British Indians still aborting baby girls in UK

This is Gransnet if some posters wish to point out distraction when they see it that is fine too.

Are these parents and their familes aware of how the sex of a baby is determined?

No-one on the thread has mentioned that the foetus doesn't receive the Y chromosome which means it will be a boy from its mother, but from its father. Some of the sperm he produces result in boys, some in girls. If anyone is producing all girls but no boys, or all boys but no girls, it is not the wife but the husband!

He is the one who should be "got rid of" to change the run of girls, not the mother of his children.

This is Gransnet. If some Posters wish to 'extend' the discussion, then so be it.
Unless, of course, Santa has given some of you 'Prefect' badges for Christmas, so that you may dictate the direction of the discussion.

Quite apart from it being wrong on so many levels to abort girls - who do they think will go on to give birth to future generations?

Such ignorance and misguided prejudice.

My dd worked as a trainee medic on a maternity delivery unit in a Delhi hospital. Boy babies were definitely celebrated more than girl babies, when mums were often left to labour alone and girl babies received lesser care after birth. The unit was so busy it was very definitely a production line, with each mum coming into the labour room hard on the heels of the newly delivered previous mum. My dd came across a baby who had been wrapped in an old cloth and just dumped on a shelf, no one paying it any attention until dd heard it whimper. She picked it up and cradled it while she called for some help, but it was heartbreaking.

I don't understand why calling out extreme cultural practices that cause intense pain, physically and mentally, sometimes to the point of death , is considered by some to be beyond the pale and prompt the closing down of discussion with accusations of...isms & ...phobias. It happens a lot on these particular threads here on gransnet.

Extremely shocking and abhorrent things are considered very ok in some societies, are we to just shut up and condone by silence appalling behaviour for fear of upsetting the people who take part in cultural atrocities?

Forced marriages, especially those where girls are taken to India or Pakistan for a ‘holiday’ and are married off there to older men.
Honour killings, which still happen here in the UK.
These are the kind of cultural practices which still happen here.
Cousin marriage too, which are known to cause physical and mental problems.
It’s to be hoped that eventually young men and women revolt against these things.

Yes China too!

Global warning… start another thread.A lot of Western countries doing what they can to minimise.
The US and India are massive polluters. Not for this thread tho.

Which culture has contributed most to global warming which will devalue the quality of life all babies can look forward to, girls or boys?

I think you’ll find China & India are two of the worst culprits.

valdavi

I think that just as the historic valueing of boys over girls is an attuitude which persists in a few British indian families, Oreo herself is demonstrating a historic prejudice when she says 'It has to be accepted that some cultures are inferior to others'.

This is a view which was mainstream & widespread in this country 60 years ago, but I for one don't accept it if we are talking about mainstream cultures found in 2020's Britain.

Which culture has contributed most to global warming which will devalue the quality of life all babies can look forward to, girls or boys? We invented industrialisation remember, and white western societies have been fairly resistant to doinig anything drastic to put that right.

Some cultures are def inferior to others, it’s heads in the sand time to think otherwise.
FGM anyone? Afghan culture? Many other cultures around the world that are downright shocking.
It may be woke to pretend otherwise but I don’t go in for that nonsense.

Look at that over there, that shiny thing, don't for goodness sake talk about the issue at hand.

I think that just as the historic valueing of boys over girls is an attuitude which persists in a few British indian families, Oreo herself is demonstrating a historic prejudice when she says 'It has to be accepted that some cultures are inferior to others'.

This is a view which was mainstream & widespread in this country 60 years ago, but I for one don't accept it if we are talking about mainstream cultures found in 2020's Britain.

Which culture has contributed most to global warming which will devalue the quality of life all babies can look forward to, girls or boys? We invented industrialisation remember, and white western societies have been fairly resistant to doinig anything drastic to put that right.

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

The whole point of citing behaviour from 40-50 years ago is the attitude behind the behaviour remains unchanged all these many years on.

And giving examples of lived experience doesn't mean it's generalising "just a tiny minority" Willow3 any more than you asserting it is "just a tiny minority" makes that statement any more true.

It's just your viewpoint not a fact.

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.

Is a termination based on sex much different for one based on a baby having Down syndrome? The 18 week anomaly scan is carried out to detect such abnormalities with a view to potential termination.

Oreo

It’s one thing preferring to have a baby boy but quite another to have an abortion once it’s known that it’s a girl.

A friend of a dd aborted a 3rd baby purely because it was a 3rd boy. She’d have kept a girl.,
TBH I don’t know how dd can still be friends with her.

Oreo

No let’s not, let’s concentrate on this particular problem which is the subject of this thread.

Attempts at deflection.

I would have thought this would be out-dated now if people have been living here for more than a generation.
Mind you, reading recent stories in the press, I should not be surprised.

The only Indian families I know personally are educated, middle class and their daughters do seem valued too.

And I don’t think that some cultures are changing fast enough unfortunately.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

But in any case I don’t believe that girls are so unwanted that traditional Jewish families prefer to have an abortion rather than a baby girl.
If that were the case there would be no Jewish ‘princesses’😄

I don’t know that very well, or even at all as I am not from a traditional Jewish ‘community’…. We just happen to be Jewish.
Neither do we circumcise the boys in our family or eat Kosher.

Oreo, you know very well that in some traditional Jewish communities boys are valued over girls.

It's changing because the concepts within the culture are changing and I see the same happening in different cultures as well.

I object to the premises of the thread because it is generalising from a tiny minority of a culture to "all" in that culture, citing behaviour 40/50 years ago.

Its all about valuing girls and women, whatever the culture

GrandmaKT

My DIL is Sikh Indian. This time last year we met a family friend of hers in town. She asked if his wife had had the baby and he replied "oh yes, two weeks ago". She immediately replied "A girl?", which he confirmed. She told me after he'd left that she knew it was a girl, because if it had been a boy, they would have announced the news immediately and delivered chocolates and celebrations to all the local families. Sad how these rituals persist.

The day my son was born the Indian woman next to me also had a son. You have never seen celebrations like it! The husband was running round the ward, punching the air, hugging everybody and their family brought in Indian sweet treats and beautiful gold jewellery.

The husband was a very well known photographer in Leicester who covered all the big Indian weddings etc and he told us to visit his shop when we were ready and he took the most beautiful photo of our son and had it framed all free of charge. I still have it and often remember them.