Female foeticide : clarifications and situation

 

 

Q. 1.What is female foeticide?
Female foeticide over the last 15 years has distorted sex ratios at birth in several Asian countries. The term ‘Foeticide’ refers to the killing of ‘foetus’ or the unborn baby. Thus female foeticide means the killing of ‘unborn girl child’. It also shows the preference of boys over girls in our society.  
 
Q. 2. Why there is need to raise a voice against female foeticide ?
In India, particularly in states like Haryana, in comparison to boys, girls are more deprived. One of the reason is as reported by Hoffman (1988), in India sons are seen as source of economic security. Parents believe sons will support them in their old age, while daughters belong to the husband’s family and take on the responsibilities of the husband’s family. As parents believe that daughters will belong to their husband’s household, the value of sons is enhanced. It is well known that community is facing social problems such as dowry, early marriage of girls, and violence against women, female foeticide, and low female literacy levels. These problems cannot effectively be targeted without the effective and substantial involvement and commitment of the community and the families, particularly the women folk. During the recent years emphasis has been laid on empowerment of rural women and girl child. It’s difficult to think of empowering rural women and girl child who are still dependent on men folk in every aspect. They cannot think independently and seek the help of male members even in taking daily life decision and getting their day today problems solved. In order to empower rural women and girl child, it is very important to make them socially competent so that they can solve their day today problems competently and independently. A socially competent grown up girl will be able to think of different alternatives to solve a problem, as well as, she will be able to examine the possible consequences of any solution. She will be able to evaluate pros and cons of different characters in the stories, wish to gain access to a toy or material in another child’s possession. The stories aim to assess children’s cognitive repertoire of strategies for obtaining access to an object. Picture cards were used to depict the stories. For each story two responses were obtained.[ Darshna Punia, Shanti Balda and Shakuntla Punia]
 
The Census 2001 has revealed some interesting and worrying features with regard to sex
ratios which calls for some explanation. For example, the overall improvement in sex ratio in favour of females may be explained by the fact that female death rates have become lower than the male death rates. But the sex ratio at birth (SRB) becoming more favourable to males has, however, influenced the overall sex ratio in the opposite direction, which is reflected in the adverse child sex ratio. Child sex ratios in Punjab and Haryana, especially with the adverse sex ratio at birth of point towards rampant practice of female foeticide along with a certain amount of infanticide in these two states. The fact that Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal both have registered an improvement in overall sex ratio between 1991 and 2001, but with the child sex ratio declining sharply requires a detailed probing. Interestingly all the states that have shown large declines in child sex ratio between 1991 and 2001 – Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Chandigarh and Delhi – are economically well developed and have recorded a fairly high literacy rate. This is contrary to expectation and needs to be examined. Lets cast a glance on the following charts:
Table 4: Top ten and bottom ten districts by child sex ratio in age group 0-6 in rural areas – India: 2001
TOP TEN DISTRICTS
Child sex ratio
BOTTOM TEN DISTRICTS
Child sex ratio
1. South (Sikkim)
1,040
Sonipat (Haryana)
788
2. Bastar (Chattisgarh)
1,020
Rupnagar (Punjab)
787
3. Pulwama (Jammu & Kashmir)
1,019
Mansa (Punjab)
780
4. Mokukchung (Nagaland)
1,019
Sangrur (Punjab)
779
5. Upper Siang (Arunachal Pradesh)
1,018
Kapurthala (Punjab)
773
6. Dantewada (Chhatisgarh)
1,017
Ambala (Haryana)
772
7. Kupwara (Jammu & Kashmir)
1,014
Kurukshetra (Haryana)
772
8. Lakshadweep (Lakshadweep)
1,010
Patiala (Punjab)
764
9. Anantnag (Jammu & Kashmir)
1,008
Salem (Tamil Nadu)
763
10. Senapati (Manipur)
1,007
Fatehgarh Sahib (Punjab)
747
Table 5: Top ten and bottom ten districts by child sex ratio in age group 0-6 in urban areas – India: 2001
 
