Muzaffar Nagar, India (LifeNews.com) -- A woman in India has been killed who refused requests from her husband and his family to undergo a sex-selection abortion on her unborn baby girl. Neelam Kumar, who lives in Samaspur village in northern India, was allegedly strangled to death by her in-laws.

The victim's brother, Sushil Kumar, filed a complaint with police and alleged that his sister was killed yesterday after refusing the abortion.

According to a UPI report, Kumar said Neelam's body was cremated and that her husband family informed no one of her death and cremation.

Police are apparently searching for Neelam's in-laws, who are reportedly on the lam.

Sex-selection abortions and forced abortions are a significant problem in India, where cultural mores favor the birth of boys and parents are forced to pay huge dowries for a woman's marriage.

In April, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called sex-selection abortions, and the gender ratio problems they have produced, a "national shame" and said the laws need better enforcement.

Singh noted that the sex-selection abortion problem is causing an "alarming" change in the nation's male-female ratio, with 927 girls born in 2001 for every 1,000 boys. That's down from a 962-1,000 split in 1981.

"This indicates that growing economic prosperity and education levels have not led to a corresponding mitigation in this acute problem," Singh said, according to an International Herald Tribune report.

"No nation, no society, no community can hold its head high and claim to be part of the civilized world if it condones the practice of discriminating against one half of humanity represented by women," the prime minister said.

He described sex-selection abortions as "inhuman, uncivilized and reprehensible."

 

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