The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.

This article or section may contain original research or unattributed claims. Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the talk page for details.

Sex-selective abortion is the practice of aborting a fetus after a determination (usually by ultrasound but also rarely by amniocentesis or another procedure) that the fetus is an undesired sex. Sex selective infanticide is the practice of selective infanticide against infants of an undesired sex. Such practices are especially in some places where cultural norms value male children over female children.^[1] Ultrasound is sound with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing, this limit being approximately 20 kilohertz (20,000 hertz). ... Amniocentesis, or an Amniotic Fluid Test (AFT), is a medical procedure used for prenatal diagnosis, in which a small amount of amniotic fluid is extracted from the amnion around a developing fetus. ... In sociology and biology, infanticide is the practice of intentionally causing the death of an infant of a given species, by members of the same species - often by the mother. ...

Family sex selection is most common is most common in societies where a large dowry must be paid on marriage.^{[citation needed]} In these societies, families will favour males, as they do not have to pay a dowry on marriage. Some hunter gatherers also practice female infanticide, as males have a higher death rate than females.^{[citation needed]} Male deselection is less common than female deselection, but it would be expected to be seen most amongst poor people and in cultures with bride price. Societies that practice sex selection in favor of males (sometimes called son preference or female deselection) are quite common, especially in Asia^{[citation needed]}; sex selection in favor of females appears to be rare or non-existent. A dowry (also known as trousseau) is a gift of money or valuables given by the brides family to the grooms at the time of their marriage. ... In anthropology, the hunter-gatherer way of life is that led by certain societies of the Neolithic Era based on the exploitation of wild plants and animals. ... Bride price also known as bride wealth or a dower is an amount of money or property paid to the parents of a woman for the right to marry their daughter. ... World map showing the location of Asia. ...

Sex-selective abortion was rare before the late 20th century because of the difficulty of determining the sex of the fetus before birth, but ultrasound has made such selection easier. However, prior to this, parents would alter family sex compositions through infanticide. It is believed to be responsible for at least part of the skewed birth statistics^{[citation needed]} in favor of males in mainland China, India, Taiwan, and South Korea. Although the practice is often illegal, laws against it are extremely difficult to enforce because there is often no practical way to determine the parents' true motivation for seeking an abortion.^{[original research?]} This also makes the issue a difficult one to study as people will rarely discuss the issue openly with strangers. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... The highlighted area in the map is what is commonly known as mainland China. Mainland China (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: is a geopolitical term which is usually synonymous with the area currently administered by the Peoples Republic of China (PRC); however, it excludes the two special administrative regions...

Prevalence

China

Sex-selective abortion appears to have been practiced at various times in Chinese history such as the Qing dynasty due to population pressures. Sex-selective infanticide appears to occur infrequently in China today. However, there is a strong imbalance in sex ratios in China as well as Japan, India, and Taiwan, probably as the result of sex-selective abortion. In addition, there appears to be some sex-selective abandonment of infants to circumvent China's one child policy. The Qing Dynasty (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Ching chao; Manchu: daicing gurun; Mongolian: Манж Чин), occasionally known as the Manchu Dynasty, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1644 to 1912. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Sex ratio. ... The one-child policy is the current birth control policy of the Peoples Republic of China. ...

Female deselection is common in China: Chinese tradition says that most parents want their first child to be born a male. Female deselection is also due to deeply rooted Confucian traditions, and Chinese parents desire sons in order to make familial propagation, security for the elderly, labor provision, and performance of ancestral rites. China calls the female deselection situation the "missing girl" problem.^{[citation needed]} Confucianism (儒家 Pinyin: rújiā The School of the Scholars), sometimes translated as the School of Literati, is an East Asian ethical, religious and philosophical system originally developed from the teachings of Confucius. ...