TOP TEN DISTRICTS
Child sex ratio
BOTTOM TEN DISTRICTS
Child sex ratio
 
1. West (Sikkim)
1,130
Jind (Haryana)
775
 
2. East Kameng (Arunachal Pradesh)
1,037
Fategarh Sahib (Punjab)
774
 
3. Kanker (Chhattisgarh)
1,031
Amritsar (Punjab)
772
 
4. Goalpara (Assam)
1,004
Sonipat (Haryana)
767
 
5. Kasargod (Kerala)
1,004
Kurukshetra (Haryana)
762
 
6. East Siang (Arunachal Pradesh)
1,003
Bathinda (Punjab)
756
 
7. Perambalur (Tamil Nadu)
1,002
Kaithal (Haryana)
756
 
8. Tirap (Arunachal Pradesh)
1,001
Mahesana (Gujarat)
752
 
9. The Nilgiris (Tamil Nadu)
998
Gurdaspur (Punjab)
729
 
10. Imphal West (Manipur)
997
Shahjahanpur (Uttar Pradesh)
678
 
             
 
 
Table 5 above gives the top ten and bottom ten districts by urban child sex ratio. A glance at this table reveals that the West district of Sikkim has the distinction of registering the highest urban child sex ratio of 1130 followed by East Kameng(1037) in Arunachal Pradesh. The north-eastern State of Arunachal Pradesh has three districts in this category while the southern state of Tamil Nadu accounts for two districts.
Surprisingly at the bottom end of the ladder stands, Shahjahanpur district of Uttar Pradesh with urban child sex ratio at 678. Like in the rural areas in the urban areas also the states of Haryana and Punjab dominate the scene accounting for eight districts in the bottom ten districts of child sex ratio. 
The distribution of districts in the broad ranges of child sex ratio for the rural areas of the country is presented in Table 6 below. For the sake of comparability fourteen districts of Jammu & Kashmir have been excluded from 1991 as well as 2001. It also excludes nine totally urban districts besides Kachchh district of Gujarat and Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh where census could not be conducted during February/March, 2001. The scenario emerging from the table presents a very dismal picture for the girl child in majority of the districts across the country. In 1991 there were only two districts with 0.5% population, which recorded child sex ratio below 850. In 2001, the number of such districts has increased to 44 accounting for 5.3 percent population. In 1991, 312 districts with 58 percent population registered child sex ratio in the range 950-999, which has come down to 247 in 2001 along with thirteen percent point decline in the population. The decrease of child sex ratio is sharp in the thousand plus category also. The trends speak clearly about the magnitude of problem relating to the status of the girl child. presents districts according to ranges of child sex ratio in rural areas and helps in identifying districts across the country exhibiting very low child sex ratio. The pattern of very low child sex ratio in contiguous belt stretching from Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi to western Uttar Pradesh is distinct. In addition districts with very low child sex ratio are also seen in parts of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.
 
The decline is especially more in the northern states of Haryana and Punjab.
The increased availability of ultrasound machines in the area in the past 10 years corresponded to the decline in sex ratio. Between 1991 and 2001 the sharp decline in the juvenile sex ratio in some districts in the states of Haryana, Punjab, andGujarat, where son preference is historically known to be strong, is attributed to the practice of sex-selective abortions (Malik 2002). In India according to 2001 Census there were 49 districts, where for every 1000 male children aged 0-6 years there were less than 850 female children. Majority or 38 of these districts were located in just three states of Punjab, Haryana, and Gujarat.
 
