<p>"NEW DELHI: As many as 10 million female fetuses may have been aborted in India over the last 20 years as families try to secure a male heir, according to a study published Monday in The Lancet, the British medical journal.</p>
<p>In the two decades since ultrasound equipment, which allows prenatal determination of sex, became widely available, the number of girls born in India has declined steeply, despite a law banning doctors from disclosing the sex of a fetus to parents.</p>
<p>Although the routine aborting of female fetuses has been well documented, the study puts new light on the scale of the practice…</p>
<p>The preference for sons has distorted the gender ratio throughout India."
[India's</a> lost daughters: Abortion toll in millions - International Herald Tribune](<a href=“http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/09/news/india.php]India’s”>http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/09/news/india.php)</p>
<p>"NEW DELHI --Indian women continue to face pressure to produce a male child, according to a government survey released Wednesday.</p>
<p>Of female respondents who identified themselves as married with two living children, nearly 90 percent say they don’t want more children if they have at least one son, but that number falls to about 62 percent if the women have two girls, according to the National Family Health Survey.</p>
<p>In some states, such as underdeveloped Bihar, 80 percent of women with two daughters and no sons said they wanted to have another child, the survey said.</p>
<p>Women face great social pressure to produce a male child in this nation where the cultural preference for boys is rooted in the custom of dowry, with families often going into debt to provide gifts for the groom’s family…"
[India</a> survey says male children preferred - Boston.com](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/women/articles/2007/02/21/india_survey_says_male_children_preferred/]India”>http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/women/articles/2007/02/21/india_survey_says_male_children_preferred/)</p>