A horrific new report out of northern India indicates that families are aborting all their daughters in sex-selection abortions.
Newsweek reports no baby girls were born in a three-month period in all of the Uttarkashi district, Uttarakhand state, northern India. Birth data from the district indicates that all of the 216 babies who were born were boys, according to the report.
Authorities suspect the reason is sex-selection abortions. Though illegal in India, sex-selection abortions and infanticide continue to occur at a shocking rate. In 2018, the Government of India estimated that 63 million women are missing from its population due to sex-selection abortions, infanticide and other discriminatory violence.
Local authorities said they were shocked by the data from Uttarkashi.
District magistrate Ashish Chauhan said the new data makes him “suspicious” about the prevalence of “female foeticide,” or abortion, the Independent reports. He told the TNN news agency that families who aborted their daughters in sex-selection abortions will face legal action.
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Here’s more from Newsweek:
Social worker Kalpana Thakur told ANI that the latest statistics from Uttarkashi district showed the authorities were not doing enough. “No girl child was born for three months in these villages. It cannot be just a coincidence. This clearly indicates female foeticide is taking place in the district. The government and the administration are not doing anything.” …
Meanwhile, legislative assembly member Gopal Rawat has directed the health department to investigate the real cause of “such alarming figures. Rawat said, according to The Independent: “It is shocking to have a zero girl child birth rate in 132 village of the district, as we have rarely heard of seen any incident of female foeticide in the hills.”
Sex-selection abortions are a huge problem in India and other Asian countries. Because of cultural preferences for sons and, in the case of China, oppressive population control measures, unborn baby girls often are targeted for abortions.
India prohibits sex-selection abortions, as well as ultrasounds to determine the sex of the unborn child, but the deadly discrimination still occurs. Indian authorities have been cracking down on the practice as the population suffers.
The 2011 India census data showed there were 914 girls for every 1,000 boys under age 7, according to the BBC. In some parts of the country, the problem was even worse. For example, in the Indian state of Tiruvannamalai, boys outnumbered girls at a ratio of 1,000 to 878.
The Alliance Defending Freedom estimates about 50,000 unborn baby girls are killed every month in India simply because they are girls.
Meanwhile, most American states do not prohibit sex-selection abortions. Though studies indicate unborn baby girls frequently are targeted for abortions, the American abortion industry fights vehemently against sex-selection abortion bans.
