“I Must Have a Male Child.” — Sex Selection Abortions Continue in “Modern” India.

…”There’s more money here now, and more education. But it’s still in the back of everyone’s mind: ‘I must have a male child,’” said Madhur Gurhan, the obstetrician who runs the public hospital’s maternity ward in Morena, the largest nearby city. “The money doesn’t change that.” It has long been clear that India has a deep-seated preference for boys. By 2001, researchers estimated the country had anywhere from 20 million to 40 million “missing” girls from sex-selective abortions made available through the spread of ultrasound technology. But as India modernizes — as places like Singhpura become small towns, as towns become cities and as India’s once-overwhelming poverty is slowly supplanted by an increasingly educated middle class that wants fewer children — researchers say the problem is only getting worse… Here is the whole article from the International Herald Tribune.