Parents may wish for a male child because in many cultures only a male will carry on the family name (traditionally when a bride gets married she effectively becomes a member of the groom's family), because they believe that a male is needed for work, or because they wish a male to earn an income needed to support the parents in their old age.^{[original research?]}

In response to sex-selective abortions, Mainland China has made it illegal for a physician to reveal the sex of a fetus. A non-abortive alternative is sex-selective abandonment, which is also evident in China. Most children (about 95 percent of them) in Chinese orphanages are able-bodied girls with living biological parents.^{[citation needed]} These infants were abandoned by their biological parents and sent to orphanages for adoption just because they are female. Many abandoned Chinese girls have been adopted by the westerners and brought to the United States or Canada, while some others have been adopted domestically by childless Chinese couples.

India

The popularity of female deselection in India could be attributed to socioeconomic reasons. There is a belief by certain people in India that female children are inherently less worthy because they leave home and family when they marry. The high number of "dowry deaths" (about 7,000 were reported in India in 2003), in which brides are murdered by their grooms' family members or commit suicide after suffering abuse and neglect, is also a major factor in gender preference. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Bride burning. ...

Studies in India have indicated three factors of female deselection in India, which are the economic utility, sociocultural utility, and religious functions. The factor as to economic utility is that studies indicate that sons are more likely than daughters to provide family farm labor or provide in or for a family business, earn wages, and give old-age support for parents. Upon marriage, a son makes a daughter-in-law an addition and asset to the family providing additional assistance in household work and brings an economic reward through dowry payments, while daughters get married off and merit an economic penalty through dowry charges. The sociocultural utility factor of female deselection is that, as in China, in India's patrilineal and patriarchal system of families is that having at least one son is mandatory in order to continue the familial line, and many sons constitute additional status to families. The final factor of female deselection is the religious functions that only sons are allowed to provide, based on Hindu tradition. Hindu tradition says that sons are mandatory in order to kindle the funeral pyre of their late parents and to assist in the soul salvation.^{[citation needed]} This article discusses the adherents of Hinduism. ... A pyre is a structure, such as a mound of wood, for burning a body as part of a funeral rite. ... The soul, acording to many religious and philosophical traditions, is a self-aware ethereal substance particular to a unique living being. ...

It is currently illegal to determine the sex of a child during pregnancy using ultra-sound scans. Laboratories are prohibited to reveal the fetus's sex during such scans. While most established labs comply with the law, determined persons can find a cheaper lab that would tell them what they want. Like the Chinese, the Indians also use the postnatal alternative, which is sex-selective infanticide. Some turn to people called Dais, traditional midwives, historically female, who offer female deselection, letting the baby boys live and killing the baby girls by giving them a sharp jerk, that is, turning them upside-down and snapping their spinal cords, and then declaring them stillborn.

The Lancet, a British medical journal, reported in early 2006 that there may have been close to 10 million female fetuses aborted in India over the past 20 years.^{[citation needed]} This is extrapolated partly on the basis of reduction of female-to-male sex ratio from 945 per 1000 in 1991 to 927 per 1000 in 2001. The female-to-male sex ratio is even lower in cases where a couple has had a previous daughter, but no sons, dropping to 759 to 1000 for the second child if the first was a daughter, and 719 to 1000 for a third child if the first two were both daughters. This article has been challenged 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. However, some say that the laws have not been effectively upheld, and successful prosecutions remain non-existent.^[2] Perhaps contrary to popular expectations, the study also reported that sex selective abortion is more common among the wealthy and among educated women than among the poor and the uneducated. Part of this may be due to their being able to afford the associated expense. In addition, it is what would be expected by evolutionary theory, as a poor male is much less likely to reproduce than a poor female, while the reverse is true for wealthier people, as they have a high probability of attracting multiple females.^[3] This can still pose a problem for those wealthier Indians who insist upon having a mate from within their own caste and must sometimes travel hundreds of miles to find a suitable partner. The Lancet is one of the oldest and most respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world, published weekly by Elsevier, part of Reed Elsevier. ... Caste systems are traditional, hereditary systems of social stratification, enforced by law or common practice, based on classifications such as occupation, race, ethnicity, etc. ...

