the youngest brother, the only one who treats her as a human being much to the chagrin of the father and other brothers. The eldest brother has the youngest one killed. She turns to her father for refuge but the father blinded with money too lets her down. After her attempt to escape with the low caste family servant boy unwittingly triggers off a caste war, she is clapped in iron chains in a cowshed and raped repeatedly by her family and the low castes as well. When she finally becomes pregnant, everyone claims paternity. In the throes of the devastating caste war that ensues over her, she gives birth to a girl.

And I thought if there were more men, I could marry two of them.

just off to work, but wanted to throw a few things in there...

1. yes, india is still in the villages, not the cities... and really, even those in the cities are not often affected by the "winds of change" that go through the upper classes. i was present at a delivery a few months ago in a village in madhya pradesh, the baby was a boy and the woman started crying, i asked her why, and she said, "i am allowed to go home now"... turns out if the baby was a girl she would have been without a husband, in-laws, everything... they told her, "if it's a girl don't come back".

2. ya, SEWA is good, but ella bhat has been embroiled in some controversy that it is important to recognize. i work with a very small organization called Beti in Lucknow. we provide health and education support to girls in villages of UP. as indicated by the name we focus on girl-children in our advocacy and action efforts --- the work we've done has revealed the other reality of male-child preference. namely, that girls are born yes, and many of them get to stay alive, but they don't get to go to school, they are often sold off in their teenage years, trafficked to various cities (oddly enough, benares is a big destination for trafficked girls), or generally just "disapear" before they turn 20.

i think anyone who has been to places in rural punjab, anywhere in up, bihar, etc. can attest to the fact that there are simply no girls around -- you just don't see them whether on the streets, in restaraunts, just anywhere... they are missing.

talking aimlessly has its purpose but yes -- the next step is action. there is a whole heap of work to do...

kush: thanks for the praise -- although i am a small fish in a big pond :)

biologically oriented might find the trivers-willard hypothesis of interest. also, empirical data relating to mating systems.

I've not seen Matrubhoomi, but I suppose reality is not too far from this futuristic doomsday prediction. When the last census results were revealed, the boy:girl ratio in some upper-class, well 'educated', rich societies in Haryana and Punjab was found to be as much as 4:3. ie: imagine every fourth boy not having a female partner for him. This BBC report gives some more info:
.."I couldn't find a local girl," said Chandram, who purchased a wife last year from Bangladesh. "So I had to go outside to get married. But it wasn't cheap..."

So even if we discount these reports of bride-buying as one-off cases, but a precedent is set. If this trend continues, pretty soon we will have market rates set for brides with prices varying by caste. Come to think of it, this is opposite of dowry death scenario, where guys are up for sale(though not at the same level). India is indeed diverse as hell. It becomes difficult to make sense of such issues. Sometimes I wish, we were a bit less diverse.

(ps: I put 'educated' in quotes, because I think in many of these discussions we equate literacy with education and they mean two different things)

Razib said:

biologically oriented might find the trivers-willard hypothesis of interest.

Yes, I too was thinking of Trivers-Willard while writing the post. It also reminds me of Jeff Goldblum's character in Jurassic Park who chides the owner that even though all the dinosaurs at Jurassic Park are female, "life will find a way" to balance it out so as to provide offspring.

Kush said:

but a problem like this gets solved by empowering organizations like SEWA which are giving micro-credit to women, giving incredible opportunities to women in India.

When I worked in India I was also involved in a micro-credit program for women in the Delhi slums but a lot of those women got beaten if they made more money than the men (who would use their profits to get drunk). Still it was a good idea and was seeing some success.

Cecilia said:

...When a girl is actually spied, she is promptly sold and married to five brothers. All five - and the father-in-law-exercise their conjugal rights in turn.

There was an article about just this type of scenario a couple of months ago. In a village in Punjab several men were sharing one woman as a way to get past the shortage in women caused by abortion.

ok, this just in (via Uma). British Medical Journal says "The sex ratio of children born at the hospital rose from 107 boys/100 girls in 1982 to 132 boys/100 girls in 1993.....
....Fetal sex determination was common, especially if the family already had daughters. Sex determination seems to be driven by a desire to have sons, with socioeconomic status and education having little effect."

the boy:girl ratio in some upper-class, well 'educated', rich societies in Haryana and Punjab was found to be as much as 4:3

Generally, dowry system is rampant among landed castes(upper is POV, dominant would be better). Female infanticide is generally attributed to this factor. Therefore, education is irrelevent in this case without a structural change in the social practices. Traditional community feeling instead of individualism is proving any drastic change in the society almost impossible at present.

However, typical with communities, the Jatt Panchayats(village committees) in many villages in Haryana have passed diktat against dowry. At least, people are aware of the problem.

As a passing thought, it's not a great surprise if it's rich classes that are the traditional practitioners of dowry system. I suppose, dowry system could have been started by the rich since it hardly affects them. Otherwise, not only females even males are equal victims of this practice. I suppose, this practice was started by rich landed castes in the past which spread to other castes (so-called upper and lower) over time. Perhaps, you can gauge this phenomenon by the opinions given by the females belonging to various communities in India. In Southern Indian state Andhra Pradesh, the Reddy(a landed caste) girls were 'cool' to dowry according to a survey conducted by "The Times of India" sometimes ago.

Kush

As a Lancet subscriber - I would not say their rep is questionable, but the editor likes to court controversy. The Iraq debaccle and the Lancet's remarks about homeopathy being bunk were two big issues that I covered in my newspaper last year. But there's a difference between editorials and papers. The Iraq study was the only thing that has some questionable data. Everything else they run is sound. This was a Canadian-Indian study which wasn't initially due for The Lancet.

