Sex-selective abortions spanning national boundaries

British-Indian women aborting girls

Samantha Stevens
Soc 202
Prof Sills
12/03/07

Sex-selective abortion, long known to be a problem in places such as China and India, where sons are preferred over daughters, now seems to be a problem elsewhere. The BBC Networks documentary "Britain's Missing Girls" shows that British-born Indian women are likely to feel pressure to have sons, and henceforth to have an abortion if the fetus is determined to be a girl.
The documentary includes an interview with a British-Indian woman, who travelled to India to find a gynecologist who would perform the gender scan and abortion of her female fetus. The documentary also includes footage of a British-Indian woman going to Indian doctors for gender scans. The doctors agreed to do the scan, even though they knew that an abortion would most likely follow if the fetus was female.
The documentary also includes research from Oxford University, showing that from 1990 to 2005, about 1,500 fewer girls were born to Indian mothers in England and Wales than would be expected. The statistics show about 1 in 10 girls less than would be expected.
As I stated in an earlier blog about sex-selective abortion, this is a phenomenon that must be stopped by laws and bans on gender-selective abortion, but also through the changing of the mindset that sons are "worth" more than daughters. The fact that this has spread is only more disturbing, adn shows a backward trend that is shocking and frustrating.