The eastern Chinese province of Shandong has banned all unnecessary use of ultrasound testing as of January 1, 1999 in an effort to reduce the increasing gender imbalance caused by sex-selective abortion there.
Shandong’s male-to-female population was measured at 115.9 to 100 in 1990, after many families selectively aborted female fetuses because its male supremacist culture caused families to favor males. China’s one-child policy, which took effect in the early 1980s, is also thought to have contributed to the imbalance by forbidding families from having more than one child. Still others blame doctors and health care institutions, who they claim offered unnecessary ultrasounds in order to make more money.
