I have written on HN several times about corruption in India, but this is one of the kinds of corruption I have never seen. I have several friends who have children, and come from families who would never abort a fetus based on its sex. But still, their family doctors, who have known them all their lives would not divulge this bit of information.

The article that you linked to reports instances, and I believe the personal stories to be true. However, when I reconcile my own experience with the stories in the article, I must conclude that it happens very rarely. So rarely that it cannot account for the large trends in the sex ratios. Getting a doctor to perform the abortion is easy though.

> They tried persuassion and it didn't work.

Indians are already getting choked with well-meaning but counterproductive laws. IMO, adding more laws wont help. They haven't tried general education. Among the poorer sectors of society, education seems to be as bad as it ever was. Don't go by India's published literacy figures; they are meaningless [1].

[1] http://gbytes.gsood.com/2006/07/03/literacy-in-india-can-ind...

That would be your crimes against women. Not the abortions themselves.

>doctors are bribed to break laws about giving information about the sex of an unborn child

Doctors should give the patient full information to make an informed medical choice, including for an abortion. In this case, the law is the problem.

>At some point a society has to pass a bunch of law to drive change, to signal that some things are no longer considered to be acceptable. They tried persuassion and it didn't work.

Yet sex selective abortions aren't a problem in much of the world. In China's case, sex selective abortions are a result of the laws.

Change the culture so that people don't feel pressured into a choice. Change the laws so that forcing people to make a choice is illegal. But don't remove that choice.