not by choice, I assure you. thanks for the link but it only collects DNA – does not provide any perks during collection.

melbourne desi, I think you should stop patronizing these clinics, and instead patronize one of these clinics. It will help geneticists a thousand years from now explain the worldwide Lemurian infusion into the Y-chromosome in this time of burgeoning Indian presence on the global scene.

Tom Friedman was right. The world is indeed flat. On their back, it seems.

lol, i always wanted to say that…

mate, I have been the cause of two abortions in two different cities and have had no trouble with the doctors. Both of these are private clinics – one a premier one and one a small one. Dont know if the docs filled out such forms claiming endangerment etc. Cost < $75. From your link – Abortion is available through the 20th week of pregnancy to save a woman’s life, to protect her physical or mental health, in cases of rape or fetal abnormality and for social or economic reasons. The last reason is what I meant by abortion on demand.

I believed that for a really long time, and it was totally because of my parents. It’s embarrassing in retrospect, but I really had no way of knowing otherwise. “Only American kids do bad things like date when they’re in high school and have premarital sex. Indian kids are good kids and always wait till marriage!” etc. But granted, we moved from India when I was a baby and I’ve only been back twice for 2- and 3-week visits, and until fairly recently, the only DBD relative around my age that I was at all close to was my really sweet cousin who’s rather naive about the world, and who once asked me (in hushed tones of incredulity), “So…do you have…a boyfriend?” When I asked him if he had a girlfriend, he sounded shocked by the prospect.

(Now I’m in regular touch with more distant family who’s closer in age and mentality to me, so I’ve learned a lot, for sure. And reading SM has taught me a ton.)

And I only found out in the last couple of years, when my parents expressed concern over the fact that I haven’t brought home any boys yet, that my dad would bring girls home all the time when he was my age, to the point that his parents were concerned that he’d never be serious about anyone. And one girl even turned him down because he wasn’t ready to sleep with her. (But that gets into major squick territory, thinking about my parents in that context.)

As are Mina, Maya, etc. These are pretty much universal names.

http://pewforum.org/docs/index.php?DocID=167 suggests that Indian law dodges the issue as do many other countries. My abortionist cousin, who worked a lifetime in “family planning” clinics in the poor sections of several cities, tells me that doctors routinely fill out forms claiming endangerment to mother or fetus, and that the government does not ask questions. This is not quite “pro-abortion laws since 1971″.