A new study published in the medical journal The Lancet (subscription required) exposes the staggering numbers involved in India’s greatest shame. The BBC reports:
More than 10m female births may have been lost to abortion and sex selection in the past 20 years, according to research in The Lancet medical journal.Researchers in India and Canada said prenatal selection and selective abortion was causing the loss of 500,000 girls a year.
Their research was based on a national survey of 1.1m households in 1998.
The researchers said the “girl deficit” was more common among educated women but did not vary according to religion.In most countries, women slightly outnumber men, but separate research for the year 2001 showed that for every 1,000 male babies born in India, there were just 933 girls. [Link]
The one result of the study which really makes me lose hope for the future is that a more educated woman is even MORE likely to pursue sex selection by abortion (although this could be due to pressure from their equally more educated spouse). Also, there is an even larger spike in people selecting the sex of their babies through abortion if there has already been a daughter born into a family.
In cases where the preceding child was a girl, the ratio of girls to boys in the next birth was 759 to 1,000.This fell even further when the two preceding children were both girls. Then the ratio for the third child born was just 719 girls to 1,000 boys.
However, for a child following the birth of a male child, the gender ratio was roughly equal.
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p>Basically this means that for a female fetus to see the light of day she has to hope that she has an older brother waiting on the other side for her.
Dr [Shirish] Sheth says: “Female infanticide of the past is refined and honed to a fine skill in this modern guise. It is ushered in earlier, more in urban areas and by the more educated … A careful demographic analysis of actual and expected sex ratios shows that about 100 million girls are missing from the world – they are dead…” [Link]
MoorNam it seems you’re the one who hasn’t been reading things properly. If you read my post and the slate.com article, you’d know I’d read her paper. I only read the slate piece now, and have seen that half the things I’ve mentioned have not been mentioned in the article, so you figure it out. I have no interest in reading the slate piece – in fact it offerred precious little critique of the paper.
MoorNam, see my point #35 – it completely disproves the Hep B hypothesis. Oster (if YOU’VE actually read her paper) goes on to disprove her own hypothesis. This is why I said her paper is pointless and daft.
I knew you’d turn up and some point and try to down play this, put a postive spin on it and offer support for alternative explanations. Good old predictable MoorNam. You claim her paper was to uncover the true reason for the gender deficit. It didn’t. The Jha study did.
Sorry MoorNam, you’re the one who’s trying to fit things to your pet theory, i.e. there’s nothing wrong with Hindus. Had this only been a Muslim practice, you’d be the first to deny any possible link to Hep B. Read my objections again – her paper is nonsense. It should not be pursued further. You think one lone economist has stumbled upon a hidden pandemic? You don’t think an army of doctors would’ve swarmed on this if it had any credibility?
Please, face facts.
Whoops – completely misread there. Sorry, been a long day. I got MoorNam and dissent’s posts muddled up. Sorry – what I addressed to MoorNam is addressed to you dissent.
Apologies MoorNam. I feel pretty stupid about the ‘I knew you’d…’ bit.
Bong,
Man, you are slipping. You are “not reading carefully” and then telling others………..
What has happened?
To Bong Breaker(51): “Read my objections again – her paper is nonsense. It should not be pursued further.”
These statements clearly display the depth of your analysis(and the heights of your arrogance). It is pointless having a discussion with highly presumptuous bigots like you.
Haha Kush, but quite a deserved jibe!
Dissent, shame you’ve done what anyone with a weak argument does, resorted to name-calling. And so soon. But I’M the one who is difficult to argue with! How, pray tell, does one pass your non-bigot test? By paying heed to every crackpot theory that someone cares to concoct?
Intelligent Design. Lots of ‘evidence’ for that. FAR more than one paper that didn’t make any waves in the medical press. So should I “investigate it further”. No. Because it’s bullshit. So, by your logic, that makes me a bigot.
Arrogance has nothing to do with it. I am exceedingly arrogant, but my views on this article are nothing to do with that – they’re merely a reflection of how poorly constructed a piece it is. I don’t know why you’re dogmatically insistent that people must “investigate it further”. Learn to spot bogus research when you see it – there’s STACKS of it out there. If you believe everything you read, you’ll end up buying into a lot of hocum and missing the major implications.
You have yet to offer any rational support for her paper. Have you read it?
Although, I agree that there is girl deficit in India, its not same all over the country. Obviously BBC is first to jump the bandwagon and stereotype entire nation. The report is based on a survey done in 1998, Which means the report might not be accurate.
Sex ratio (females per thousand males) is really high(996/1000) in South India, but in North India its really low.
