A report claiming female babies are being
aborted on a mass scale within Britain’s
immigrant communities has brought
controversy—and condemnation from pro-
choice groups. A global war on girls, which is endemic in parts of
the developing world, may have landed in Britain
according to a study that claims some immigrant
families are using selective terminations to choose
the sex of their children. Afghan, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in
Britain have been accused of aborting female
fetuses by the Independent newspaper. An analysis of government figures suggests that the proportion
of second and third born children within those
groups is statistically abnormal—favoring the birth
of boys. “There is absolutely no doubt that these
terminations, where a mother has an abortion
because the child is a girl, are taking place within
the South Asian population in Britain,” said
Jasvinder Sanghera, a rights campaigner. “I think
almost any Asian woman you talk to would say she feels a pressure to have a male child. There will be
many, many Asian women out there who are
pregnant and who are thinking, ‘please, please let it
be a boy’. The study claims that the practice is so common
that the natural 50-50 gender balance has been
upended in some immigrant communities. Based
on extrapolations of the data, the newspaper claims
that between 1,400 and 4,700 girls are missing from
the 2011 national census records of England and Wales. Last year the British government carried out its own
investigation into gender-based abortions and found
no evidence that it was taking place. The
newspaper conceded that families choosing to keep
having children until they naturally conceived a boy
could account for most of the statistical bias. Christoforos Anagnostopoulos, a lecturer in
statistics at Imperial College London, however, said
that among Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Afghan
communities there was evidence of a clear trend.
“The only readily available explanation that is
consistent with a statistically significant gender shift of the sort observed in the census data is
gender-selective abortion,” he told the Independent.
“In the absence of a better theory, these findings
can be interpreted as evidence that gender-
selective abortion is taking place.” Families aborting female fetuses in order to
guarantee the birth of a son has been a known
issue in countries including India and Pakistan for
decades but it is not commonly seen in western
democracies. In China, the one-child policy, which
was relaxed at the end of last year, has helped to create the highest gender imbalance in the world.
Recent Chinese statistics suggested there were
120 newborn boys for every 100 girls. A spokeswoman for Britain’s Department of Health
did not comment on the results of the study, but
condemned the practice of gender-based
terminations “Abortion on the grounds of sex
selection is against the law and completely
unacceptable,” she said. A spokeswoman for the British Pregnancy Advisory
Service wrote in a series of messages on Twitter:
“It is not our experience that women from any
specific communities seek sex selective abortions.
The claim of a “war” on female foetuses in Britain is
hugely insulting to both women and to immigrant communities. Outrageous to suggest women
shouldn’t have access to information about their
pregnancy because they can’t be trusted to make
moral decisions. Where gender discrimination
exists it must indeed be tackled, but certainly not in
the form of further undermining women’s rights. Women from immigrant groups request abortions
for the same reasons as women from the UK—
because they have a pregnancy they can’t cope
with.” Dr Sudhir Sethi, a pediatrician, claimed that some
mothers were travelling back to Asia for
terminations at clinics where the regulations were
far less stringent. He said he knew of 12 mothers
who had travelled to India for terminations of female
fetuses. “There are no reliable and absolute figures to say how many [are travelling abroad for
terminations] but we can say that they are more
than just a few, to say the very least,” he said.
“There are many travelling to India, not only from
the UK but those settled in other parts of the world.
It is a lucrative and a thriving business—overseas Indians are more lucrative because of the amount
they can pay for this to be done.” The Anti-Semite Is No Satirist by Bernard-Henri Lévy Al Qaeda’s Renaissance by Bruce Riedel The Pope's New Rainbow Coalition by Barbie Latza Nadeau Politics Entertainment World News Tech + Health Fashion Travel Art Women In The World Books Back to Top A A FULL SITE FOLLOW US LIKE US HELP ABOUT CONTACT US NEWSLETTERS PRIVACY POLICY TERMS OF USE COPYRIGHT & TRADEMARK © 2014 The Daily Beast Company LLC CHEAT SHEET MORE        