China and India Aborting Millions of Fetuses

Williamson�s wise advice went unheeded. In the years after her study was published in 1978, ultrasound became increasingly available in Singapore and other countries in South and East Asia. The introduction of this technology enabled a new and brutal form of sex selection: if the sonogram shows it�s a girl, abort. Researchers� estimates of the number of female fetuses aborted over the past twenty years are mind-boggling: ten million in India, twenty million in China. Because of this practice, demographers and political scientists point out, millions of males in these countries are now reaching adulthood with no prospect of finding a mate and starting a family. In the absence of such social bonds, they warn, these rootless young men may turn to violence, militarism, or even terrorism. Here we have perhaps the ultimate example of how events within the womb can have wide-ranging repercussions in the world: an intervention in there, repeated millions of times, is reshaping societies out here.

Notes:

Because they are girls and the numbers are mind-boggling.

Folksonomies: pregnancy sex selection abortion

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Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives

Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Paul , Annie Murphy (2010-09-28), Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives, Free Press, Retrieved on 2011-02-08

Folksonomies: pregnancy fetal obstetrics