don't deserve the privilege of raising them. Yes, the practice is unsavory, but more unsavory are the societal conditions and attitudes that create the demand for sex-selective abortion. I say, let them dig their society's own grave, and let the status of women rise as their supply grows short.

So is Broadsheet pro-choice or not?

I'm not arguing that it isn't stupid and shitty that Indians are aborting female fetuses just because they're female, nor that it won't cause a problem if twenty years time. But if you support a woman's right to choose, you can't then turn around and say that she's only allowed to make a choice for the right reasons. You can't legislate decency or good sense.

While the status of women may increase slightly when there are less of them in a society, the status of girls never does.

Women may or may not be able to negotiate, but girls will just be traded off or kidnapped (what is happening in rural China due to the shortage). And quite frankly - when society devalues females to this extent - adults of the female persuasion rarely have the power or right to do any "negotiating"

The only plus side is that with fewer women, the rate of increase in population slows down.

I don't agree, myself, with having an abortion for this reason.

However, historically, the worst abuses of women happen where there are more women than men, generally because the men are off killing each other. Women are devalued, seen as livestock, because there's no competition necessary: there are more than needed to go around.

Cut supply, demand stays the same, quantity demanded goes up, price goes up. This is simple economics. This generation has fewer girls. The next generation, men have to compete for the favor of women instead of the other way around, and suddenly the value of having a female child goes way up. No, there's no guarantee about fair treatment for women, but they certainly stop being disposable. Which, in turn, makes the next generation of mothers less likely to go for the idea of sex-selective abortion.

It's a self-limiting practice. The idea is unpleasant, but so far as I'm concerned, let them have a generation of all boys--maybe it'll help India's population problem. And hopefully kill that lingering dowry issue, too.

It is heartening that government officials seem to be responding to the case seriously...</>

The "case" is the (feminist approved) jailing of a doctor and his nurse for performing an abortion! Wow! Now you'll have no credibility when they outlaw abortion in your state, when THEY claim that ALL children deserve the SAME protection as female "fetuses" (can a fetus have a gender - which we have been told so often is actually a condition of socialization and not biology)in India - and how will you respond: "but, they're killing girls..."

I just heard a loud swoosh down a slippery slope!

It is heartening that government officials seem to be responding to the case seriously...

The "case" is the (feminist approved) jailing of a doctor and his nurse for performing an abortion! Wow! Now you'll have no credibility when they outlaw abortion in your state, when THEY claim that ALL children deserve the SAME protection as female "fetuses" (can a fetus have a gender - which we have been told so often is actually a condition of socialization and not biology)in India - and how will you respond: "but, they're killing girls..."

I just heard a loud swoosh down a slippery slope!

Surely you did not just advocate a sex-test for an abortion. C'mon, girls, think!

I noticed a kind of wary hesitancy in the wording of this piece- maybe because I was curiously looking for an angle and couldn't find one. The fact of the matter is the information belongs in Broadsheet, as it does concern women and their status in the world. That we're assuming some veiled message is a reader and writer problem regarding blogs and their purpose. Do I need to detect an agenda? And why? I have my own opinion on the matter, mostly of the saddish variety for all sorts of reasons.

They should really focus their energy on making life a little more bearable for female children in Haryana and elsewhere in India.