Epoch

But is a culture with a more egalitarian sex-ratio in the murders of baby fetuses really much better ?

I'm assuming you're referring to abortion in general. Your opinion is your own and I won't get into that debate, but it's the numbers that set India and a country like America apart. You're saying that in America both sexes are aborted. But the proportion of pregancies aborted is far smaller. Obviously India's population is a few times bigger, but normalising for that the number of abortions is lower. And almost no abortions in the West are performed on the basis of gender.

However, screening out X chromosome-carrying sperm may soon become commonplace. This circumvents a lot of people's qualms about abortion and I'd predict if it goes on unregulated (like much of America's health system) you may find ratios altering outside countries as backward as India or China.

I think this is going to cause a big problem a few decades down the line. One reason why the sex imbalance hasn't created huge problems in the marriage system is that with a growing population and a tradition of older males marrying younger females there is a rough equality of marriageable men and women.

For example if the population grows at about 2% and if men are on average 5 years older than their wives then even if there are 10% more men at any given age the number of men will roughly equal the number of women about five years younger. So there will be enough 20 year old women for 25 year old men.

However as the rate of population growth slows down (which is happening and a good thing)it will be increasingly difficult for men to find wives. So if the population rate growth is 1% the number of 25 year old men will be greater than 20 year old women and the men will have to wait. Once population growth is zero there will be a permanent surplus of men who won't find wives and this can potentially cause huge social problem.

Before you let this study reinforce your western cultural prejudices....

Recent research has shown that there might be another explanation for the deficit in the female population:

The Search for 100 Million Missing Women

"...researchers had found that a pregnant woman with hepatitis B is far more likely to have a baby boy than a baby girl. It wasn't clear why—it may be that a female fetus is more likely to be miscarried when exposed to the virus."
....

"She measured the incidence of hepatitis B in the populations of China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh, and other countries where mothers gave birth to an unnaturally high number of boys. Sure enough, the regions with the most hepatitis B were the regions with the most "missing" women."

According to the Slate article:
"Her discovery hardly means that Sen was wrong to cry misogyny, at least in some parts of the world: While Oster found, for instance, that Hepatitis B can account for roughly 75 percent of the missing women in China, it can account for less than 20 percent of the boy-girl gap in Sen's native India. The culprits behind the disappearance of the 50 million women whom Oster did not find are likely the horrible ones that Sen and others have suggested."

So apparently Hepatitis B isn't the major cause for the sex-imbalance in India.

Dissent, the quality of that research is astonishingly low. It's nothing more than bogus science like the propaganda studies published attributing Punjab's sex imbalance to natural disasters. It's poppycock.

The Jha study, the entirety of which I have read, is sound. Sen's initial research and the Oster paper you cite are both by economists who seem to pluck figures from the air. The Greenland and Greek studies that Oster referred to a little more than anecdotal evidence garnered from a handful of women. As I'm sure you know, the key to any reliable clinical study is size. The bigger the sample size, the better. Jha's study studied 134,000 births.

Oster herself admitted that her Hep B theory explains less than 20% of the imbalance in India and Pakistan. China is the only one with any sort of (non-causal) link. What has happened is she has erroneously linked two incidental findings. I'll do it too: China has more men than women. Chinese people have black hair. Black hair must cause male births. It's faulty science.

She also concedes that as Hep B vaccines are almost universal in China and India the ratio should not have been so skewed as of today - but it is. Hence disproving her own hypothesis.

It's mumbo jumbo by someone who really doesn't understand what she's writing about.

I have a little controversial take on this issue. I think market forces are going to take care of the issue of female infanticide. I am serious when I say that, because I believe that the reason, boys are preferred are twofold. (See, Vinod !! I was telling the truth when I said, I am a believer in market force)

1). Lack of social security (for old age) and a boy is supposed to be able to care for parents when they are old.
2). Dowry. Boy is money in where as girl is money out.

The reason I say that market will take care of the HORRIFIC practice, is that increasingly its becoming more expensive for middle class people to have boys. The reason is that parents are supposed to "educate" the boy and spend a lot of money, then provide for housing (which is becoming more and more expensive). These things at one point will make it no longer "profitable" (or "economically desirable", sorry for both dis-tasteful characterization) to have a boy child. Thus stopping the INHUMANE practice of female infanticide.

RC,

Taking a Devil's Advocate view, one could subsequently state that a possible outcome would be parents aborting male babies as well as females, rather than just focusing on the girls. The pendulum could swing in the other direction (or both directions, if you understand my analogy).

Anyway.....

I think that, once awareness of the gender imbalance becomes sufficiently widespread back in India, one potential outcome is that people will resort to increasingly-extreme (and possibly morally-dubious) methods to deal with it. A consistent problem in some quarters of desi culture is an unwillingness to admit to one's own mistakes and logically/ethically-flawed reasoning, and to subsequently take "ends justifying the means" actions to deal with the fall-out from attitudes and behaviours which were highly misguided in the first place -- instead of addressing and changing the "root cause" attitudes and practices.

...and...give rise to...male..infanticide...????

My second paragraph wasn't related to the first one; the first part was specifically in response to RC's message.

The rest of my post was just a few thoughts on this issue in general, based on some views a number of commenters had expressed on this thread previously.

Thats why I said, my position is controversial. The crux of my position is that female infanticide is a perversion based on economic situation. (I am open to arguments that prove me wrong). So, the solution is economic as well. When the pendulum swings the other way, it will bring a different set of socio-economic reality (according to my argument). If I comment about it, it will be just speculation.

