Abortion in India

Due to selective abortion of female fetuses in India, Indian authorities may imprison entire families who pressure their female counterparts into aborting female fetuses. Defendants may be jailed too for up to seven years under the new initiative which seeks to reduce the stigma of women giving birth to baby girls. The law will also see medical professionals who perform ultrasound tests to determine a baby’s gender jailed or fined.

Indian activists estimate that as many as 8 million unborn females were aborted over the past decade due to pressurization of mothers to produce only boys. Amendments in the present law seek to make families equally liable for selective abortion of female fetuses since they go to clinics performing sex-selection tests initiating the process of sex selection and female feticide. Although the overall abortion rate in India is lower than that seen in many other countries, selective abortion of girls is higher and on the rise since girls die at twice the rate of boys before they reach the age of five.

In some Indian families, girls are seen as economic burdens for the family whereas boys can become earners and care for their parents when they become elderly. The high abortion rate of female fetuses has rendered a dramatic gender imbalance in India. A woman is blamed for producing a female child since she’s not keeping the family name. She then faces desertion, discrimination and violence. If the mother go for abortion, she will too be threatened by her family and husband hence difficulties by the Indian government of whom to criminalize for the abortion. The fundamentals of female empowerment will be absolutely tampered with.

Gender imbalance as a result of the abortions of female fetuses is also a menace in China. In India, there are 7.1 million fewer girls than boys up to the age of six while in China; boys are also more than girls by 32 million under the age of 20. This gender imbalance will lead to millions of men unable to get wives especially the poor. Indian government must therefore increase the value of women and girls in society in order to reduce selective abortion as stated by Dr. Raj.