A new word

I'm always grateful to learn a new word, as I did last night. I had the TV on while preparing dinner, so I couldn't be sure I heard what I heard, but a bit of Googling confirmed that I did indeed hear that word*. The word is: foeticide. It occurred in a report on sex-selective abortions in India. As you could guess, the female unborn are being aborted at much higher rates than males in certain cultures, such as in India. This has always been one of my (theoretical) debating points with the pro-choice crowd: why complain about this? After all, we all know that a foetus isn't a human being, so why should you care if so-called 'female' foetuses are being aborted by preference? Surely that also represents part of the right to choose?

So why haven't I heard this word before? My Googling seems to indicate that it's used almost exclusively in the context of these sex-selective abortions. Could it possibly be that some people are using it to convey an insulated, negative connotation - which, for them at least, is not at all conveyed by the usual term 'abortion'? I don't know about you, but 'abortion' always makes me think of sunshine, lollipops, rainbows and unicorns.

*Eat your heart out, Dr. Seuss