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Some Inroads being
Made into Sex-Selection Abortions in India By Dave Andrusko
The BBC ran a story Tuesday which hailed the work of Kulwant Singh Dhaliwal, a retired businessman who was horrified when he went back to the Indian village where he was born and discovered the reality of sex-selection abortion: in this rural community of 3,000, boys made up 70% of the children. According to the story, “Charity aims to halt daughter abortions,” the preference for boys over girls is laid at the feet of the dowry system: many parents say “they cannot afford to marry them off.” Thus after parents went to doctors who had ultrasound machines, if the child was found to be a girl she would often be aborted. After selling a chain of 16 fashion shops in England, Dhaliwal decided to do something. He “adopted” the village of Bir Rarke in the state of Punjab and establishing a charity. "I told them all I would look after your daughters, I would pay for the education and health care, I would ensure that they had jobs and when the time came I would get them married off," he said. Dhaliwal proudly told BBC reporter Sanjiv Buttoo that more girls than boys are now born in his village. But as the story makes clear, the experience in Bir Rarke is the exception. Buttoo references a just-published paper written by Professor Sonia Balhotra, from the University of Bristol, “that shows each year in India around 500,000 girls are aborted because of foetal sex selection.” However the story ends with a quote from Deepa Bajaj, the chief executive of the Child Welfare League India. who said the government has developed some schemes to try to stop this practice and it is having some success.” I need your feedback on both Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha Part Three |