 
Q. 3. What is abortion and what are the various methods to execute abortion?
Abortion is made up of two Latin words – ab- meaning off or away oriri meaning to be born; abortion means taking away a human life which would in the normal course of events be born.
Abortion has two meanings- medically it can describe a case of miscarriage, without any outside intervention, occurring within the first three months of pregnancy. Abortions legalized by the Act on the other hand, are those deliberately procured with the intension of terminating the pregnancy, killing the unborn child.
The terms abortion and miscarriage are sometimes used as synonyms. They are also used to describe the same happening at later stage of pregnancy. Abortion is restricted so as to describe the case occurring in the first three months of pregnancy and miscarriage to describe one during pregnancy from the beginning of the fourth, until the foetus becomes viable.
There are the following methods of abortion which are widely used:
  1. Suction method
  2. Dilation& curettage (D&C)
  3. Injection of saline
  4. Surgical operation or Caesarean section
   
Q. 4. What are the various hazards or consequences of abortion?
Abortion, whether spontaneous or induced, whether in hands of skilled or unskilled persons are almost always filed with hazards; resulting in maternal morbildity and mortality.
The early complications include shock, septic conditions, uterine perforation, cervical injury, thromboembolism, anesthetic and psychiatric complications. The late complications include infertility, entopic gestation and increased risk of spontaneous abortion and reduced birth weight.
  
Q. 5. What are the conditions under which abortion is legal? What are the various laws, which prohibits abortion and defines the punishment?
The various conditions under which a pregnancy can be terminated are defined under MTP Act, 1971:
  1. Medical Termination Of Pregnancy Act, 1971(MTP):
The MTP Act 1971 lays down three norms for terminating a pregnancy:
 
  1. The conditions under which a pregnancy can be terminated under the MTP Act 1971 are:
i.                    Medical – where continuation of the pregnancy might endanger the mother’s life or cause grave injury to her physical or mental health.
ii.                  Eugenic - where there is substantial risk of the child being born with serious handicaps due to physical or mental abnormalities.
iii.                Humanitarian – where pregnancy is the result of rape.
iv.                Socio-economic - where actual or reasonably foreseeable environments (whether social or economic) could lead to risk of injury to health of the mother.
v.                  Failure of contraceptive devices - the anguish caused by an unwanted pregnancy resulting from a failure of any contraceptive device or method can be presumed to constitute a grave mental injury to the mental health of the mother. This condition is a unique feature of the Indian Law, which virtually allows abortion on request, in view of the difficulty of providing that a pregnancy was not caused by failure of contraceptive.
The written consent of the guardian is necessary before performing abortion in women under 18 years of age, and in lunatics even if they are older than 18 years.
 
  1. The person or the persons who can  perform abortion:
The Act provides safeguards to the mother by authorizing only a registered medical practitioner having experience in gynaecology and obstetrics to perform an abortion where the length of pregnancy does not exceed 12 weeks. However, where the pregnancy exceeds 12 weeks and is not more than 20 weeks the opinion of two registered medical practitioners is necessary to terminate the pregnancy.
 
 
 
  1. Where abortion can be done:
The Act stipulates that no termination of pregnancy shall be made at any place other than a hospital established or maintained by the Government or a place approved for the purpose of this Act by Government.
Abortion services are provided in hospital in strict confidence. The name of the abortion seeker is kept confidential, since abortion has been treated as a statutory personal matter.
 
MTP Rules (1975):
Rules and Regulations framed initially were altered in October 1975 to eliminate time consuming procedures involved in MTP and to make services more readily available. These changes have occurred in three administrative areas.
1)      Approval by Board:
Under the new rules, the Chief Medical Officer of the District is empowered to certify that a doctor has the necessary training in pregnancy gynaecology and obstetrics to do abortions. The procedure of doctors applying to Certification Boards was removed.
2)      Qualification required to do abortion:
The new rules allow for registered medical practitioner to qualify through on the spot training. The doctor may also qualify to do MTPs under the new rules if he/she has one or more of the following qualifications which are similar to the old rules:
a)      6 months housemanship in obstetrics and gynaecology
b)      a post-graduate qualification in OBG
c)      3 years of practice in OBG for those doctors registered before the 1971 MTP Act was passed.
d)     1 year of practice in OBG for those doctors registered on or after the date of commencement of the Act
 
3)  The Place Where Abortion Is Performed:
Under the new rules, non-governmental institutions may also take up abortions provided they obtain a license from the Chief medical Officer of the district, thus eliminating the requirement of private clinics obtaining a Board License.
 