RC,

Having a boy and turning him into a 'good investment' that would eventually bring a 'huge return' has always been the case irrespective of how much it has cost the parents. Inflation and the prospects of spending more has only been offset by the concept of the "NRI" cashcow. That phenomenon has become even more prevalant in the past decade and a half. The "NRI" tag still has the potential to get maximum $$$ and also has given rise to the phenomenon of a "honeymoon wedding" where NRI boys are going back to their respective villages marrying and having a good time with women only to never follow thru and take them back with them overseas.

I'd like to see the 3+ / woman birth rate in India go down period. Not swing the abortions the other way. That would be more ideal no? Because only when the population is under some control and there is lesser strain on the existing resources which might bring more education and dare I say "westernization" to the country will women become more desirable???

A huge peeve for me is the media/entertainment in India. Where very other TV soap opera is about the bitchy MIL or the ever suffering DIL why the hell isn't anyone making programming that addresses this issue to brainwash the general junta into the right direction?????

Actually - I've just thought of another reason that Oster's research is bunk - if the first born is a son, the second and third born have a normal chance of being female. That would be impossible if Hep B was to blame. But seeing as she more or less accepts it's not the cause, I fail to see the purpose of her article/study.

I have had not one but 2 abortions with a kind, female doctor in an immaculate Delhi clinic. My ex husband, whom I married for love, turned out to be severely alcoholic, with all its related abuse/trauma. These abortions were what enabled me to get on with my life, educate myself and provide for my wonderful first child. Yes, we left my husband. I am fully in support of abortion being freely available. You marry with love and hope and if you cannot provide a kind,loving home and a future to a child, it is far better and humane to abort than weep over horrid child abuse tales daily in the US press. All of you should understand that a woman or a couple resort to an abortion when they are NOT able to look after a child for whatever reasons. This is a last resort desperate action, they do not need your criticism as well.

As for doctors tying up fallopian tubes of really poor women with many, many abortions or in terrible health, what would you do? Pontificate without any compassion? Compassion is not always sanctioned by law or the Pope. Women or men are kidnapped when they are weak, not because there are fewer of them.
Japan's economic miracle was attributed to freely available abortion, post war.

In Maharashtra, the govt has instituted a lot of pro-girl child measures which actually make having a female child much smarter. Girls have free education up to grade 12, reserved seats in most professional colleges, they even pay taxes at a lesser rate than men (up to a certain level, I forget the exact limit).And yes, they even have reserved seats in the Parliament. A lot of these laws are on paper....someday they will translate into real benefits.

Untouchable said:

This is a last resort desperate action, they do not need your criticism as well.

Thank you for sharing your personal story. I think however, that you may have misunderstood this issue. Neither the study in The Lancet nor this post is judging whether abortion is morally right or wrong. That is an entirely different debate with passioate and personal views on both sides, and an issue that has a lot of relevance right now in the U.S. THIS debate is whether or not sex selection of the unborn through abortion is right or wrong. I cannot even imagine someone trying to find a moral or logical defense of this practice. I just don't see that there can be one.

I am fully in support of abortion being freely available. You marry with love and hope and if you cannot provide a kind,loving home and a future to a child, it is far better and humane to abort than weep over horrid child abuse tales daily in the US press. All of you should understand that a woman or a couple resort to an abortion when they are NOT able to look after a child for whatever reasons.

No one is advocating a ban on abortions. No one believes that abortion should not be freely/openly available to those that seek it. Your situation with all due respect is very different from the situation we are referring to. This isn't an abortion issue as much as it is a social/cultural issues that needs to be addressed. People have to be taught to have fewer children and accept whatever sex the child may be. That is a larger issue than getting people to stop having abortions. The morality issue isn't attached to the abortion itself but rather to the sex selection.

which might bring more education and dare I say "westernization" to the country will women become more desirable???

The female infanticide is prevelant is educated middle class population. So they are already educated. I dont understand how more education will help this group.

By education I don't mean learning about sciences and math and geography. I meant more in terms of a reform towards social education and attitudes towards women. Government programs address AIDS, family planning and all kinds of other issues. Why can this not be one of those issues where "education" or awareness is brought about by the government concentrating on it?

"Government programs address AIDS, family planning and all kinds of other issues. Why can this not be one of those issues where "education" or awareness is brought about by the government concentrating on it?"

Ms. Janet,

They (Indian Government) have been talking about female infanticide from since I can remember. They have been TV ads, newspaper articles, serious commentary. Walk into any hospital in India, you will see educational ads all over. One of the earliest article I read was from Illustrated Weekly of India way back when.

At Carl Sagan's talk I remember him (paraphrased) saying, "Please do not think that people in developing countries do not know about harmful effects of unlimited population. It is that is their only social security in places with high mortality rates." In a similar vien, cruel economic and social forces (that is why economics is the only cause) conspire toward female infanticide practices by normal human being put under bizarre conditions.

As somebody on this thread mentioned that Maharastra Government has incentives in place.

correction: that is why economics is not the only cause

If a parent cannot or will not look after a child, girl or boy, they should be permitted to abort. If a girl brings trauma to them, that is their call. Some abort if they cannot look after a baby, some because the child is handicapped or female or whatever. It is their call unless you are willing to take over the baby. And this business of a shortage of girls or boys is ridiculous. On lighter note, most women are managing with a shortage of reasonable men!
By the way, baby girls are more in demand for adoptions today.

And this business of a shortage of girls or boys is ridiculous.

How so? You don't see this becoming an issue in communities who continually do not bring girls into the family some 20 years down the line?

And this business of a shortage of girls or boys is ridiculous.

I think the only thing that I have managed to learn from your comments is that you are ridiculous.

"Please do not think that people in developing countries do not know about harmful effects of unlimited population. It is that is their only social security in places with high mortality rates." In a similar vien, cruel economic and social forces (that is why economics is the only cause) conspire toward female infanticide practices by normal human being put under bizarre conditions.