I hope BBC will do some research before publishing these kind of news/views.
Prasad says:
This a pool story which means that dozens of news orgs picked it up at the same time. BBC isn’t stereotyping anything but just reporting the story. You are certainly providing us all with an expected stereotype though.
Right. So as the technology involved in sex selection improves and makes the killing of baby girls even more efficient, it makes sense to you that the data would no longer be as bad as in 1998. Come back when you pull your head out of the sand.
This issue is actually a part of the larger debate on abortion itself.
Is abortion good or bad? Would there be such a big outcry if equal number of male and female children are aborted?
In the US itself, 1.3 Million fetuses are aborted each year.
See:US Abortion Stats – I US Abortion Stats – II
unforgiveable situation, and so many people to blame!
In my personal experience, thankfully I’ve been born in an upwardly mobile middle class family which didn’t believe in removing females from the equation, although a sense of extra responsibility has always been quite obviously associated with girl children. At least they all got college education! Let me dampen that down with a couple of situations where opportunities were taken away from some of them to thrive and grow as much as male children – in one case, in a family of 3 children, the girl child who did well enough to go to medical school via performance in national public exam (for perspective of effort it takes to get into medical/dental school via public entrance exam, consider that in 2004, 203241 candidates appeared for about 1519 seats) was not allowed to only on account of her being a girl. Her brothers were provided more opportunities. Then there is the case where one of my relatives had 7 girls in a row before he gave up and adopted a boy. How’s that for a slap in the face if you’re a girl in his family. While they all got secondary education, they were (while I was in touch with them) being married off right at legal age. I remember on the wedding of the eldest, her mother was breastfeeding the youngest while giving her away.
I’m sorry to say, these are exceptions only in our family, not in the nation.
I believe its not that the parents are demons, just that without financial resources they fall back on what they can do to worsen their situation less. Reprehensible, but what it means is that as prosperity arrives, we might finally see falling female infanticide rates. The low opportunity availability situation will improve accordingly. To me the only real answer is financial and small families.
For some reason the link has SM address prefaced to it. The correct link to the stat I quoted is http://www.education.nic.in/Annualreport2004-05/Secdu.pdf
I agree with Moor Naam said. As a capitalist , all I will say is let the markets rule. If parents feel boys are to their liking now , let them have it their way. Soon – we will have a crazy situation when dowry will be needed to pay by the boy to the girl’s family. That will be the day all this female infanticide stuff is put an end to. Economics is the deciding factor in everything.Nobody can change that.
The reason for me blaming BBC is that although they are a responsible news agency, they tend promote prejudice in British society against Indians albeit unintentionally. Some of my white friends ask/say some weird things about India and say that they have read/saw the news on BBC.
I come from coastal Andhra Pradesh (one of the states in India) and I’ve never encountered/heard a family in my community/relatives preferring a male child to a female child, in-fact contrary to that in my childhood I was dressed up as a girl( for photo’s) as my parents did not have daughters. They always tease me that i should have born as a girl.
Prasad, the BBC has done more for British Indians than any news agency in any country has done for any immigrant population. They also frequently run documentaries on India – a whole week was recently dedicated to India’s economy. Just because you haven’t met someone who does this, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The BBC have never stated ALL Indians do this. The BBC just reports the news – good or bad. There’s more good about India than bad. It’s only when I started watching Indian news (NDTV, Star are the ones I get here) that I realise how much crap there is in India. Living in the UK and reading the Western press, like the BBC, India comes out smelling of roses.
India has never been a country that is ashamed of itself. Throughout history it’s been depicted inaccurately. During the Cold War India was ‘the West’s enemy’. During the Raj India was an ‘in-fighting nation of polytheists’. But India went on regardless. It’s natural that you want your country painted in the best possible light to the outside world, but hiding from the truth should not be an Indian trait. The reason progress is made is because people face facts. The most outspoken critics of India and the most powerful agents of change are Indian. Other countries (e.g. China) may try to sweep its shit under the carpet, we shouldn’t.
In the US 1.3 Million fetuses are aborted each year. That is more than double the number in India. (estimated 10 million over the last 20 years).
I was really just fishing for a functionalist answer to the question, namely that sex selection is wrong because an unbalanced male to female ratio would result in social problems.
If you read the news paper articles soicologists seem to want to jump thorugh all kinds of hoops to avoid functionalism in favor of a marxist class and gender struggle.
As Anna would say…if you don’t like us, leave. Noone is forcing you down with your ass super glued to a chair to read this blog.
