Selecting for Sons: Indian Women in the US

CGS : Selecting for Sons: Indian Women in the US: Sex selection technologies and sex-selective abortion are legally prohibited in India, where their use in the service of son preference has produced dramatically skewed sex ratios. But Indian immigrants to the US face no official barriers to using new technologies to ensure the births of sons. Sunita Puri conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews between 2004 and 2009 with 65 Indian women living in the US who had sought sex selection services. More than 40% of these women had attended college or graduate school; nearly a quarter worked as skilled professionals. More than three-quarters had terminated pregnancies following ultrasound determination of fetal sex; 15% had used sperm sorting and 6% pre-implantation genetic diagnosis.