"There's more money here now, and more education. But it's still in the back of everyone's mind: 'I must have a male child,'" said Madhur Gurhan, the obstetrician who runs the public hospital's maternity ward in Morena, the largest nearby city. "The money doesn't change that."It has long been clear that India has a deep-seated preference for boys. By 2001, researchers estimated the country had anywhere from 20 million to 40 million "missing" girls from sex-selective abortions made available through the spread of ultrasound technology.
But as India modernizes — as places like Singhpura become small towns, as towns become cities and as India's once-overwhelming poverty is slowly supplanted by an increasingly educated middle class that wants fewer children — researchers say the problem is only getting worse.
"We're now dealing with attitudes that are spreading," said Sabu George, a prominent activist against the practice. "It's frightening what we're heading to..."
According to UNICEF, about 7,000 fewer girls than expected are born every day in India. According to the British medical journal The Lancet, up to 500,000 female fetuses are being aborted every year. This in a country where abortion is legal but sex-determination tests were outlawed in 1991 — a law nearly impossible to enforce, since ultrasound tests leave no trace...
Researchers say pressure for smaller families is the most immediate problem. "Squeeze on family size is fueling the trend," said ActionAid researcher Jyoti Sapru. "For households expressing preference for one child only, they want to make sure it is a son."
(International Herald Tribune. April 13)