Everyone else, whether in the US or in India or anywhere else, abortion as a form of birth control is stupid. Yes, we are human beings and make mistakes but smart people learn from one. They don’t have to keep on repeating them over and over to finally realize that their pants don’t come off by magic.
In this case, where abortion is used mainly to pick a baby’s gender is particularly callous. Again, I am not pointing fingers just at India. It is a rampant problem in a lot of societies. I know of asians in Africa, the UK and even America who do this nonsense. It’s just more pronounced in India because the country has been notorious for other similar practises such as dowry deaths etc.
Mnam…your idea for a 5 rupee pill that kills the female producing sperm cells really cracked me up!
A couple of thoughts:
Education and wealth, as have been mentioned already on this thread, unfortunately do not always make the individual a nicer person — they do not necessarily teach the culprit humility, empathy, integrity, or compassion. Higher levels of intellectual capacity just mean that, if the person concerned is so inclined, they are able to come up with more devious, calculating, and ingenious ways to be a jerk and to figure out how to successfully get away with it. Plus, higher social status sometimes results in bigger egos, which results in nastier behaviour — this is especially pertinent when you bear in mind how ego-driven desi society is (broadly-speaking).
As someone else mentioned, people here in the West also often prefer boys, but in their disappointment they do not kill female children (not on the scale it occurs in India). As I’ve said quite a few times previously on SM, a huge issue within desi culture is that people go to further extremes in their behaviour — they don’t always apply the necessary psychological “brakes” to restrain their thoughts, emotions, and actions. So you then have disproportionately large numbers of people “crossing the line” in their behaviour, especially if they find a way to blame the victim and rationalise/justify/excuse their nasty behaviour (this is even worse if they hypocritically know that what they are doing is fundamentally wrong). Coupled with the casual disregard for the legal ramifications of their actions (in so many walks of life), and you have all kinds of culturally-sanctioned psychotic behaviour, whether it’s asking for exorbitant dowries, “bride burnings”, or female infanticide/foeticide, even though such actions are all criminal at the very least and, of course, psychopathic and truly abhorrent as well.
*people here in the West also often prefer boys
Clarification: I’m referring to non-Indians living in the West.
Dear Jane of all trades
20 years from today,who knows. A war/illness, etc. may decimate many males. All I know is people do whatever they do in pursuit of life, (their’s), and happiness, (their’s). So if a having a girl means hardship, that is their reality. Should it be different? Yes,of course.Today more m class families are seeing that it is the daughter who worries about her parents, who knows what they need and more are finally appreciative. Many NRI sons make money and come home only when the parent is about to die and to claim property. I do not think anyone has the right to pontificate re girl aborting unless they can provide an alternative: Adopt the baby, like Asha dan does, encourage contraception. Meanwhile understand that the mother/father do what they think is best. Demographics do not really predict the future with accuracy. Alas China (and Japan) leapt forward only after abortion was freely available. Alas Both were girl hating cultures.
Doctors criticise report on female abortions
“This is misleading. Why are they giving these details now, after so long? This is not happening for the past four or five years after strict laws were put in place,” said Dr Narendra Saini, joint secretary and spokesman of the Indian Medical Association, which has 170,000 doctor members.
Your stats are faulty. Estimated 10 million over 20 years is abortions of FEMALES WHICH ARE DUE TO GENDER. Abortion numbers in total in India, which is what the 1.3M in America is, are far higher.
Bong,
Just to request you to step back a minute. Epoch and dissent are not without merit on this issue.
Just to be a contrarian (or academic) for a minute.
If you normalized the data sets (female population), are they more abortions per 1000 person (women) in US than in India. I do not know.
I do not know about this stuff, and googling only can be misleading. Somebody like you, chick_pea, MD or anyone else might know better.
I know this is not an easy question to answer – as I would assume most of the abortions in US are documented and legal, and I know from reading literature for India, most of them are not documented and illegal (not done by a trained physician) – so does one compare?
people here in the West also often prefer boys Do you care to provide the basis for this assertion? I haven’t felt it, but if there is some data that indicates it, I am curious.
Kush,
I haven’t commented because I don’t have time to read about this properly – I don’t know the data very well. But you make an interesting academic point: how much of ‘accepted’ knowledge is based on studies that are flawed? I can’t answer in this case.
