Imbalance

It never ceases to amaze me what societies do to themselves. I've known for a long time that boys are more highly prized than girl children in China and it is leading to a large gender imbalance. Now I read it's the same in part's of <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0209/p11s01-wosc.html" target="_new">India</a>.<br />n<br />n<blockquote>The oleander plant yields a bright, pleasant flower, but also a milky sap that, if ingested, can be a deadly poison. It's one of the methods families use to kill newborn girls in the Salem District of Tamil Nadu, a part of India notorious for female infanticide. <br />n<br />nThough the government has battled the practice for decades, India's gender imbalance has worsened in recent years. Any progress toward halting infanticide, it seems, has been offset by a rise in sex-selective abortions. Too many couples – aided by medical technology, unethical doctors, and weak enforcement of laws banning abortion on the basis of gender – are electing to end a pregnancy if the fetus is female.</blockquote><br />n<br />nI understand there is societal pressure to do this but I just can't fathom it. Then the question becomes how to stop it.<br />n<br />n<blockquote>"The only way to wipe out this evil is by an attitudinal shift," says CSG's Mr. Prasad. "Educate a girl beyond eighth grade and encourage her to find her voice."</blockquote><br />n<br />nIf they are never born, how do you start this attitudinal shift? What we do to ourselves sometimes is strange.<br />n<br />n<b>Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. David Hume</b>