so you'll have lots of one child boy chinese and indian families and one child girl american, canadian, etc. Sounds like matches made in heaven. On top of that the girls will have the money so you'll be starting things off on the right foot. What's not to like.

I imagine that eventually there will be so few girls left in India and China that they will become incredibly valuable, elevated to goddesses perhaps.

even if americans and canadians have a "preference" for girls (debateable), it's not expected for westerners to abort male fetuses or murder male infants. which is what folks are doing to girls in india, hence the article.

(admittedly this will happen in the future and won't address the current situation in india and china) once it becomes possible via home tests and medications to find out what you've got and do with it what you will. Unless you can halt medical advancement or impose very heavy handed govt. intrustion into private life the capability will eventually be there. Keep in mind that if even a very very small percentage of women prefer females and are able to act on that preference the population will become increasingly female over time if the preference, however small, persists.

Not very likely. Already there have been differences because of the shortage of girls in some parts of India, but the difference is simply that the families pay less dowry, or perhaps the dowry system will tilt the other way. But a change in financial arrangements won't necessarily mean a change in status for the women. In fact, there could be a backlash, with the wives getting treated worse because the husbands' families actually had to pay for them.

Never underestimate the dickheadedness of prejudice.

It doesn't? Then what has all the fuss about equal pay, access to jobs, etc. over the last 40 years, or for that matter 100 years been about. More money sure seems like a start. Isn't it possible that for some people women will always be the injured party, no matter what. Everything has a downside. When men make the family decisions, women are being dominated. When women make them, men are forcing women to assume the burden of doing so. Funny how it is never the other way around. Admittedly the fact that women get stuck with the kids and men are stronger makes this women-are-always-the-victim attitude understandable and even, in the past and in primitve socieities, justified. In technologically advanced societies though this is all in the prcoess of going out the window. Could well off western women possible stop deluding themsleves and trying to delude others that their situation has anything in common with the women in Afghanistan.

I am so heartsick that this practice continues..."dried upside down like flowers."

Remember the "baby towers" in China? These were built hollow, with open tops, to facilitate the dropping in of live unwanted infants, usually girls.

I'm just plain sick that this story is published

in Broadsheet.

Why would it be a main feature?

It's just the genocide of girls, ho hum, business

as usual...

if you want every baby wanted you have to make sure that people have the ability to specifically choose to have children or choose NOT to and not be put in a position where they do so reluctantly because the alternative is worse.

The irony here is that reproductive technologies (including sexual selection techniques) and abortion availability are both issues championed by Western feminists. The law of unintended consequences strikes again.....

Are you serious?

Little girls being slaughtered, that's what's not to like.

I wonder how many little girls have been aborted in the U.S. over the past twenty years? I'll bet it's not far from 10 million. You can't have it both ways.

it appears to be assumed that infanticide will end, obviously there are thought to be other issues, the thing is though that there is no way to remove those issues other than by violating the fundamental humaan rights of women.

Guys, don't be scared to call it what it is: a backwards and savage practice employed by backwards and savage people. Anyone who fills a baby's mouth with tobbacco juice (from the spitoon?), or sand - or hangs the baby to starve to death is an animal - why are people here uncomfortable with calling a spade a spade? Commentators have used the incident of the Michael Richards tirade to prove that America is still "racist", so what does this wholesale slaughter prove about India?

And then there's this:

What no one ever talks about is the effect of infanticide on the women who do survive, and who sometimes end up participating in the practice.

Sometimes?

No Lloyd - all the time.

Has the left become so soggy that even with this they're scared to raise a finger of judgement?

Wussies and surrender monkeys.

This is a more complicated issue than it seems. One of the biggest reasons that boys are more valued in Indian culture is the extended family structure -- there is no Social Security, and parents always live with a son. If they don't have a son, there is no one to take care of them in old age. Daughters always go to live with their in-laws, so they are of no "use" to their parents. It's very unusual for an older Indian couple to live alone -- it's perceived that their children have deserted them. (Watch the Bollywood movie "Baghban" for a great example of this.) Until this practice changes, Indian girls will continue to be aborted or killed.

When the excess boys grow up they will not find wives. I can't think of a formula better suited for social mayhem. Excess women, as after a major war, do not seem to cause much of a problem. One man can easily knock up several women. India and China could choose to go to war with each other, which could easily sop up the exess men, especially if they choose old-fashioned infantry attacks on each other. Like the ancient Chinese curse says, "may your children live in interesting times."