Kush has it summed it up preety good above. Sometimes its hard for people to realize the difference of wealth gap (and Social security gap) there is between a typical western middle class person, compared to his/her Indian counterpart. This sometime is mis-represented as lack of morals on the poorer person's part (or, represent as "lack of western values")

A few points...

1. This problem(female abortions) has existed since the mid-late 70's because...
2. ...before that pre-natal sex tests were prohibitedly expensive. So...
3. ... some enterprising individuals got together to fulfill this market demand.

Since at least the 80's the Indian government has spent hundreds of crores of rupees every year trying to prevent female-infanticide. Like all government programs everywhere, the return on investment has been negative, ie the problem has only grown bigger! In fact, the government posters discouraging this has actually ended up educating people about this possibility!! ("Arrey! I didn't know that this technology existed!")

This is a classic case of trying to solve a non-organised societal problem in an organised manner, especially when the demand is distributed and strong. Failure is certain, as pro-Prohibitioners realised in America.

This will grow worse. As you may know, it is the male (sperm) that determines the sex of the would-be baby. Right now, pre-natal tests + abortions cost a few hundred rupees. Sooner or later, somebody will come up with a five-rupee pill which a man can take to kill off all his sperm that could give give birth to females. If he refuses to take it, his parents will "slip" it into his morning cup of tea. Chances of female fetus will be ~0%. Pre-natal testers will demand a ban to the pill, but will fail because it's cheaper and less invasive. The male-female sex ratio will hit 100-10. Abortions will be reduced drastically.

But then, something wonderful will happen. Life, as Abhi quoted Malcolm before, will find a way. Parents of girls will start demanding exhorbitant dowries from would be grooms. Girls will get their best pick of men. This has started happening now. A cousin sister of mine refused to marry any groom who had a mother! She held out for two years so she could go into a house with no MIL. Another relative of mine demanded that she would marry only a man who would come and live with her in her parents house. Girls will, and should, demand that the man change his last name to her's. In fifty years or so, balance will be achieved and things will be back to normal.

Unfortunately, in the meantime there will be a lot of pain and suffering for many.

M. Nam

A cousin sister of mine refused to marry any groom who had a mother! She held out for two years so she could go into a house with no MIL.

ROFLMAO omg I nearly fell off my chair. This was the funniest thing I've heard all day. Having been thru too many girlfriends/cousins woes with MILs I say more power to her. My mother has given me permission to go at her if she turns into a horrible MIL towards my brothers wife!!

To Hawkeye(27):

If 75% of the missing girls in China can be explained by Hep B, it is possible that it explains 75% of the missing girls in India as well. It is also possible that the female deficit in India may be explained by some other disease. It is a important clue which should be pursued further.

To BongBreaker(28):

Before you dismiss Osters work, have you actually read her paper or is your critique based on the slate.com article?
You said: "What has happened is she has erroneously linked two incidental findings"
and "I fail to see the purpose of her article/study."

The purpose of her study is very clear: to see beyond the immediate explanation for the female deficit and uncover the true reasons for it. If you dont want to see the correlation between Hep B and skewed sex ratios, it is because you want to fit the facts to your pet theory.

MoorNam it seems you're the one who hasn't been reading things properly. If you read my post and the slate.com article, you'd know I'd read her paper. I only read the slate piece now, and have seen that half the things I've mentioned have not been mentioned in the article, so you figure it out. I have no interest in reading the slate piece - in fact it offerred precious little critique of the paper.

MoorNam, see my point #35 - it completely disproves the Hep B hypothesis. Oster (if YOU'VE actually read her paper) goes on to disprove her own hypothesis. This is why I said her paper is pointless and daft.

I knew you'd turn up and some point and try to down play this, put a postive spin on it and offer support for alternative explanations. Good old predictable MoorNam. You claim her paper was to uncover the true reason for the gender deficit. It didn't. The Jha study did.

Sorry MoorNam, you're the one who's trying to fit things to your pet theory, i.e. there's nothing wrong with Hindus. Had this only been a Muslim practice, you'd be the first to deny any possible link to Hep B. Read my objections again - her paper is nonsense. It should not be pursued further. You think one lone economist has stumbled upon a hidden pandemic? You don't think an army of doctors would've swarmed on this if it had any credibility?

Please, face facts.

Whoops - completely misread there. Sorry, been a long day. I got MoorNam and dissent's posts muddled up. Sorry - what I addressed to MoorNam is addressed to you dissent.

Apologies MoorNam. I feel pretty stupid about the 'I knew you'd...' bit.

Bong,

Man, you are slipping. You are "not reading carefully" and then telling others...........

What has happened?

To Bong Breaker(51):
"Read my objections again - her paper is nonsense. It should not be pursued further."

These statements clearly display the depth of your analysis(and the heights of your arrogance). It is pointless having a discussion with highly presumptuous bigots like you.

Haha Kush, but quite a deserved jibe!

Dissent, shame you've done what anyone with a weak argument does, resorted to name-calling. And so soon. But I'M the one who is difficult to argue with! How, pray tell, does one pass your non-bigot test? By paying heed to every crackpot theory that someone cares to concoct?

Intelligent Design. Lots of 'evidence' for that. FAR more than one paper that didn't make any waves in the medical press. So should I "investigate it further". No. Because it's bullshit. So, by your logic, that makes me a bigot.

Arrogance has nothing to do with it. I am exceedingly arrogant, but my views on this article are nothing to do with that - they're merely a reflection of how poorly constructed a piece it is. I don't know why you're dogmatically insistent that people must "investigate it further". Learn to spot bogus research when you see it - there's STACKS of it out there. If you believe everything you read, you'll end up buying into a lot of hocum and missing the major implications.

