Missing Women and Sex Selective Abortions

I found out that my colleague is 5 months pregnant. (I feel a little slow not to have noticed...). When I asked her if she knew whether it was a boy or a girl she said, "No, they wouldn't tell us." 

This confused me. "You asked and they wouldn't tell you?"

Then she explained that its against the law in India to tell parents the sex of their children in utero, an effort to eliminate the pressure a family might feel to abort female fetuses in an effort to have a son. 

In 1991, the ratio of females to males in India was the lowest its ever been, at 927 females for every 1000 males. 

Laws to limit sex selective abortions started in 1994 and the last census, in 2001, showed 933 females to every 1000 males. 

An improvement.