Other Asian Countries

South Korea also has a birth ratio skewed in favor of males, although the dynamics appear to be slightly different. For first births, the sex ratio is normal, but later births are heavily skewed toward sons. The data may be interpreted to mean that Korean couples choose to limit their families, and are only willing to have a third or fourth child if it is male.

Other Asian countries with skewed male-heavy sex ratios include Pakistan, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Conversely, Japan and Chinese-dominated but heavily urbanized Singapore show little or no tendency toward excess male births. A December, 2005, conference organized by Cicred in Singapore showed that similar trends are visible also in Caucasian countries.^{[citation needed]} There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ...

Inuit

Historical Inuit demographic studies often show a large child sex imbalance, with sometimes nearly two males per female. Most anthropologists attribute this at least in part to widespread female deselection in the form of infanticide. There have been theories that this is to limit population growth, balance adult population ratios (due to the high mortality rates among adult males), a psychological preference for males, or because sons made a greater contribution to their parents' lives by sharing their hunting produce.^[4] For other uses, see Inuit (disambiguation). ...

Elsewhere in the world

Most other parts of the world appear to show no great gender imbalance. Populations of European extraction tend to have a ratio of roughly 105 males per 100 females at birth, but this appears to be genetically determined. For populations of African and Amerindian descent, it is somewhat less; 102 males per 100 females. European cultures show mild son preference, but not to the point of showing large-scale infanticide, which is viewed as unethical. Also, balance is more preferred; if a family has three sons, for example, the parents tend to desire a daughter more as the fourth child. In African cultures, where son preference appears to be the weakest in the world, women are an essential part of the labor force, and bride price is practiced rather than dowry, often in the form of livestock and other tangible wealth.^{[citation needed]} This article is 150 kilobytes or more in size. ... A world map showing the continent of Africa. ... Native Americans (also Indians, Aboriginal Peoples, American Indians, First Nations, Alaskan Natives, or Indigenous Peoples of America) are the indigenous inhabitants of The Americas prior to the European colonization, and their modern descendants. ... Bride price also known as bride wealth or a dower is an amount of money or property paid to the parents of a woman for the right to marry their daughter. ... A dowry (also known as trousseau) is a gift of money or valuables given by the brides family to the grooms at the time of their marriage. ...

Other causes of sex ratio imbalances

Sex-selective abortion, infanticide, and abandonment may not be the only causes of sex ratio imbalances in the countries mentioned above. Work by Emily Oster notes that women infected with hepatitis B virus are more likely to bear males than uninfected women. Her 2005 publication in The Journal of Political Economy suggests that in the past, the prevalence of hepatitis infection may have accounted for 75% of the sex ratio imbalance in China, 20% to 50% of the imbalance in the Middle East and Egypt, but less than 20% of the imbalance in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. This is an active area of research and these findings are controversial. Today's concentrations of sex ratios imbalances are regional -in North-West India or East China- and demographic -among women whose first child was a girl and do not correspond at all to known epidemiological features. Hepatitis B is a disease of the liver and is caused by the Hepatitis B virus (HBV), a member of the Hepadnavirus family[1] and one of several unrelated viral species which cause viral hepatitis. ... Groups I: dsDNA viruses II: ssDNA viruses III: dsRNA viruses IV: (+)ssRNA viruses V: (-)ssRNA viruses VI: ssRNA-RT viruses VII: dsDNA-RT viruses A virus is a microscopic particle (ranging in size from 20 - 300 nm) that can infect the cells of a biological organism. ...

Societal effects of sex-selective abortion

Sex-selective abortion has had larger societal effects, particularly in relation to demographics. Gender is a strong motivation for sex-selective abortion, as is evident by the practice of sex-selective abortion among cultures where male children are preferred over female children. Demographics is a shorthand term for population characteristics. Demographics include race, age, income, mobility (in terms of travel time to work or number of vehicles available), educational attainment, home ownership, employment status, and even location. ...

