India PM calls abortion of baby girls shameful
India’s widespread practice of aborting female fetuses is a “national shame,” the prime minister said Monday, insisting the country can no longer ignore the problem if it wants to be a modern nation.
Experts say up to 500,000 female fetuses are aborted in India every year because of a deep-rooted cultural preference for male children, who will help support their parents in old age and attract wives with substantial dowries . . .
Singh said the number of girls per 1,000 boys declined nationally from 962 in 1981 to just 927 in the last census in 2001. Activists believe the problem has become even worse since the census . . .