You have yet to offer any rational support for her paper. Have you read it?

Although, I agree that there is girl deficit in India, its not same all over the country. Obviously BBC is first to jump the bandwagon and stereotype entire nation.
The report is based on a survey done in 1998, Which means the report might not be accurate.

Sex ratio (females per thousand males) is really high(996/1000) in South India, but in North India its really low.

I hope BBC will do some research before publishing these kind of news/views.

Prasad says:

Obviously BBC is first to jump the bandwagon and stereotype entire nation.

This a pool story which means that dozens of news orgs picked it up at the same time. BBC isn't stereotyping anything but just reporting the story. You are certainly providing us all with an expected stereotype though.

The report is based on a survey done in 1998, Which means the report might not be accurate.

Right. So as the technology involved in sex selection improves and makes the killing of baby girls even more efficient, it makes sense to you that the data would no longer be as bad as in 1998. Come back when you pull your head out of the sand.

This issue is actually a part of the larger debate on abortion itself.

Is abortion good or bad? Would there be such a big outcry if equal number of male and female children are aborted?

In the US itself, 1.3 Million fetuses are aborted each year.

See:US Abortion Stats - I
US Abortion Stats - II

unforgiveable situation, and so many people to blame!

In my personal experience, thankfully I've been born in an upwardly mobile middle class family which didn't believe in removing females from the equation, although a sense of extra responsibility has always been quite obviously associated with girl children. At least they all got college education! Let me dampen that down with a couple of situations where opportunities were taken away from some of them to thrive and grow as much as male children - in one case, in a family of 3 children, the girl child who did well enough to go to medical school via performance in national public exam (for perspective of effort it takes to get into medical/dental school via public entrance exam, consider that in 2004, 203241 candidates appeared for about 1519 seats) was not allowed to only on account of her being a girl. Her brothers were provided more opportunities. Then there is the case where one of my relatives had 7 girls in a row before he gave up and adopted a boy. How's that for a slap in the face if you're a girl in his family. While they all got secondary education, they were (while I was in touch with them) being married off right at legal age. I remember on the wedding of the eldest, her mother was breastfeeding the youngest while giving her away.

I'm sorry to say, these are exceptions only in our family, not in the nation.

I believe its not that the parents are demons, just that without financial resources they fall back on what they can do to worsen their situation less. Reprehensible, but what it means is that as prosperity arrives, we might finally see falling female infanticide rates. The low opportunity availability situation will improve accordingly. To me the only real answer is financial and small families.

For some reason the link has SM address prefaced to it. The correct link to the stat I quoted is http://www.education.nic.in/Annualreport2004-05/Secdu.pdf

I agree with Moor Naam said. As a capitalist , all I will say is let the markets rule. If parents feel boys are to their liking now , let them have it their way. Soon - we will have a crazy situation when dowry will be needed to pay by the boy to the girl's family. That will be the day all this female infanticide stuff is put an end to. Economics is the deciding factor in everything.Nobody can change that.

The reason for me blaming BBC is that although they are a responsible news agency, they tend promote prejudice in British society against Indians albeit unintentionally. Some of my white friends ask/say some weird things about India and say that they have read/saw the news on BBC.

I come from coastal Andhra Pradesh (one of the states in India) and I've never encountered/heard a family in my community/relatives preferring a male child to a female child, in-fact contrary to that in my childhood I was dressed up as a girl( for photo's) as my parents did not have daughters. They always tease me that i should have born as a girl.

Prasad, the BBC has done more for British Indians than any news agency in any country has done for any immigrant population. They also frequently run documentaries on India - a whole week was recently dedicated to India's economy. Just because you haven't met someone who does this, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The BBC have never stated ALL Indians do this. The BBC just reports the news - good or bad. There's more good about India than bad. It's only when I started watching Indian news (NDTV, Star are the ones I get here) that I realise how much crap there is in India. Living in the UK and reading the Western press, like the BBC, India comes out smelling of roses.

India has never been a country that is ashamed of itself. Throughout history it's been depicted inaccurately. During the Cold War India was 'the West's enemy'. During the Raj India was an 'in-fighting nation of polytheists'. But India went on regardless. It's natural that you want your country painted in the best possible light to the outside world, but hiding from the truth should not be an Indian trait. The reason progress is made is because people face facts. The most outspoken critics of India and the most powerful agents of change are Indian. Other countries (e.g. China) may try to sweep its shit under the carpet, we shouldn't.

I'm assuming you're referring to abortion in general. Your opinion is your own and I won't get into that debate, but it's the numbers that set India and a country like America apart. You're saying that in America both sexes are aborted. But the proportion of pregancies aborted is far smaller. Obviously India's population is a few times bigger, but normalising for that the number of abortions is lower. And almost no abortions in the West are performed on the basis of gender.

In the US 1.3 Million fetuses are aborted each year. That is more than double the number in India. (estimated 10 million over the last 20 years).

I was really just fishing for a functionalist answer to the question, namely that sex selection is wrong because an unbalanced male to female ratio would result in social problems.

If you read the news paper articles soicologists seem to want to jump thorugh all kinds of hoops to avoid functionalism in favor of a marxist class and gender struggle.

These statements clearly display the depth of your analysis(and the heights of your arrogance). It is pointless having a discussion with highly presumptuous bigots like you.

As Anna would say...if you don't like us, leave. Noone is forcing you down with your ass super glued to a chair to read this blog.

Everyone else, whether in the US or in India or anywhere else, abortion as a form of birth control is stupid. Yes, we are human beings and make mistakes but smart people learn from one. They don't have to keep on repeating them over and over to finally realize that their pants don't come off by magic.

