The study was published on line first and was led by Professor Prabhat Jha, Centre for Global Health Research, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada. Dr Jayant K Banthia,  former Registrar-General of India, also helped him with this research work.
Abortion is legal in India since 1971, but aborting babies only because they were girls is shocking .It is true that boys are supposed to carry on the family’s name, but considering girls as the curse on the family is quite upsetting.
The Government of India had implemented a Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act in 1996 to prevent the misuse of techniques. Despite strong laws and strict policies, many doctors are breaking the law by provide this facility illegally. Only doctors know the child’s gender, and if they do reveal the secret in front of the patient, it helps changing their mindset and could lead to sex-selective abortion.“The selective abortion of female fetuses, usually after a firstborn girl, has increased in India over the past few decades, and has contributed to a widening imbalance in the child sex ratio”, Professor Jha said.
With an annual decline rate of 0.52%, it has been estimated that up to 12 million girls have been aborted in India over the last 30 years.
“Reliable monitoring and reporting of sex ratios by birth order in each of India’s districts could be a reasonable part of any efforts to curb the remarkable growth of selective abortions of girls”, concluded Prabhat Jha.

Reference Sourcess: 1, 2

Some parents-to-be are desperate to decide the sex of their new baby.

Under current UK law this is not allowed, except in order to avoid gender-linked diseases, such as haemophilia and muscular dystrophy.

In this week’s Scrubbing Up bio-ethicist Stephen Wilkinson argues that it’s time for the law to change.

For millennia, people have sought to influence the gender of their offspring and there are numerous folk myths about, for example, the effect of different sexual positions or foods on your baby’s sex.

Nowadays there are some much more reliable methods, like pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). This involves creating several embryos outside the body and implanting only male or female ones.

Another option is sperm sorting, which involves dividing a sperm sample into Male and female subgroups.

In some other parts of the world, sex selection is available on demand, provided that you are able and willing to pay for it.

In the UK, it is not.

A ban on sex selection may well be justified in counties like China and India where the predominance of son-preference has already led to a significant shortage of girls.

But the available evidence suggests that, in Western Europe, the number of parents preferring boys is roughly the same as the number preferring girls.

As well as concerns about population sex ratio, people often cite moral objections to sex selection, like saying children should be regarded as “gifts” meaning there should be no attempt by parents to pick and choose their characteristics.

Others say sex selection is sexist and that allowing it here would make it harder for governments in places like China and India to resist.

All of these arguments can be countered.

A right to choice

Firstly, should parents regard their children as gifts? Children are not literally gifts, or if they are, from God perhaps, then they are no more gifts than other positive things in life.

Yet we don’t, in general, say that it’s wrong to attempt to shape life’s positive things by, for example, choosing a career, or a house, or a partner.

Secondly, sex selection is not necessarily sexist. While there are no doubt some prospective parents who think that men are superior to women (or vice versa), for most the choice is just a preference.

A pertinent example here is what’s called family balancing – where a family that already has three boys wants to add a girl to even things up.

Finally, the fear that allowing sex selection here would open the floodgates elsewhere is unfounded.

This argument takes far too seriously the influence of British policy on the behaviour of Chinese and Indian sex selectors, many of whom are acting outside even their own laws.

Sex selection in China and India is already happening on a grand scale anyway, despite the fact that the UK does not allow social sex selection.

Our setting a good example by prohibiting sex selection does not seem to be making much difference. So, while I am not a sex selection enthusiast, and certainly don’t think that it should be encouraged or paid for by the NHS (except to avoid sex-linked disease) the arguments for prohibiting it are not as strong as they may at first appear.

There is real cost and harm attached to the ban: some people are distressed by not being able to have the family of their choice, while others are forced to turn to seeking treatment overseas.

I believe that we should allow sex selection in the UK within the context of our carefully regulated reproductive medicine sector.

Courtesy BBC News

Breast augmentation, liposuction, face-lifts and nose jobs have become so commonplace that the procedures have long ceased to create any questions or controversy. The old familiar adage claims, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” yet the perception of beauty is quickly being shifted to an unobtainable degree of perfection complementary of our celebrity obsessed society and the widespread art of airbrushing. No longer do “strong” characteristics such as the family hook nose or a cleft chin make a statement of originality rather have become a cosmetic eyesore to be radically corrected.

In Japan, common plastic surgery includes ”heightening” in which young girls have rods surgically implanted in their legs to forcibly lengthening the bone thereby increasing their height by several inches. Also popular in this culture is the request for eyelid reshaping to obtain a more “Western” look. In Brazil, buttock augmentation is popular. In the United States, more surgeries are being requested that seem to go beyond the typical cosmetic demand such as vaginal rejuvenation, forehead implants, lengthening or shortening of toes and navel reshaping.

Beautiful Genes

It is of no wonder that the concept of beauty has trickled down to genes. Society has become increasingly cosmetic conscious and now views perfect human aesthetics as an obtainable commodity. Yet as various cosmetic procedures become increasingly accepted, the conventional concept of a beautiful appearance slowly narrows. Computer software can now demonstrate optimal facial features to the millimeter. Human disparities are subtlety being replaced with the aid of a surgical knife.

Society now has the opportunity to be aware of and possibly correct undesirable products of our genes. Carrier screening and prenatal testing is now commonplace and has become part of the routine OB/GYN experience. Physicians can now detect many abnormalities in the womb such as sickle cell, cystic fibrosis, Down Syndrome and Tay-Sachs. Although these are not curable diseases, scientists have made incredible human genome discoveries thus rendering the idea of in-utero genetic manipulation as a possibility in the near future.

Most parents typically opt for the option of knowing the sex of the baby, a benign request these days and one that is so common that ultrasounds are scheduled before deciding how to decorate the nursery. Inevitably the sex selection decision is now a viable option for many couples seeking to pay for a specific sexed baby. Popular clinics are in numerous countries including India, South Korea, Israel, Italy and the United States and patients typically travel great distances and spend thousands of dollars out of pocket to ensure that their offspring sex will be to their liking. In fact, many of these clinics even go so far as to offer full guarantee or return of funds if the desired sex is not obtained. This procedure has become so popular in many countries of the world that legislation has been constructed in response to the newly emerging technologies.

The Perils of Perfection

The primary goal of present day genetic testing is to increase the capacity to diagnose, treat and eliminate potential disorders. Yet as cutting edge cosmetic surgery eventually merges with genetic medical procedures, genetic manipulation and the drive to obtain ideal features could potentially be used to alter physical characteristics. Average won’t due: perfection has become the model. But if we continue down this prescribed path, soon we will be buying designer genes instead of designer jeans.