My personal experience of India itself is extremely limited – I have no idea if the aunties and uncles that I know, or if my ex-in-laws, represent India today, as it were. What they do represent is a stifling version of what a woman should be, in my own personal opinion (but that’s not entirely fair). My father, mother, some of their friends, are terrific champions of women,and still it’s complicated! Even a feminist-male can be less than ideal to his female parter. The personal is not always reflective of political. Ifthis data reflects reality (and, isn’t it possible, given the cultural notions?) then it is sad. Beyond sad – it is a sort of abomination. Some on this thread have given economic reasons for why this might be, but do we really have data to support that notion? Some economic conditions are created and self-enforcing, if you see what I mean. However, using abortion to select desirable children is used in the West, too. Down’s babies are less and less because of parent’s choosing to abort when they know the status. Read some disability blogs – they offer an interesting perspective on parental choice.Shall we select and why? The notion seems anathema when stated that way, doesn’t it? Or does it? My thoughts are also altered by my experiences with multiple sclerosis. We live in very strange times….
*Finally, the NRI-bashing (I mean that in a tongue in cheek fashion, so don’t take it too personally). Sometimes I think some resident Indians are a tad insecure……
Okay, I have to clarify for those that are not familiar with my comments: I really am joking about the NRI, resident Indian bashing/insecurity, lest someone take offense and think I am being serious……it’s just that you see this on threads from time to time, one group tsking the other. I find it amusing. How can all resident Indians or non-resident Indians or desis be the same? Surely, you will find differences. Viva la difference, I say!
MD,
I am very glad that you answered.I am strong believer that any problem, one should do two things: a) look at the problem critically, and/ or b) do something about it. It saddens me when people use the troubling issue like this to vent because they did not had their daily prozac yet – hey, they are free to do it but still it leaves a bad taste…..That is why I carefully listened when Theresa spoke.
My feeling is that from an academic point you can only accurately determine the “female deficit” in India by comparing any other healthy societies (even, use American Samoa, Polynesian Islands). The female deficit is highly abhorent and speaks of some serious malaise. That problem could be neglect of females, general poverty, abortion, abuse, or even Hep A, etc. However, I am still wondering (I heard the authors on BBC but have not read the article) how can one determine the number of abortions done for female foeticide.
You are a scientist and you understand – flawed studies can be very harmful. I am not saying this is one. But still one has to be careful. God, data collection in India is hell – the system is not set up for it.
Also, one has to compare how in west, people use abortion for eugenics. What is proportion for them per thousand for them?
Hmmm, I have something else to add. Isn’t abortion always a selection of a desired child, whether it is a male child in India, or simply, an unwanted child in the West? I mean, you do not desire the child enough to have it, so, you don’t. Or, you may think, it is not responsible to have another child, I simply can’t handle it, or we will be poor, or you don’t think too much about it. It’s just something you do, and then, it’s over. I suspect this happens a fair amount in the West. I know plenty of women who’ve had abortions. For many, it’s glided over…..If abortion is not akin to murder, then why should it make a difference if you are aborting girls as opposed to boys? Well, it does bother me, I suppose, because of the reasons for the abortion (females are less desirable) and the outcome of a society where the male female ratio is heavily skewed. I’m just riffing – be patient. If abortion is not akin to murder, then why does the selection of a fetus with certain characteristics bother us (or me, I mean, at an emotional level, why am I responding to this idea of selecting?) What if the child will be born with multiple sclerosis? Down’s? Some illness that we can detect, but not treat? Will we be able to determine IQ and will we target for that?
Is it okay to choose to have children based on certain characteristics, but not okay based on another set of characteristics? And utilitarian arguments are always tricky – it implies costs and benefits, and who gets to set the price, eh?
I suspect this happens a fair amount in the West. I know plenty of women who’ve had abortions. For many, it’s glided over…..If abortion is not akin to murder, then why should it make a difference if you are aborting girls as opposed to boys? Well, it does bother me, I suppose, because of the reasons for the abortion (females are less desirable) and the outcome of a society where the male female ratio is heavily skewed.
Good point. Anyone pregnant or who has recently had a baby knows about the 12-week ultra scan and the 16-week triple test, which, among other things, gives the couple the option of aborting a “probable” down’s syndrome baby, and many women do abort because (lets be frank) they don’t want the headache. I don’t think its a simple issue of “I’m western and thus more ‘moral’ than you.”
That being said, the Punjab/Harayana sex ratio really IS an abomination. The Hindu religious leadership in India does not speak out enough (if at all) against sex selection, which is strange, considering that abortion is maha paap (a great sin) in the Dharmashastras. The large Hindu wedding in North India for which the bride’s family must pay does not help. It will be good to see North Indian men forced into begging for a bride in the near future. They deserve it. It is much better in South India.