In this case, where abortion is used mainly to pick a baby's gender is particularly callous. Again, I am not pointing fingers just at India. It is a rampant problem in a lot of societies. I know of asians in Africa, the UK and even America who do this nonsense. It's just more pronounced in India because the country has been notorious for other similar practises such as dowry deaths etc.

Mnam...your idea for a 5 rupee pill that kills the female producing sperm cells really cracked me up!

A couple of thoughts:

- Education and wealth, as have been mentioned already on this thread, unfortunately do not always make the individual a nicer person -- they do not necessarily teach the culprit humility, empathy, integrity, or compassion. Higher levels of intellectual capacity just mean that, if the person concerned is so inclined, they are able to come up with more devious, calculating, and ingenious ways to be a jerk and to figure out how to successfully get away with it. Plus, higher social status sometimes results in bigger egos, which results in nastier behaviour -- this is especially pertinent when you bear in mind how ego-driven desi society is (broadly-speaking).

- As someone else mentioned, people here in the West also often prefer boys, but in their disappointment they do not kill female children (not on the scale it occurs in India). As I've said quite a few times previously on SM, a huge issue within desi culture is that people go to further extremes in their behaviour -- they don't always apply the necessary psychological "brakes" to restrain their thoughts, emotions, and actions. So you then have disproportionately large numbers of people "crossing the line" in their behaviour, especially if they find a way to blame the victim and rationalise/justify/excuse their nasty behaviour (this is even worse if they hypocritically know that what they are doing is fundamentally wrong). Coupled with the casual disregard for the legal ramifications of their actions (in so many walks of life), and you have all kinds of culturally-sanctioned psychotic behaviour, whether it's asking for exorbitant dowries, "bride burnings", or female infanticide/foeticide, even though such actions are all criminal at the very least and, of course, psychopathic and truly abhorrent as well.

*people here in the West also often prefer boys

Clarification: I'm referring to non-Indians living in the West.

Dear Jane of all trades

20 years from today,who knows. A war/illness, etc. may decimate many males. All I know is people do whatever they do in pursuit of life, (their's), and happiness, (their's). So if a having a girl means hardship, that is their reality. Should it be different? Yes,of course.Today more m class families are seeing that it is the daughter who worries about her parents, who knows what they need and more are finally appreciative. Many NRI sons make money and come home only when the parent is about to die and to claim property. I do not think anyone has the right to pontificate re girl aborting unless they can provide an alternative: Adopt the baby, like Asha dan does, encourage contraception. Meanwhile understand that the mother/father do what they think is best. Demographics do not really predict the future with accuracy. Alas China (and Japan) leapt forward only after abortion was freely available. Alas Both were girl hating cultures.

Doctors criticise report on female abortions

“This is misleading. Why are they giving these details now, after so long? This is not happening for the past four or five years after strict laws were put in place,” said Dr Narendra Saini, joint secretary and spokesman of the Indian Medical Association, which has 170,000 doctor members.

In the US 1.3 Million fetuses are aborted each year. That is more than double the number in India. (estimated 10 million over the last 20 years).

Your stats are faulty. Estimated 10 million over 20 years is abortions of FEMALES WHICH ARE DUE TO GENDER. Abortion numbers in total in India, which is what the 1.3M in America is, are far higher.

Bong,

Just to request you to step back a minute. Epoch and dissent are not without merit on this issue.

Just to be a contrarian (or academic) for a minute.

If you normalized the data sets (female population), are they more abortions per 1000 person (women) in US than in India. I do not know.

I do not know about this stuff, and googling only can be misleading. Somebody like you, chick_pea, MD or anyone else might know better.

I know this is not an easy question to answer - as I would assume most of the abortions in US are documented and legal, and I know from reading literature for India, most of them are not documented and illegal (not done by a trained physician) - so does one compare?

people here in the West also often prefer boys
Do you care to provide the basis for this assertion? I haven't felt it, but if there is some data that indicates it, I am curious.

Kush,

I haven't commented because I don't have time to read about this properly - I don't know the data very well. But you make an interesting academic point: how much of 'accepted' knowledge is based on studies that are flawed? I can't answer in this case.

My personal experience of India itself is extremely limited - I have no idea if the aunties and uncles that I know, or if my ex-in-laws, represent India today, as it were. What they do represent is a stifling version of what a woman should be, in my own personal opinion (but that's not entirely fair). My father, mother, some of their friends, are terrific champions of women,and still it's complicated! Even a feminist-male can be less than ideal to his female parter. The personal is not always reflective of political. Ifthis data reflects reality (and, isn't it possible, given the cultural notions?) then it is sad. Beyond sad - it is a sort of abomination. Some on this thread have given economic reasons for why this might be, but do we really have data to support that notion? Some economic conditions are created and self-enforcing, if you see what I mean. However, using abortion to select desirable children is used in the West, too. Down's babies are less and less because of parent's choosing to abort when they know the status. Read some disability blogs - they offer an interesting perspective on parental choice.Shall we select and why? The notion seems anathema when stated that way, doesn't it? Or does it? My thoughts are also altered by my experiences with multiple sclerosis. We live in very strange times....

*Finally, the NRI-bashing (I mean that in a tongue in cheek fashion, so don't take it too personally). Sometimes I think some resident Indians are a tad insecure......

Okay, I have to clarify for those that are not familiar with my comments: I really am joking about the NRI, resident Indian bashing/insecurity, lest someone take offense and think I am being serious......it's just that you see this on threads from time to time, one group tsking the other. I find it amusing. How can all resident Indians or non-resident Indians or desis be the same? Surely, you will find differences. Viva la difference, I say!

