-------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Wishing all Goanetters | | a Prosperous | | and | | Happy New Year - 2006 | | Goanet - http://www.goanet.org | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/11/wabor11.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/11/ixworld.html
Indian girl abortion claims are challenged By Peter Foster, in New Delhi (Filed: 11/01/2006) A claim that 10 million girl babies have been aborted in India over the last 20 years has been called into question by the country's leading doctors' organisation. The figure, which was published in The Lancet, was challenged yesterday by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), which said that it was misleading and failed to take into account restrictions imposed by the courts in 2001. The statistic was based on a national survey of 1.1 million households done in 1998 by researchers in India and Canada. "This [the selective abortion of girls] is not happening for the past four or five years after strict laws were put in place," said Dr Narendra Saini of the IMA, which represents about 178,000 doctors. He added that the use of ultrasound scanning equipment to check for girls had waned since India's Supreme Court outlawed the practice in 2001. But activists are convinced that the abortion of female foetuses remains widespread. Ranjana Kumari, of India's Centre for Social Research, said that no one had ever been convicted for sex-selective abortion and that this showed how lax the system was. "There is connivance between the doctors and the parents who don't want girl children," he said. "The government has to come forward on a war footing to put an end to this practice." Traditionally, boys are preferred because of the practice of dowries which, particularly among the 250 million Indians living in extreme poverty, can cause crippling debt. But the study found that a "girl deficit" was more common among the families of educated rather than uneducated women, suggesting that those with access to modern medicine were using it to determine the sex of their foetus and selectively abort. -- Cheers, Gabe Menezes. London, England -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Goa - 2005 Santosh Trophy Champions | | | | Support Soccer Activities at the grassroots in our villages | | Vacationing in Goa this year-end - Carry and distribute Soccer Balls | --------------------------------------------------------------------------
