Female foeticide: In modern India

By
CHARANPREET KAUR
 Female Foeticide is
Aborting a female
fetus after sex
determination test.
Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques includes

Ultra- sonography
Amniocentesis

.
FACTORS that FAVOUR…..
Evil of Dowry
Social Security
Religion
Small Family Norm
Urban Living
Society
Evil of Dowry……..
• In marriage the groom demands that the
bride’s father provide for his daughter’s
maintenance, since she is now a financial
‘burden’ on him. Thereon the system of
dowry started. So, a girl becomes a potential
financial drain for man.
• As a matter of prestige too, more money and
material goods is demanded in dowry.
• The girl was thus no longer desired.
 Social Security:
In order to continue possessing ones property, even after
death, the need of an heir, a son, became necessary .

The birth of a son is regarded essential in Hinduism and

many prayers and lavish offerings are made in temples in
hope of having a male child.

Son as Social
Security for
old age
Religion helps ?…….
• The Ramayana • Islam permits
represent the ideal polygamy and gives
woman as obedient women fewer rights
and submissive, and than men.
advocates care of a
male: first father, then
husband, then son.

Shame
 Small Family Norm
• Faced with social burdens rarely any one prefers to
have more children.
• One or two is the norm of the day .
• For continuance of ones property, and gene, the
need of an heir, a son, becomes necessary.
• Termination of pregnancy is simple and accessible.
• Female foeticide has become quite easy.
• Couple adopts the saying that ‘It is better to spend
Rs500 now than Rs50,0000 (in dowry) later’
Society today……..
It speaks of a whole Society that has
gone corrupt, desiring destruction of half
its population, Are we secular, social, and
human?.In Modern India a woman is
regarded as a commodity and marriage
has become more of a business alliance
than a sacred bond between two souls.
 The world population has
a sex ratio of 990 females
per 1000 males
Sex ratio:
Japan 1041
USA 1029
Indonesia 1004
Bangladesh 953
China 944
India 933
India has one of the
lowest sex ratios in the
world

WikiProject India Maps

Source: Census of India, 2001.
FEMALE FOETICIDE & INDIANS
LIVING ABROAD:
• Indians in other countries are going for sex selective abortions
is evident by the fact that sex ratio at birth among the Indian
community in New Jersey is as bad as in Punjab and
Haryana.

• A report in the British Newspaper, 'observer', had come up

with evidence that British Asian women go to India to abort
their baby girls. The British Law does not allow parents to
choose sex of their babies except to avoid certain gender
linked diseases. This forces many to go abroad. Abortion on
the ground of sex is not allowed under the Abortion Act of
1967 in the UK. But sex can be disclosed by patients if
they ask during ultrasound.
 Preventive Steps

1. Ensuring strict implementation of existing legislation.

2. The advocacy of a scientific, rational, and humanist

approach.
3. The empowerment of women and strengthening of
women’s rights through campaigning against practices
such as dowry.
4. Inculcating a strong ethical code of conduct among
medical professionals, beginning with their training as
undergraduates.
5.Simple methods of complaint registration, accessible
to the poorest and most vulnerable women.
6.Wide publication in the media on the scale and
seriousness of the practice.
AT THE
END