• It is estimated that by 2020 there could be more than 35 million young "surplus males" in China and 25 million in India.^[5]

• Sex-selective abortion has become an issue in Southern and Eastern Asian countries, where sex-selective abortions have caused an increase in the imbalances between sex ratios of various Asian countries. Studies have estimated that sex-selective abortions have increased the ratio of males to females from the natural average of 105-106 males per 100 females to 113 males per 100 females in both South Korea and China, 110 males per 100 females in Taiwan, and 107 males per 100 females among Chinese populations living in Singapore and parts of Malaysia.^[6] However, a similar trend does not exist in North Korea, possibly due to limited access to prenatal sex-testing technologies.^[7]

• During the 1994 United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt, policy objectives intended to eliminate sex-selective abortion and infanticide, along with discrimination against female children, were stated in Article 4.15 of the Programme of Action: "...to eliminate all forms of discrimination against the girl child and the root causes of son preference, which results in harmful and unethical practices regarding female infanticide and prenatal sex selection".^[6]

• Sex-selective abortion has been seen as worsening the sex ratio in India, and thus affecting gender issues related to sex compositions of Indian households. ^[8] According to the 2001 census, the sex-ratio in India is 107.8 males per 100 females, up from 105.8 males per 100 females in 1991. The ratio is significantly higher in certain states such as Punjab (126.1) and Haryana (122.0).^[9]

• It has been argued that by having a one-child policy, China has increased the rate of abortion of female fetuses, thereby accelerating a demographic decline. As Chinese families are allowed only one child, and would often prefer at least one son, there are fewer daughters, thus preventing the formation of a greater number of families in the next generation.^[10]

This article is about the geopolitical region in Asia. ... East Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. ... The foundation of the U.N. The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. ... The United Nations coordinated an International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt from 5-13 September 1994. ... Nickname: Al Qahirah (The Triumphant City) Cairos location in Egypt Coordinates: Governor Dr. Abdul Azim Wazir Area    - City 210 km²  - Metro 1,492 km² Population (2005)  - City 7,438,376  - Density 35,420/km²  - Urban 10,834,495  - Metro 15,200,000 Time zone EET (UTC+2)  - Summer (DST... India is subdivided into twenty-eight states and seven union territories; the states and territories are themselves further subdivided. ... This article is about the Indian state of Punjab. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Poster of Chinese birth control policy under the slogan Sweet Achievement. ...

See also

Throughout history, induced abortions have been a source of considerable debate and controversy. ... A family in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in 1997 A family consists of a domestic group of people (or a number of domestic groups), typically affiliated by birth or marriage, or by analogous or comparable relationships — including domestic partnership, cohabitation, adoption, surname and (in some cases) ownership (as occurred in the... The term fetal rights can refer either to legal rights accorded to fetuses or to the moral rights that some people ascribe to them. ... Abortion, in its most common usage, refers to the voluntary or induced termination of pregnancy, generally through the use of surgical procedures or drugs. ... A bagpiper in Scottish military clan-uniform. ... It has been suggested that Sex discrimination be merged into this article or section. ...

References

External links

• A conference held in Singapore in December 2005 on female deficit in Asia
• Sex Selection at Birth; Statistics Singapore Newsletter, Vol 17 No.3 January 1995
• The Invisible Girl
• MSNBC - No Girls Please - In parts of Asia, sexism is ingrained and gender selection often means murder
• Akhilesh Mithal - Itihaas - Is Female Feticide Civilized?
• It's a Girl! - Waiting to Die: The Babies Sacrificed for China's One Child Policy
• Surplus Males and US/China Relations
• A Dangerous Surplus of Sons? - An analysis of various studies of the lopsided sex ratios in Asian countries
• Case study: Female Infanticide in India and China
• Working paper by Emily Oster linking sex ratio imbalances to hepatitis B infection
• S2 China Report - China: The Effects of the One Child Policy
• Notification on Addressing in a Comprehensive Way the Issue of Rising Sex Ratio at Birth a UNESCAP document
• AHeartBreakingChoice.com Documents the stories of families who chose late-term abortions due to fetal disabilities. This site is a support group for families struggling with this very difficult and personal decision.