British Indians still aborting baby girls in UK

To those of us who didn't care if we had girls or boys it's hard to comprehend having an abortion based on sex of the foetus.

That said, I expect it was important historically when only male offspring were able to inherit etc.

We know the practice has plateaued over the last couple of years - but thankfully the general trend is downward.

As it is changing in India it will, presumably,go down here soon too.

It was many years ago, but I still remember reading a birth announcement that read, ‘To X and Y, a fifth and final daughter.’

I felt so sorry for that poor little baby.

We are a culture to discuss womens rights though, something which happens on here time and time again, particularly in relation to America.

How many healthy babies are aborted by non Asians. I've said about someone I worked with who had one rather than mess her holiday up, I also knew someone who had an abortion as she thought she might get divorced and a teenager who wasn't sure if she'd had sex and if so was it consensual. No idea who the father was, probably the guy she was dancing and flirting with at a club. Anyway an abortion sorted "it" out.

Before you could buy pregnancy tests I had a test at the BPAS, turned out negative but before we knew I had to see a counsellor who not only advised me to have an abortion but pressured me to.

We aren't a culture to lecture about abortion.

I think there is a discussion about the fact that abortion will of course lead to instances where sex ( or race presumbably) is a reason for abortion. It may be that is the price we pay for abortion. I completely opposed the new legislation with regard to abortion as I thought the price was too high. It depends what'cost' we are comfortable with.

Good post DAR.
Bukkie, that was awful for you.

DaisyAnneReturns

Sorry! That was in reply (agreement) to foxie48's Mon 29-Dec-25 08:50:15 post.

Yes, even the ambition and hard work ethic of many ethnic minority groups is used against them. They can't win in some people's eyes.

My MIL only wanted girls. My husband is called Jonathan because she had only chosen the name Joanna. How differently he and his elder sister were brought up was shocking. Sometimes he wouldn't even get a birthday card yet she would get hundreds of pounds of gifts every birthday and Christmas. She paid the deposit on her first home and furnished it, paid for all her holidays, cars etc....If ever questioned my MIL would say, " But I didn't want a son I wanted daughters." When we told her I was pregnant with my first child she looked at the sky and held her hands in prayer position and said, "Please let it be a girl." At the 20 week scan on discovering it was a boy she told me to have an abortion. And before my son was even born she asked if I was considering a second baby and when I said I always presumed I would have 2 children she replied, " Thank goodness there's still chance that one will be a girl."

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.

This comment only works by selecting extreme examples from one group and trivial examples from another. That’s a rhetorical choice, not an objective comparison!

Serious crimes exist across all communities; the difference is whether we treat them as crimes to be dealt with, or as tools to generalise about millions of people. The quoted post talks about an issue in a vague, generalised way, using symbolic terms instead of concrete, real-world facts and people.

Abstraction replaces reality with symbols. Reality tends to be less convenient for outrage and it appears that on GN many are just looking for that outrage opportunity.

I am not raging and very rarely read msm, like many people.

Morris dancing gets its name from the Spanish word 'morisco', and the form may have been imported from the continent.
Good to see that we are happy to absorb other cultures into our own.
The participants used to be in 'blackface' for some reason, now lost to history.

Deliberately selecting certain negative aspects of a culture to critique the whole culture, which is happening to some extent above, is racist.

I'm not saying any specific post here is so, but we are definitely swimming in those waters when we call out that (in this case) small aspect of another culture and ignore the many failings in ours on treatment of girls and women

'rage ' headlines, that's exactly what it is.

Sorry! That was in reply (agreement) to foxie48's Mon 29-Dec-25 08:50:15 post.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.......".

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 .

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

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