MD, I don’t know if in yr last comment(#76) you are just wondering aloud or really asking a question. I’ll just add my two paise in the mix. In the first case, a) “a child is aborted“, whereas in the latter case b) “a girl child is aborted”.
It is not so much the abortion that matters than the fact that as a society 1/4th of the society we live are still ready to pay a premium on a boy over a girl. This is what gets me and I guess most of us here who commented. Apart from the obvious social imbalance it would create(which have been discussed at length on this thread) let me give you just one more small side example which hasn’t been discussed here. Imagine living in such a society with two beautiful daughters. Do you think they’ll be able to go about their day to day business without getting leched at every nook and corner? Without getting abused and with a feeling of being born in the wrong place/time ? Without wanting an end to their wretched existence? On the contrary, I had a colleague at work from Bihar..who said that (after his BE and a IT job)whenever he returns to his village for vacation, his parents don’t allow him to sleep alone on the terrace with a khatiya or roam around in the markets like he used to earlier. Reason being, there were some cases of enggrs, doctors being kidnapped and forcefully married off to Yadav girls and obviously if guy then dares to exit..Laloo’s shtick is always there.
As a society our development is deeply rooted in a healthy respect and rights for both the genders. Sway to the extreme on any side and it’ll cut.
As long as abortions are done without preference for any particular sex, then the natural balance remains intact. The abortion itself could be for any reasons…maybe because the parents aren’t ready for one more child, or they think they can’t provide a safe upbringing with good values, or the mother is unhealthy….whatever. Besides, mistakes do happen. And couples don’t want to bring up a mistake for 18 years, do they? So as long as this rationale applies to any foetus, and not just a boy or girl child it should be fine.
I agree with you that any utilitarian arguments in this debate with a cost-benefit excel sheet attached to them are misplaced.
It will be good to see North Indian men forced into begging for a bride in the near future. They deserve it. It is much better in South India.
Eddie, you don’t know the figures involved in rich Nair/Naidu/Reddy weddings. It runs into lakhs, acres of land or kilograms of Dubai-polished gold bars. North Indian weddings are (in)famous only because they are too ostentatious and due thanks to Bollywood movies who are always obsessed with Punjabi marriages. Believe it or not, a close friend of mine was offered a crore in dowry to marry a Andhra girl and accept to be a gharjamaai, essentially a servant of his father-in-law. If anyone of you’ve watched “Love ke liye kuch bhi karega”, to be a Saif Khan(minus Sonali Bendre or her love) 🙂
Abortion, as best as I know, is NOT considered maha paap/sin in the Veds. The soul is believed to enter the baby around 7 months when the baby’s life outside becomes naturally viable…. Also it is understood if it is aborted/miscarried, the soul knew and accepted this would happen…. though there are enough gurus/mullahs/reverends/prolife goondas making some woman feel terrible because she aborted or used contraception. For what it is worth, Emmanuel the religious group, also accepts the soul knew this destiny. If you are really against abortion, maybe you are against contraception too a la Catholics? Give the bonny sperm a chance?
Why can’t we understand people do this only when they feel it is for the best? Anyway what shortage of women when so many men are becoming gay? And when every woman I know is complaining about a shortage of men?
Bong Breaker said: “Your stats are faulty. Estimated 10 million over 20 years is abortions of FEMALES WHICH ARE DUE TO GENDER. Abortion numbers in total in India, which is what the 1.3M in America is, are far higher.”
Logically speaking, the total abortion figures in India can’t be much greater than 10 million. If it was, the sex ratio would be almost balanced. Clearly, all the extra abortions will have to be male fetuses.
Here are some actual numbers for legal abortions in India(the number of illegal abortions is any ones guess):
Historical abortion statistics, India
These are great, extremely thought provoking and questions that have no easy answers, I feel. I hadnt even thought in this way, as far as this topic was concerned.
Abortion, as best as I know, is NOT considered maha paap/sin in the Veds.
You are wrong. Read Manu. Abortion– “sis-hatya”– is considered a great sin.
If you are really against abortion, maybe you are against contraception too a la Catholics?
I am not against abortion, I am very much pro-choice.
Dear Janeofalltrades Hope you read Dr Oldenburg’s Dowry murders, the imperial origins of cultural crime. Also made me understand when women were forced to take on their father’s/husband’s name and denied property a la Europe. Beautifully, painstakingly researched.
You talk of combatting a 5000 yr old culture. here is review of Dr Oldenburg’s book.
