Abortion, combined with modern technology that enables couples to determine the sex of a child has resulted in a world-wide shoratge of females.
The Toronto Star reports:
China has about 117 boys for every 100 girls, with nearly 13 million more boys than girls under age nine, the official Xinhua news agency said.If that trend continues, by 2020 China could have as many as 40 million men who can't find a spouse, Xinhua quoted an official of a key government advisory body as saying....
Limited to one child, many couples abort or kill baby girls in hopes of trying again to have a boy, valued by Chinese culture as a way to carry on the family name and to look after parents in their old age.
With the (recent) exception of Japan, it seems to be an Asian cultural thing:
...Korea has 117 [boys] to 100 [girls], and Taiwan is 110 to 100
Oh wait, this is not a phenomena restricted to Asia:
The female feticide epidemic is strongest in India though, reports Monday's Agence France Presse. The northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Haryana have lopsided girl/boy birth ratios of 8-to-10, and one district in Haryana is a scandalous, testosterone-heavy 6-to-10. UNICEF representative Alan Court worries that, "These ratios ... will create major problems for the next generation, both socially and culturally."
I wonder why this doesn't qualify as a "woman's issue"?
