Expert Says Sex Selection Abortions Happening in the U.S., Many Coerced

In an article at National Review, population control expert Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, offers some shocking information on sex selection abortions in the United States:

[Dr. Sunita Puri],  who practices in the Bay Area, wanted to find out why so many immigrant Indian women in the United States were so eager to find out the sex of their unborn children, and why so many of them choose abortion when they found out they were carrying a girl.

What she discovered over the course of 65 interviews conducted over several years profoundly shocked her. Fully 89 percent of the women carrying girls opted for an abortion, and nearly half had previously aborted girls.

Puri’s report, published in Social Science and Medicine this last April, makes for grim reading. Women told Puri of their guilt over their sex-selection abortions, how they felt that they were unable to “save” their daughters. Even the women who turned out to be carrying boys this time around could not shake their remorse over having earlier aborted daughters in this deadly game of reproductive roulette.

They also made clear that they were not free actors when it came to reproductive “choice.” Many, when it was learned that they were carrying girls, became the victims of family violence. Some — in an effort to make them miscarry — had been slapped and shoved around by angry husbands and in-laws, or even kicked in the stomach. Others were denied food, water, and rest in order to coerce them into aborting their unwanted girl babies.

Mosher also sited research showing that sex-selection abortion “is widely practiced among certain Asian-American communities:”

Jason Abrevaya of the University of Texas analyzed U.S. birth data and found unusually high boy-birth percentages after 1980 among later children (most notably third and fourth children) born to Chinese and Asian-Indian mothers. Moreover, using maternally linked data from California, he found that Asian-Indian mothers are significantly more likely both to have a terminated pregnancy and to give birth to a son when they have previously only given birth to girls.

Columbia University economists Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund also found clear evidence of sex-selective abortions in what they called “son-biased sex ratios,” that is, a higher ratio of boys to girls than would occur in nature. Looking at the sex ratio at birth among U.S.-born children of Chinese, Korean, and Asian-Indian parents, they found that first-borns showed normal sex ratios at birth. But if the first child was a girl, the sex ratio jumped to 117, and if the first two children were girls, then the sex ratio jumped to 151. That is to say, for every 151 boys, there were only 100 hundred surviving girls. The rest had been eliminated.

This is not just misogyny; it is misogyny that kills.

As Mosher explains, legislation has been introduced in Congress to ban sex- and race-selection abortion in the United States. The Elliot Institute has also developed model legislation that would hold abortion clinics liable for failing to screen for coerced and unwanted abortions in any situation, and to screen women for factors that put them at risk for psychological problems after abortion. Laws based on this legislation have been passed in Nebraska and South Dakota.

Update: LifeSiteNews has a post on a woman who in India who has filed a filed a legal complaint against her husband and in-laws for attempting to coerce her into aborting her twin daughters. Mitu Khurana, who is the first women in Delhi to file such charges, also has a blog detailing her personal story and her fight against the exploitation, abuse and deaths of women and girls in India. Watch a video interview with her on ABC News here.

See also:

• Sex-Selective Abortion Thrives in America (LiveAction 5/29/2012) LiveAction’s disturbing under-cover video release is part of a series that sheds light on a growing trend in America.

• Stop Sex-Selective Abortions UN statistics indicate that there are 100 million girls missing around the world. Many of them are abandoned, maimed, killed or discarded in trash bins and elsewhere. But even more of them have been aborted because they were girls. Sex-selective abortion or “gendercide,” is a major problem across Asia and a growing problem elsewhere. A traditional preference for sons, along with strict population control measures, has led to the destruction of baby girls in China and elsewhere. With immigration, the problem is growing in America, too. Learn more about this issue and about efforts to ban sex-selective abortion in America.

Find help:

Healing page — includes links to organizations and resources that offer support after abortion

Help and Healing Guide — downloadable guide with resources  and information to help those who are pregnant or struggling after abortion

Center Against Forced Abortions — legal help for women and girls who are being pressured or coerced to abort