Post by chloe on Jan 9, 2006 18:31:17 GMT -5
I could not believe this story when I read it. It is sad,very sad.
Mon Jan 9, 3:53 AM ET
NEW DELHI (AP) - Up to 10 million female fetuses may have been aborted in India over the past two decades following prenatal gender checks, according to a study published Monday in Britain's leading medical journal, the Lancet.
Fewer daughters have been born to couples who have not yet had a boy, according to the study, which was led by Dr. Prabhat Jha, director of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.
The journal said researchers studied data on female fertility from a continuing Indian national survey of 6 million people in 11 million households.
Analyzing information about 133,738 births, the researchers found that the deficit in the number of girls born as second children was more than twice as great among educated mothers than among illiterate ones, the report said.
Based on the natural gender ratio from other countries, they estimated that 136 million to 138 million girls should have been born in 1997 in India. However, 131 million were reported, the Lancet said.
"We conservatively estimate that prenatal sex determination and selective abortion accounts for 0.5 million missing girls yearly," Jha wrote in the study report.
"If this practice has been common for most of the past two decades since access to ultrasound became widespread, then a figure of 10 million missing female births would not be unreasonable."
Ultrasound, used to check a fetus' health, can also find out its gender.
In India, fetal sex determination and medical termination of pregnancy on the basis of a fetus' gender have been illegal since 1994 .
"However, there was ample published evidence of rampant sex determination and female feticide," Jha said.
The preference for boys has skewed the gender ratio in India, a nation of more than 1.06 billion people.
The number of girls per 1,000 boys declined in the country from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001, according to government census-takers.
Many people in India regard daughters as a liability because they traditionally belong to future husbands' families.
The custom of dowry prevails in India, and many families borrow money for gifts to the husband's family.
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Mon Jan 9, 3:53 AM ET
NEW DELHI (AP) - Up to 10 million female fetuses may have been aborted in India over the past two decades following prenatal gender checks, according to a study published Monday in Britain's leading medical journal, the Lancet.
Fewer daughters have been born to couples who have not yet had a boy, according to the study, which was led by Dr. Prabhat Jha, director of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.
The journal said researchers studied data on female fertility from a continuing Indian national survey of 6 million people in 11 million households.
Analyzing information about 133,738 births, the researchers found that the deficit in the number of girls born as second children was more than twice as great among educated mothers than among illiterate ones, the report said.
Based on the natural gender ratio from other countries, they estimated that 136 million to 138 million girls should have been born in 1997 in India. However, 131 million were reported, the Lancet said.
"We conservatively estimate that prenatal sex determination and selective abortion accounts for 0.5 million missing girls yearly," Jha wrote in the study report.
"If this practice has been common for most of the past two decades since access to ultrasound became widespread, then a figure of 10 million missing female births would not be unreasonable."
Ultrasound, used to check a fetus' health, can also find out its gender.
In India, fetal sex determination and medical termination of pregnancy on the basis of a fetus' gender have been illegal since 1994 .
"However, there was ample published evidence of rampant sex determination and female feticide," Jha said.
The preference for boys has skewed the gender ratio in India, a nation of more than 1.06 billion people.
The number of girls per 1,000 boys declined in the country from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001, according to government census-takers.
Many people in India regard daughters as a liability because they traditionally belong to future husbands' families.
The custom of dowry prevails in India, and many families borrow money for gifts to the husband's family.
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