The Hindu custom of dowry has long been blamed for the murder of wives and female infants in India. In this highly provocative book, Dr. Oldenburg argues that these killings are neither about dowry nor reflective of an Indian culture or caste system that encourages violence against women. Rather, such killings can be traced directly to the influences of the British colonial era. In the precolonial period, dowry was an institution managed by women, for women, to enable them to establish their status and have recourse in an emergency. As a consequence of the massive economic and societal upheaval brought on by British rule, women’s entitlements to precious resources obtained from land were erased and their control of the system diminished, ultimately resulting in a devaluing of their very lives. Taking us on a journey into the colonial Punjab, Dr. Oldenburg painstakingly follows the paper trail left by British bureaucrats to indict them for interpreting these crimes against women as the inherent defects of Hindu caste culture. The British, Oldenburg claims, publicized their “civilizing mission” and blamed the caste system in order to cover up the devastation their own agrarian policies had wrought on the Indian countryside. A forceful demystification of contemporary bride burning concludes this remarkably original book. Deploying her own experiences and memories and her research at a women’s shelter with “dowry cases” for a year in the mid-eighties, the author looks at the contemporary violence against wives and daughters-in-law in modern India. Oldenburg seamlessly weaves the contemporary with the historical, the personal with the political, and strips the layers of exoticism off an ancient practice to show how an invaluable safety net was twisted into a deadly noose. She brings us startlingly close to the worsening treatment of modern Indian women as she challenges us to rethink basic assumptions about women’s human and economic rights. Combining rigorous research with impassioned analysis and a nuanced treatment of a complex, deeply controversial subject, this book critiques colonialism while holding a mirror to gender discrimination in modern India. Reviews “Oldenburg has a unique and compelling voice as a historian. She has left no stone, or document, unturned in her search for the answers.”–Geraldine Forbes, Professor of History, SUNY, Oswego
“Oldenburg’s arguments are persuasive and written in such clear and jargon-free English that even nonacademic readers should be able to follow [them]…–The Journal of Asian Studies
“With her detailed study, Oldenburg has turned the standard interpretation of sati and dowry deaths on its head. Her methodology combines the historian’s careful combing of the archives with the anthropologist’s use of life histories and interviews. This is provocative, original scholarship. “–Gail Minault, Professor of History, University of Texas, Austin
“A strong, contentious book on an intellectually, socially hot topic, Dowry Murder offers a rich complex answer to: What are the causes of violence against women in India, of female infanticide, ‘dowry’ deaths, and battering?”–Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago
dear Ed Manu, may be. Not the Veds. Also even that Manu states a house where women are unhappy cannot prosper, a nation where women are illtreated can never be successful. Check Donniger’s translation.
I’m stepping back, as requested. But I can’t really understand how one can equate screening for disease (pathological) and aborting with screening for a physiological state (i.e. being female or having a normal IQ) and aborting.
It smacks of pro-life rhetoric. For those of you who think that aborting a child with a serious disease is no better than aborting them because they are not a genius, please try raising a child with a serious disease or disability. I have a sibling who will always require full time care, I know what sacrifices my mother’s made and I would not hesitate in aborting my child (provided my wife agreed) if it was going to be seriously disabled. But I certainly wouldn’t abort if a prenatal IQ test told me he’ll/she’ll be a bit on the slow side.
Well, now babies can survive from 20 weeks. But as I said earlier, we will eventually be able to grow a baby entirely ex-utero. So then there will be no clear cut-off point. Setting a cut-off gestation according to survival outside the womb is short-sighted. I personally think a figure, like 18 weeks for example, should be chosen and stuck to. It shouldn’t be made according to when they suck their thumb, yawn or are able to survive in an incubator.
(PS Eddie – if I were religious, I wouldn’t pay much heed to Manu. Like most holy books, there’s a lot of flotsam in there that belongs in the past.)
Bong Simply clarifying the Veds or Manu has said. Not a believer.
Re aborting females, life for these families esp women is v hard if they have female children. Precisely what I wrote earlier, this choice is made,(often with sorrow, embarrassment, worry), because of potential hardships. May be ‘just’ economic hardships. In a world kinder to and geared to the handicapped, your mom would not have faced so many hardships either. As it is, this is the world. Hence I choose to defend a family’s choice not to have a particular child. I do NOT react only with horror when someone aborts a female. Sad, yes but that is their survival. Is it changing? Fotunately yes.
(PS Eddie – if I were religious, I wouldn’t pay much heed to Manu. Like most holy books, there’s a lot of flotsam in there that belongs in the past.)
Agreed 100%. My only point about the dharmashastras is that the Hindu acharyas, jeeyars and mahadhipathis ( these are monastery–“mutt” heads or sect heads) have a clear and overwhelming scriptural precedent for speaking out against sex-selection (which manifests most often as foeticide), and yet they do not. Perhaps as sanyasins they believe the temporal plane is no longer of concern to them.
