British Indians still aborting baby girls in UK

How on earth can this happen, in the UK !! I bet it’s fake news. Surely, there’ll be GP monitoring , ante-natal checks etc.
In order to get rid of the female baby, they will, first and foremost, have to know the sex of the child, and this can only be done via a hospital scan.
I don’t know, I am totally at a loss to know how this can happen Btw, I have not read the article…

I worked with someone who had an abortion as being pregnant was going to interfere with a holiday she had booked. Is that any better?

crazyH

How on earth can this happen, in the UK !! I bet it’s fake news. Surely, there’ll be GP monitoring , ante-natal checks etc.
In order to get rid of the female baby, they will, first and foremost, have to know the sex of the child, and this can only be done via a hospital scan.
I don’t know, I am totally at a loss to know how this can happen Btw, I have not read the article…

CrazyH
They won’t be attending any NHS clinics or hospitals.
It’s all done privately.

I was told recently by an Indian man I work with that if it’s a girl ‘they flush it out’ but it’s someone who wouldn’t realise how unacceptable that is to say to people here as they were new to the country

I don’t know what to say really

I would say to him that what he had said to me was abhorrent to me. As a woman I didn't consider my life lesser in some way than a mans. Tell him that truth. Give him food for thought.

Wyllow3

Iam64

I’ve used three taxis over Christmas, no surprise in our area, the drivers were Muslims whose family came from India or Pakistan.

They were interested in my famiky gatherings, my adult and grandchildren. When I asked about their family, one told me with great pride about his only child, a ten year old girl. The others had three or four children, girls and boys. The girls education definitely seen as important as the boys. Pharmacy or medicine seen as likeky career paths for boys and girls.

I’m not disputing the awful evidence of girl babies and terminations. Of course it’s just wrong on every level. I worked with the Pakistani/Indisn community here over many years. I wasn’t looking through rose tinted specs but my impression was of delight for a healthy baby.
I dislike the arranged marrisges want greater equality. I’m uneasy about the idea of inferior cultures directed at entire communities.

I’m very unimpressed by some of the cultures as demonstrated by some white British people

Absolutely. Continual tarnishing of a whole culture by the behaviour of a minority within that culture, and a refusal to look at " the mote in our own eyes"

What is the mote in our own eye?

Oreo

Hmm, wonder what any poster dislikes about our own culture here in the UK that is somehow worse than aborting healthy baby girl babies, forced marriages, honour killings or other known ethnic abhorrent practices? Just be glad that our own culture has nothing worse than Morris Dancing.

👏👏👏👏👏

Blinko

Henry VIII managed this issue in a number of ways, divorce and execution among them. Medieval.

And he too, as well as the men in this thread, knew nothing about genetics and chromosomes, blame the man, not the woman.

This feels like a case where headline framing matters a lot.

Government guidance says abortion solely on grounds of sex is illegal, but the Abortion Act itself is broader and relies on doctors’ clinical judgement. BPAS is pointing to legal ambiguity, not encouraging sex-selective abortion.

Also, claims about this “increasing” seem to rely on indirect statistical inferences rather than direct evidence of intent, and several experts have warned that these interpretations are contested.

Before directing anger at a whole minority community, it’s worth asking whether the data really supports that conclusion, or whether this is being used to provoke outrage rather than improve policy or safeguarding.

Kandinsky

This won’t be a popular answer - but better to abort an unwanted pregnancy than bring a child into the world to be hated & possibly abused.

I agree. It is all wrong to abort a beautiful baby but the life it might have may not be worth living. Sad but true. Ignorance is not bliss but a way of life.

Kandinsky has a point. when we campaigned for abortion rights the slogan was "every child a wanted child, every mother, a willing mother".

Obviously I don't agree with selectively picking on girls, but believe change comes about best by persuasion and opportunities for women and campaigning within the community than the tone of the O/P.

Ohh - morris dancing. All that jingling might have a political significance , better get rid of it. It’s just too British, must be far right. 😉

I agree with those who point out that freedom of choice for women doesn’t mean those choosing to terminate pregnancies have to do so for reasons of which we (as individuals) approve.

I dislike the very idea of aborting female babies just for being female, but I am not particularly in favour of terminating for convenience either. At the same time, I believe that it has to be the woman’s choice, and I would rather allow medical terminations than go back to backstreet abortions and babies being torn from their mothers’ arms for adoption, or to have girls brought into the world as second class citizens. The problem is far more likely to be one of culture and sociology than of religion, I suspect. Catholicism does not prescribe abominations like Magdeleine Laundries, or cruel ‘mother and baby homes’, any more than Hinduism will approve of aborting girls.

I think this has to be approached via education - a properly targeted campaign to address the (no doubt complex) issues with the relevant demographic, which will be fairly specific and small. Clickbait headlines and sensationalist stories never help anyone.

The most recent data shows that women of Indian ethnicity who were born and raised in the UK have a birth sex ratio that is perfectly "normal" (roughly 105:100). This suggests that being raised in the UK effectively breaks the cycle of "son preference."