MD,

I am very glad that you answered.I am strong believer that any problem, one should do two things: a) look at the problem critically, and/ or b) do something about it. It saddens me when people use the troubling issue like this to vent because they did not had their daily prozac yet - hey, they are free to do it but still it leaves a bad taste.....That is why I carefully listened when Theresa spoke.

My feeling is that from an academic point you can only accurately determine the "female deficit" in India by comparing any other healthy societies (even, use American Samoa, Polynesian Islands). The female deficit is highly abhorent and speaks of some serious malaise. That problem could be neglect of females, general poverty, abortion, abuse, or even Hep A, etc. However, I am still wondering (I heard the authors on BBC but have not read the article) how can one determine the number of abortions done for female foeticide.

You are a scientist and you understand - flawed studies can be very harmful. I am not saying this is one. But still one has to be careful. God, data collection in India is hell - the system is not set up for it.

Also, one has to compare how in west, people use abortion for eugenics. What is proportion for them per thousand for them?

Hmmm, I have something else to add. Isn't abortion always a selection of a desired child, whether it is a male child in India, or simply, an unwanted child in the West? I mean, you do not desire the child enough to have it, so, you don't. Or, you may think, it is not responsible to have another child, I simply can't handle it, or we will be poor, or you don't think too much about it. It's just something you do, and then, it's over. I suspect this happens a fair amount in the West. I know plenty of women who've had abortions. For many, it's glided over.....If abortion is not akin to murder, then why should it make a difference if you are aborting girls as opposed to boys? Well, it does bother me, I suppose, because of the reasons for the abortion (females are less desirable) and the outcome of a society where the male female ratio is heavily skewed. I'm just riffing - be patient. If abortion is not akin to murder, then why does the selection of a fetus with certain characteristics bother us (or me, I mean, at an emotional level, why am I responding to this idea of selecting?) What if the child will be born with multiple sclerosis? Down's? Some illness that we can detect, but not treat? Will we be able to determine IQ and will we target for that?

Is it okay to choose to have children based on certain characteristics, but not okay based on another set of characteristics? And utilitarian arguments are always tricky - it implies costs and benefits, and who gets to set the price, eh?

I suspect this happens a fair amount in the West. I know plenty of women who've had abortions. For many, it's glided over.....If abortion is not akin to murder, then why should it make a difference if you are aborting girls as opposed to boys? Well, it does bother me, I suppose, because of the reasons for the abortion (females are less desirable) and the outcome of a society where the male female ratio is heavily skewed.

Good point. Anyone pregnant or who has recently had a baby knows about the 12-week ultra scan and the 16-week triple test, which, among other things, gives the couple the option of aborting a "probable" down's syndrome baby, and many women do abort because (lets be frank) they don't want the headache. I don't think its a simple issue of "I'm western and thus more 'moral' than you."

That being said, the Punjab/Harayana sex ratio really IS an abomination. The Hindu religious leadership in India does not speak out enough (if at all) against sex selection, which is strange, considering that abortion is maha paap (a great sin) in the Dharmashastras. The large Hindu wedding in North India for which the bride's family must pay does not help. It will be good to see North Indian men forced into begging for a bride in the near future. They deserve it. It is much better in South India.

MD, I don't know if in yr last comment(#76) you are just wondering aloud or really asking a question. I'll just add my two paise in the mix. In the first case,
a) "a child is aborted", whereas in the latter case
b) "a girl child is aborted".

It is not so much the abortion that matters than the fact that as a society 1/4th of the society we live are still ready to pay a premium on a boy over a girl. This is what gets me and I guess most of us here who commented. Apart from the obvious social imbalance it would create(which have been discussed at length on this thread) let me give you just one more small side example which hasn't been discussed here. Imagine living in such a society with two beautiful daughters. Do you think they'll be able to go about their day to day business without getting leched at every nook and corner? Without getting abused and with a feeling of being born in the wrong place/time ? Without wanting an end to their wretched existence? On the contrary, I had a colleague at work from Bihar..who said that (after his BE and a IT job)whenever he returns to his village for vacation, his parents don't allow him to sleep alone on the terrace with a khatiya or roam around in the markets like he used to earlier. Reason being, there were some cases of enggrs, doctors being kidnapped and forcefully married off to Yadav girls and obviously if guy then dares to exit..Laloo's shtick is always there.

As a society our development is deeply rooted in a healthy respect and rights for both the genders. Sway to the extreme on any side and it'll cut.

As long as abortions are done without preference for any particular sex, then the natural balance remains intact. The abortion itself could be for any reasons...maybe because the parents aren't ready for one more child, or they think they can't provide a safe upbringing with good values, or the mother is unhealthy....whatever. Besides, mistakes do happen. And couples don't want to bring up a mistake for 18 years, do they? So as long as this rationale applies to any foetus, and not just a boy or girl child it should be fine.

I agree with you that any utilitarian arguments in this debate with a cost-benefit excel sheet attached to them are misplaced.

It will be good to see North Indian men forced into begging for a bride in the near future. They deserve it. It is much better in South India.

Eddie, you don't know the figures involved in rich Nair/Naidu/Reddy weddings. It runs into lakhs, acres of land or kilograms of Dubai-polished gold bars. North Indian weddings are (in)famous only because they are too ostentatious and due thanks to Bollywood movies who are always obsessed with Punjabi marriages. Believe it or not, a close friend of mine was offered a crore in dowry to marry a Andhra girl and accept to be a gharjamaai, essentially a servant of his father-in-law. If anyone of you've watched "Love ke liye kuch bhi karega", to be a Saif Khan(minus Sonali Bendre or her love) :)

Abortion, as best as I know, is NOT considered maha paap/sin in the Veds. The soul is believed to enter the baby around 7 months when the baby's life outside becomes naturally viable.... Also it is understood if it is aborted/miscarried, the soul knew and accepted this would happen.... though there are enough gurus/mullahs/reverends/prolife goondas making some woman feel terrible because she aborted or used contraception. For what it is worth, Emmanuel the religious group, also accepts the soul knew this destiny.
If you are really against abortion, maybe you are against contraception too a la Catholics? Give the bonny sperm a chance?