And btw, I also agree wholeheartedly with your point about facing the issue and not burying ones head in the sand. Whether the solution is through the government, religion, ngos, women’s groups or whatever matters not to me. The utilitarian argument is just ugly.
Bong,
Excellent, But step a few more steps back.
a) Let do a math on abortion in India due to female foeticide. Say X (female population) >= 1000/ per 1000 males (male population) in a healthy society. What I gather nature is setup that one tends to have same or slightly more females in human population. As of today in India, (~1000 – 100 = ~900)/ per thousand males due to female foeticide. You (Lancet) surmises that they are 100 female abortions/ 1000 in India. The utmost upper bound you can put ~100 more abortions in India making a total of ~200 abortions/ 1000. However, that reasoning will shoot down female foeticide theory meaning thereby that females are not selected prefarably for abortion, and that is not the case. You have to accept that total abortions are >~ 100 (equal to or slightly more)/ 1000 or do not accept selective female foeticide.
We all know the truth is there is selective female foeticide in India exist and it is abhorent. Maybe, in future I will adopt a girl from India, Perhaps I will.
b) Another truth is west indulges in abortion far more than India? If you challenge point b) then point a) has to false. Why is it OK here? I am pro-choice but most of my close friends are pro-life (I deeply respect them – Let’s not hijack the thread on that count). My question to you is: “Why is OK for Ms. Susan McHorny to abort a child because is she regreting her one-night stand but a Bai (maid servant) and her family (her husband is rickshaw puller) that is barely able to put food on the table is condemned for selective abortion? “
I am talking to you because you are a smart guy. I find it very distrbing that we will condemn a coolie in India with “patriachal numbo jumbo” but lazily look the other way, when it comes good old west.
PS: I know you personally you do not it but I addressing to you because others might go loco on me and you won’t
New Year’s day at Azad maidan, Bombay,the Guju Bhatias and Krishna followers have massive pujas/rally. Major havans, brahmin priests, etc. Their main speaker keeps reiterating that violence against females is violence against lakshmi. States their well being will disappear if htey persist in this. Forget his name but he is a v popular speaker/religious leader. Has 2 daughters himself.
Bong,
To maintain female deficit, you have to accept most of the abortions in India are of females only. Once, you accept that than total number of abortions in India ~= (roughly equal to) abortions of females……otherwise, the female deficit goes away and the population roughly becomes equal again (it was nearly equal to start with).
female deficit is hard data, other stuff is arm-waving. i personally think female deficit is more a composite number (a bigger problem), as Amartya Sen had put forth.
Kush Had made just this point long ago. That people do this because their lives would be harder, to which people wrote ridiculous/utilitarian. Women cry, the midwife consoles, the MIL says I do not see how we can afford this whenever a female baby is aborted. Single working women are terrified of leaving a girl baby with anyone and a boy seems easier. Basically, an economic not callous issue.
Adopt a boy, remember – they have too many of them! j/k
The problem is Kush, abortion in India and the West is not directly comparable.
I am willing to accept that America aborts more babies than India (%age-wise) as it’s more readily available and perhaps not regarded as that unusual. Perhaps that’s something India should be proud of, that Indian women are more willing to bring up a baby once it’s conceived – you decide). But in India, despite less abortions occurring per 1000 people, out of that number, more will be female than male. Whereas in America, I would wager that abortions of males and females are equal.
I think we’re agreed so far?
You’re example of the one-night stand and the maid is valid. Ms McHorny has a right to an abortion, but if I was her physician I would at least give her a talking to. Pretty useless I know. Bai, on the other hand, is aborting her child simply because she’s female. So that’s why I disagree with it. If she was financially unable to raise any child, I would respect her decision just as women in the West have abortions if they don’t think they can afford it. The most common causes for abortions in the West are monetary and a desire to delay having children. If Bai cited these, I would treat her no differently to anyone from the West.
I have read these posts carefully (especially after my confusion above!) and I do take on board points like reality being tough amongst the poor – if they feel a daughter is more costly, should I argue? Well, my anger should be directed at the government and the culture. The reason America’s sex ratio isn’t skewed is because it is no more advantageous to have a boy than a girl. But what angered me about this particular study is it wasn’t the poorest of the poor aborting, so monetary motives seem more suspicious.