​The skewed ratio (113:100) is concentrated among a very small percentage of mothers as Wyllow3 says - I think it's significant that most were born in India and moved to the UK as adults. Sociologists call this a "Retained Norm" suggesting that recent migrants sometimes "reinforce" traditional values as a way of maintaining cultural identity.

Like Iam64 I think when we chat to more westernised Indian heritage families they are obviously happy to welcome girls.

I agree with Doodledog. If you look at the abortion rate in the UK, where almost three in ten pregnancies ended in abortion in 2022, out of a total of over 247,500, the estimated 400 abortions for sex selection by Indian women over a five year period is in fact a very small percentage. That doesn’t mean it’s not important, but it is one factor in a big morass of others.
news.sky.com/story/abortion-rate-hits-record-high-figures-show-13394600

I never read any headlines about Iceland having practically wiped out Downs Syndrome by aborting the babies
Now there’s a headline for you

The old dowry system in India used to contribute to the lack of enthusiasm when a baby girl was born.
I didn't know that this horrendous attitude persisted in the UK.
Certainly the birth of a baby girl causes great joy and celebration amongst my Asian friends from different countries and faiths .

JaneJudge

I was told recently by an Indian man I work with that if it’s a girl ‘they flush it out’ but it’s someone who wouldn’t realise how unacceptable that is to say to people here as they were new to the country

I don’t know what to say really

I would have "said Something" at that point and I'm not a "child person" by any stretch of the imagination. He would have been told the British view on things quite clearly at that point - ie "You get whatever sex you get - and then you see the plus side of the sex you've just had - followed by bringing them up as a 'person' (sex irrelevant)".

But then I'm quite clear that if someone wants to live in Britain then I expect them to integrate - learn English, learn our customs, etc - so it would come as part of "You chose to live here.......".

Esmay the Indians I know have daughters that seem well loved
I wonder what communities in England this is happening in ?
My closest Indian friend comes from a big family of girls and boys the girls are all doctors and teachers

Casdon

I agree with Doodledog. If you look at the abortion rate in the UK, where almost three in ten pregnancies ended in abortion in 2022, out of a total of over 247,500, the estimated 400 abortions for sex selection by Indian women over a five year period is in fact a very small percentage. That doesn’t mean it’s not important, but it is one factor in a big morass of others.
news.sky.com/story/abortion-rate-hits-record-high-figures-show-13394600

Thanks for this Casdon, it helps put the Outrage in perspective. I accept the anger and resentment generated by anxiety about the impact of refugees and immigrants. I’m concerned about headlines like this one, which add to the anxiety and resentment.

Oreo

It has to be faced that some cultures are inferior to ours here in the UK.

I never seem to see opening posts that are about the success of minority ethnic groups in the Uk. They always seem to focus on negative stereotypes that reinforce the above comment. Asian families value education, overall their children, of both sexes, do better at school than white students according to exam results and they are over represented in medical and dentistry training and other courses requiring outstanding exam results. My dental surgery is owned by a British Punjabi sister and brother, their younger sister is training to be a doctor. In 2026 let's celebrate our ethnic minority groups for a change instead of trying to denigrate them.

Where are they getting screened and operated in? I wonder if it's true.

I don't doubt a preference for boys.
After all my own mother cried when I was born 2nd girl until her DH said " never mind dear we can always try again" and they did. And she thought it fine to tell me. silly woman

When my first was a boy, DM told me how lucky I was. My DM was brought up in Burma which could explain her strange attitude.

These rebuttals were used again again in the trans debate, oh it is only a tiny population etc etc. This is a perfectly reasonable issue to discuss. It aligns with a discussion on values and on a wider discussion of abortion. I was completely opposed to the legislation brought in recently on abortion for example. It is often more complex than abortion = good, those opposing abortion = bad.

foxie48

Oreo

It has to be faced that some cultures are inferior to ours here in the UK.

I never seem to see opening posts that are about the success of minority ethnic groups in the Uk. They always seem to focus on negative stereotypes that reinforce the above comment. Asian families value education, overall their children, of both sexes, do better at school than white students according to exam results and they are over represented in medical and dentistry training and other courses requiring outstanding exam results. My dental surgery is owned by a British Punjabi sister and brother, their younger sister is training to be a doctor. In 2026 let's celebrate our ethnic minority groups for a change instead of trying to denigrate them.

Do you know any Indian/ Pakistani familes? I do and can tell you that the ones I know, they drive their children hard when it comes to studying at school.A certain amount of that drive is fine but too much is stressful and leads to unhappiness for the child.
They have to become doctors or dentists or accountants! That’s why there are so many in those professions.
Btw our British culture now isn’t just better than some cultures around the globe, it’s better than many in the Western world.

We can talk honestly about problems without ignoring the fact that many minority communities are among the UK’s biggest contributors to growth, public services, and national life.

However, the "rage" headlines and OPs are deliberate. They are written to survive by hiding unnecessary details, focusing only on essential features that make them feel manageable simply by hating those associated with the problem.

Talking about truths is complex and many people just don't want to know so they hang on to their MSM simplistic headline, even when it's been disproved.