Why can't we understand people do this only when they feel it is for the best? Anyway what shortage of women when so many men are becoming gay? And when every woman I know is complaining about a shortage of men?

Bong Breaker said:
"Your stats are faulty. Estimated 10 million over 20 years is abortions of FEMALES WHICH ARE DUE TO GENDER. Abortion numbers in total in India, which is what the 1.3M in America is, are far higher."

Logically speaking, the total abortion figures in India can't be much greater than 10 million. If it was, the sex ratio would be almost balanced. Clearly, all the extra abortions will have to be male fetuses.

Here are some actual numbers for legal abortions in India(the number of illegal abortions is any ones guess):

Historical abortion statistics, India

If abortion is not akin to murder, then why does the selection of a fetus with certain characteristics bother us (or me, I mean, at an emotional level, why am I responding to this idea of selecting?) What if the child will be born with multiple sclerosis? Down's? Some illness that we can detect, but not treat? Will we be able to determine IQ and will we target for that?

These are great, extremely thought provoking and questions that have no easy answers, I feel. I hadnt even thought in this way, as far as this topic was concerned.

Abortion, as best as I know, is NOT considered maha paap/sin in the Veds.

You are wrong. Read Manu. Abortion-- "sis-hatya"-- is considered a great sin.

If you are really against abortion, maybe you are against contraception too a la Catholics?

I am not against abortion, I am very much pro-choice.

Dear Janeofalltrades
Hope you read Dr Oldenburg's Dowry murders, the imperial origins of cultural crime. Also made me understand when women were forced to take on their father's/husband's name and denied property a la Europe. Beautifully, painstakingly researched.

You talk of combatting a 5000 yr old culture. here is review of Dr Oldenburg's book.

The Hindu custom of dowry has long been blamed for the murder of wives and female infants in India. In this highly provocative book, Dr. Oldenburg argues that these killings are neither about dowry nor reflective of an Indian culture or caste system that encourages violence against women. Rather, such killings can be traced directly to the influences of the British colonial era. In the precolonial period, dowry was an institution managed by women, for women, to enable them to establish their status and have recourse in an emergency. As a consequence of the massive economic and societal upheaval brought on by British rule, women's entitlements to precious resources obtained from land were erased and their control of the system diminished, ultimately resulting in a devaluing of their very lives. Taking us on a journey into the colonial Punjab, Dr. Oldenburg painstakingly follows the paper trail left by British bureaucrats to indict them for interpreting these crimes against women as the inherent defects of Hindu caste culture. The British, Oldenburg claims, publicized their "civilizing mission" and blamed the caste system in order to cover up the devastation their own agrarian policies had wrought on the Indian countryside. A forceful demystification of contemporary bride burning concludes this remarkably original book. Deploying her own experiences and memories and her research at a women's shelter with "dowry cases" for a year in the mid-eighties, the author looks at the contemporary violence against wives and daughters-in-law in modern India. Oldenburg seamlessly weaves the contemporary with the historical, the personal with the political, and strips the layers of exoticism off an ancient practice to show how an invaluable safety net was twisted into a deadly noose. She brings us startlingly close to the worsening treatment of modern Indian women as she challenges us to rethink basic assumptions about women's human and economic rights. Combining rigorous research with impassioned analysis and a nuanced treatment of a complex, deeply controversial subject, this book critiques colonialism while holding a mirror to gender discrimination in modern India. Reviews
"Oldenburg has a unique and compelling voice as a historian. She has left no stone, or document, unturned in her search for the answers."--Geraldine Forbes, Professor of History, SUNY, Oswego

"Oldenburg's arguments are persuasive and written in such clear and jargon-free English that even nonacademic readers should be able to follow [them]...--The Journal of Asian Studies

"With her detailed study, Oldenburg has turned the standard interpretation of sati and dowry deaths on its head. Her methodology combines the historian's careful combing of the archives with the anthropologist's use of life histories and interviews. This is provocative, original scholarship. "--Gail Minault, Professor of History, University of Texas, Austin

"A strong, contentious book on an intellectually, socially hot topic, Dowry Murder offers a rich complex answer to: What are the causes of violence against women in India, of female infanticide, 'dowry' deaths, and battering?"--Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago

dear Ed
Manu, may be. Not the Veds. Also even that Manu states a house where women are unhappy cannot prosper, a nation where women are illtreated can never be successful. Check Donniger's translation.

If abortion is not akin to murder, then why does the selection of a fetus with certain characteristics bother us...What if the child will be born with multiple sclerosis? Down's? Some illness that we can detect, but not treat? Will we be able to determine IQ and will we target for that?

Is it okay to choose to have children based on certain characteristics, but not okay based on another set of characteristics?

I'm stepping back, as requested. But I can't really understand how one can equate screening for disease (pathological) and aborting with screening for a physiological state (i.e. being female or having a normal IQ) and aborting.

It smacks of pro-life rhetoric. For those of you who think that aborting a child with a serious disease is no better than aborting them because they are not a genius, please try raising a child with a serious disease or disability. I have a sibling who will always require full time care, I know what sacrifices my mother's made and I would not hesitate in aborting my child (provided my wife a