The author of the piece, Shelly Huang, notes, "The nation's relatively high average of 1.11 boys born for every girl puts Taiwan at No. 9 behind countries such as China, India and Vietnam that traditionally value male children more than female children, statistics by the department's Bureau of Health Promotion showed."
Huan continued, "While most mothers learn the gender of their baby by looking at an ultrasound about 19 or 20 weeks into their pregnancy, those who are considering aborting female infants can learn the sex of the baby as early as six to eight weeks into the pregnancy by sending blood samples to private testing facilities."
"So far, we have targeted about 20 medical institutions and 50 doctors with abnormal [baby sex] ratios for our investigation," stated Bureau of Health Promotion Director-General Chiou Shu-ti.
The Taiwan government appears to be serious in making the hospitals and doctors pay fines, but I believe the fines, which run only between NT$50,000 and $250,000 (US$15,000 to US$85,000)are not high enough to detour some medical facilities. Moreover, some private medical companies are operating in "gray-zones", which may be out of reach of the law "because examination of fetal DNA for genetic abnormalities does not go against accepted norms".
For those wishing to read more on Taiwan and this issue, here is a more scientific article on the history of the gender and birth issue in Taiwan.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h727557kv5213x82/
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
