Posted on 01/19/2004 2:56:59 PM PST by jmcclain19
By Mary Carmichael
Newsweek
Jan. 26 issue - For years Rukmini Devi helped Indian couples in the impoverished state of Bihar choose the sex of their children. But in her decades of work, she never once used PGD. Bihar has few ultrasound machines and fewer fertility labs; many of its towns lack even basic health clinics, and most couples don't know their children's gender before birth. But boys are a treasured commodity in Bihar, and if a couple can't choose a child's sex prenatally, they can see a dai like Devi. For 80 cents, says Devi, who is now retired, a dai will help a woman give birth. For 80 cents more, she will take a newborn girl, hold her upside down by the waist and "give a sharp jerk," snapping the spinal cord. She will then declare the infant stillborn. "Many couples insist that we get rid of the baby girl at birth," Devi says. "What can we do?"
It is a question health officials in parts of Asia have been struggling to answer for years. Like most European countries, India, China and South Korea have banned sex selection in any form. High-tech sperm sorting and PGD are just too complex and expensive to catch on in poor areas, even as black-market operations. But the abortion of female fetuses persists—and where it is not available, infanticide takes its place. The cultural bias stems largely from the need for strong boys to do farm labor, but the problem is not limited to poor, rural areas. In prosperous parts of India, clinics regularly identify and abort female fetuses using the same technologies—ultrasound and amniocentesis—they might employ to ensure fetal health. Korean doctors also use ultrasound to detect gender. Under national law they should be jailed, but since the law was made in the 1980s, only about 30 doctors have lost their licenses. Meanwhile experts estimate that 30,000 Korean female fetuses are aborted annually.
As a result, the ratio of infant boys to girls is far off balance. Worldwide, 106 boys are born for every 100 girls—but in Korea, it's 110 to 100. Among fourth-born children, it's an astonishing 168 to 100. In China, statistics are unreliable—some village lists leave out girls entirely—but the last census logged 119 boys per 100 girls, and most Chinese infants up for adoption are female. In India, the ratio is closer to normal but would likely be higher if more rural families had access to ultrasound. In wealthy Haryana, where clinics flourish, there are 114 boys for every 100 girls.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Unbelievable. Evil knows no bounds.
China is planning on continuing to send record numbers of immigrants to the United States. Perhaps they will just send more males than females.
Just when I thought I could not be more horrified, I read this.
There is a special place in hell for these monsters.
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