India Newspaper Ads Promote Sex-Selection Abortions to Canadian Residents

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Aug 7, 2007   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

India Newspaper Ads Promote Sex-Selection Abortions to Canadian Residents Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 7,
2007

New Delhi, India (LifeNews.com) — The government of India and pro-life advocates in the Asian nation have been working overtime to combat the epidemic of sex-selection abortions and female infanticides that are killing girl babies. But their work is undermined by newspaper ads that are touting the controversial abortions to Canadian citizens there.

In India, it is illegal to use an ultrasound machine for anything other than medical purposes. As a result, simply showing the gender of the unborn child is wrong, because it can lead to abortions and infanticides.

But ads in Canadian-produced newspapers distributed in Punjabi are touting ultrasounds clinics and promoting abortions among the Canadian community in the city.

Charan Gill, the head of the Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society condemned the ads in an interview with the IANS news service.

"It’s really, really sad that some newspapers, for the sake of money, are misleading the public. The end result is they will tell the sex of the baby so that people who don’t want baby girls can abort them," Gill said.

According to Gill, the objectionable ads appear in the Ajit Weekly, based in Mississauga, Ontario, and the Hamdard Weekly, published weekly from Toronto. The papers are distributed across Canada but also make their way to India for Canadians who live there.

Andrea Mrozek, of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, also condemned the ads because sex-selection abortions and female infanticides are prevalent in the Canadian community in India.

"We found gender imbalance between boys and girls looking at census data going back to as early as 1990," said Mrozek. Some of the ratios, such as those in Surrey show 108 boys for every 100 girls.