In what way is Canada like India?

Forgetting (if possible) about the darkening complexion of "greater" Toronto and "greater" Vancouver, the answer is that sex-selective abortions are widely practised in both countries by parents who wish to have only boy babies. In other words, female fetuses are killed by the 1000s... in both countries... every year.

Although Canada has had no specific law against abortion since 1988, many couples of the Hindu persuasion prefer to cross the border to have their girl babies killed at "prenatal clinics" like Koala Labs or the Washington Center for Reproductive Health.

Like Planned Parenthood, the WCRH purports to be about family planning. For a while, they ran ads in Indo-Canadian newspapers headlined "Create the family you want: boy or girl". But the unstated sub-text was, and still is: If our technique doesn't work and it turns out you're going to have a girl, we'll kill it for you. No problem.

In "Indo-Canadian doctor decries abortion of female babies", Walt referred to a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, which checked the male:female ratio of 767,000 Ontario births, compared with the mother's country of origin. For the first-borns, the ratio was normal: 105 boys to 100 girls. The ratio was the same for second births for mothers born in Canada. But for mothers born in India the ratio was 110:100. And for South Korea, 120:100! So it's not just the Indians.

For third births, the ratio, for Indo-Canadian mothers was even higher, 136:100. How could this be? Dr. Prabhar Jha, of the University of Bombay [Toronto, surely! Ed.] said it wasn't necessarily sex-selective abortion that was the cause of the abnormality. Possibly, he said, more women who are expecting a son immigrate to Canada!

The main author of the study, Dr. Joel Ray, admits it doesn't show why ratios are distorted, only that they are so. But data from censuses in both Canada and India show the same (or even greater) discrepancies in the sex ratios of second or third children in Indian and other Asian communities.

Which prompts Jonathan Kay, writing in Canada's National Post, to call for the drafting of a new law regulating, if not prohibiting abortions. Sex-selective abortions, he says, are seen in India and even China as crimes against humanity -- at least in theory. Why should Canada take a more permissive view? Click here to read "How shocking new sex-selection data could finally lead us to a Canadian abortion law".