I’ll be honest Kush, I’m not sure I’m completely following your line of thinking with the abortion figures. Sorry, I’ve had about 3 hours sleep in 3 days! Why would I have to accept that the number of female abortions ~ total no. of abortions? Surely if 1000 abortions are performed and 600 are female, 400 male, that would create a deficit? But 600 ~/ (is not roughly equal to) 1000.
female deficit is hard data, other stuff is arm-waving. i personally think female deficit is more a composite number (a bigger problem), as Amartya Sen had put forth.
Granted Kush, there are other contributing factors such as the relatively poorer healthcare women might recieve, and the bias against women in a scarcity of resources scenario. But then how do you explain why the sex ratio is just as sweked in South Delhi, which is rich, educated and disproportionately Punjabi?
“Surely if 1000 abortions are performed and 600 are female, 400 male, that would create a deficit?”
Yes, that creates a deficit of 200 (that is the first hard data). You can never have more male aborted than female (first constrain) because than you will have male deficit, and then we should be discussing male foeticide instead of female foeticide.
Sure, you can assume that lot more males in Indian society thousands of years ago but then society will stop growing. Therefore, they have to roughly equal in a healthy socity. You have to assume that the baseline is roughly equal.
So, your upper bound for total abortion can be >= 2 X(No. of female abortions purported by Lancet). Your total abortions will definitely be far greater than the female deficit but not greater than twice the number given by Lancet for females. Once you have decide that 600 (say, the Lancet number) is another hard number, then you have to stick with as almost total number. If you decide 1000 is another hard number (UN or something like that), then the ratio has to be 600:400.
If you only keep 200 as your only hard data, then the ratio can be anything like, 1200000:1200200.
PS: I am just doing intellectual sparring with you. Let’s move to another topic. I think female deficit is a real and serious problem.
Bong said: “I would not hesitate in aborting my child (provided my wife agreed) if it was going to be seriously disabled… Bai, on the other hand, is aborting her child simply because she’s female. So that’s why I disagree with it.”
So you are both pro-choice and anti-choice.
“It is much better in South India. “
ugh — a lot of people in this thread have said, “oh, in south india it isn’t like this”, etc…. actually this is an all-india problem — every class, every community, every state, period. saying that it is relegated to the north betrays a willingness to accept numbers at face value, when those numbers are being doubted by ngos and aid workers at every turn. someone threw out a 996/1000 sex ratio for the south — where did that come from? because the reality is that girls are aborted, killed, neglected, pulled out of school, sold off, trafficked… etc. with a not very varying frequency all over india.
it has become very fashionable to rale about the backwardness of the north and praise the south without interrogating the realities.
Najeeb,
No hard figures from me, just personal life-experience. I’m just referring to how many fathers want a son in the same way that, as has been mentioned already on this thread, many mothers want a daughter. However, the dynamics involved aren’t the same as the more negative aspects of Indian society.
Kush, BongBreaker, MD etc,
I’m going to enter this particular maidhan-e-jang and be a little controversial…..
If the aforementioned fictional “Bai” is unable to afford the financial cost involved in raising children, then she and her husband should take every precaution available to prevent pregnancy in the first place. If contraception is not available to them (for whatever reason), then she and her husband should not engage in penetrative sex.
This is a better course of action than aborting female foetuses or killing newborn girls because of the perceived higher future expense. In fact it is a more ethically sound alternative to killing baby girls full stop, for the various culturally-related reasons we’ve all been discussing.
The same reasoning applies to the higher-status higher-wealth families mentioned too: At this point in time, you cannot medically choose the gender of your child (unless I’m mistaken). So if you really are so hostile to the very idea of having a daughter that you’d be prepared to murder her either before birth or shortly afterwards, do not engage in penetrative intercourse in the first place if it’s all too much of a gamble for you.
Of course, it’s easy for me to do this kind of armchair-analysis and propose elegant-sounding solutions when the real-world scenarios are often significantly more complicated and politically-loaded; however, what is required is for the women involved to somehow have the courage to take these steps and face up to the possible negative fall-out. Easier said than done, of course, but it’s a start.
The Indian media could also do much to address this issue, or at least provoke some debate within society if the dramas concerend had a wide enough audience. It would need to be handled properly; there’s a show called “Astitva” on the Zee network which often focuses on socially-controversial women-focused issues. Star Plus possibly has a larger audience due to all those Saas-Bahu dramas, but judging by the dire standard of those soaps, I’m not sure if Ekta Kapoor could necessarily be trusted to portray this problem in a mature and non-OTT way.
*do not engage in penetrative intercourse in the first place if it’s all too much of a gamble for you.
Or make sure you use contraception without fail — affluent families have no excuse for not being able to obtain it.