By Scott Baldauf, Staff writer of The Christian Science
MonitorFri Jan 13, 3:00 AM ET Banned by Indian law for more than
a decade, the practice of prenatal selection and selective
abortion remains a common practice in India, claiming up to half
a million female children each year, according to a recent study
by the British medical journal, The Lancet. The use of
ultrasound equipment to determine the sex of an unborn child -
introduced to India in 1979 - has now spread to every district
in the country. The study found it played a crucial role in
thetermination of an estimated 10 million female fetuses in the
two decades leading up to 1998, and 5 million since 1994, the
year the practice was banned. Few doctors in regular clinics
offer the service openly, but activists estimate that sex-
selection is a $100 million business in India, largely through
mobile sex-selection clinics that can drive into almost any
village or neighborhood. The practice is common among all
religious groups - Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Muslim