The argument might seem to contradict the view that sex selection rises as people get richer.
But whereas sex selection may be understandable for a family, it is disastrous for a nation.
He also dismisses the notion that sex selection would lead to a more sinister form of eugenics.
What do you think of sex selection and other types of genetic alteration?
Indeed, sex selection may improve the condition of the girls who survive, ensuring that they are wanted by their families.
Westerners had more clout in India, but it turns out some of them used it against, rather than for, sex selection.
Opponents of sex selection argue that it could lead to an artificial imbalance between the number of boys and girls being born.
Yet, bad as things are, sex selection may slowly be turning around.
Sex selection, Ms Hvistendahl says, still does not get its proper attention.
Ms Hvistendahl is convincing in telling the little-known story of how Westerners helped create the conditions under which sex selection began in Asia.
It has long been assumed the process of reversing sex selection does not happen until countries are richer than India or China are now.
We generally do not see these as the State's business to interfere with or restrict, he argues, so why should sex selection be any different?
In September, Internet giants Google and Microsoft withdrew adverts for sex selection products and other services considered illegal in India when they were threatened with legal action.
As part of the reforms to the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, the government intends to change the law to outlaw sex selection for non-medical reasons.
Sex selection therefore tends to increase with education and income: wealthier, better educated people are more likely to want fewer children and can more easily afford the scans.
Ian Lucas, Labour MP for Wrexham, said if sex selection was to be allowed, there would have to be equality of access for all those who wanted it.
Mori is to carry out a survey of 2, 000 people as part of the consultation process, but the HFEA said it was unlikely to ask if parents would use sex selection themselves.
Any pro-life philanthropist wanting to save as many as possible of the world's unborn could do no better than to put his money into developing technologies that would allow sex selection before conception.
Because egg freezing requires the use of in vitro fertilization for future pregnancies, its widespread adoption would also likely increase the use of preimplantation sex selection and genetic diagnosis, practices which pose a range of ethical dilemmas.
Some 86% of Americans surveyed believe that sex-selection abortion should be illegal, according to a 2006 Zogby poll. (The data is the latest available because the question is so rarely asked in public-opinion surveys.) It is, by far, the most-popular proposed limitation on abortion.
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