Limitations of the act:
1)      The provisions for abortion under the Act such as pregnancy caused by rape, failure of a contraceptive etc. need not necessarily constitute grave injury to her mental health.
2)      Extending the period of pregnancy from 12 weeks to 20 weeks of pregnancy in certain situations gives more scope for abortion takers.
3)      The value of human life is challenged
4)   No consideration is given to the right of the foetus.
   
The Indian government responded to the petition made by non-governmental organizations and women’s groups by passing an Act that prohibits the practice of pre-natal diagnosis of sex of the foetus (Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) Act of 1994). Under the Act individual practitioners, clinics or centers cannot conduct tests to determine the sex of the foetus or inform the couples about it.
 
Q. 6. What are the various factors, which encourage female foeticide?
1. STRONG preference for sons over daughters exists in the Indian subcontinent, East Asia, North Africa, and West Asia unlike in the western countries.[Muthurayappa et al 1997] [Lancet 1990] [Okun 1996].

2. Transfer of reproductive technology to India is resulting in reinforcement of patriarchal values, as professional medical organisations seem to be indifferent to ethical misconduct.        [Sabu M George; Ranbir S Dahiya] 
3. Following conception, foetal sex is determined by prenatal diagnostic techniques after which female foetuses are aborted [Park and Cho 1995, Arora 1996].
4. Rural men blame women for not producing enough sons. Some husbands married a second time because the first wife did not bear a son. 
5. Sophisticated reproductive technologies such as X-Y sperms election or pre-implantational genetic diagnosis (PGD), which enable families to choose the sex of the child without having to resort to abortion. In X-Y separation, male sperms are separated and are used to fertilise the egg. In PGD the pre-embryos are sexed for the selective destruction of the female pre-embryo (female embryocide). As the validity of these methods appears to be uncertain outside the research labs which developed them.  [Ramsay 1993] [Parikh 1998] 
6. A different strategy, which some parents adopt to limit family size of surviving children and to eventually have the desired number of sons, is female infanticide [George et al 1992]. Direct infanticide refers to killing of infant usually immediately afterbirth.
7. Indirect infanticide is death caused a little after birth, due to deliberate neglect. This could be by inadequate childcare or by poor food related practices or health related neglect.
8. Despite Jind being one of the most backward districts in Haryana, ultrasonography, a modern technology, is extensively abused. 
9. Almost everybody, including women MCH doctors felt that selective abortion of female foetuses would increase the status of women. (according to a study executed in Haryana,  Sabu M George; Ranbir S Dahiya)

 
Q. 7. What are the various indicators which show the practice of female foeticides?
Lets have a look at the tables given below:

TABLE 3: FSSR AND LCSR FOR ALL FAMILIES


Family Size Live 
M		 Born 
F		 FSSR LCSR
1 134 95 1.41 1.40
2 359 259 1.39 1.33
3 352 347 1.01 1.49
4 233 303 0.77 1.48
5 120 165 0.73 2.39
6 45 63 0.71 1.43
7 36 55 0.66 1.50
8 17 31 0.55 0.50
9 3 15 0.20 0.0
10 1 9 0.11 0.0
Total 1300 1342 0.97 1.44

TABLE 4: FSSR AND LCSR FOR STERILISED FAMILIES  

Family Size Live 
M		 Born 
F		 FSSR LCSR
1 3 0 * *
2 115 21 5.48 5.60
3 193 122 1.58 2.25
4 116 116 1.00 2.93
5 50 60 0.83 5.00
6 21 27 0.78 1.00
7 14 14 1.00 1.00
8+ 3 16 0.19 0.0
Total 515 376 1.37 2.91

Note: * Ratio could not be calculated as denominator is 0. 
Table 3 indicates the sex ratio for each family size. The family size sex ratio (FSSR) monotonously declines as the family size increases from one to ten. While the last child sex ratio (LCSR) is generally more elevated than that of the family size sex ratio (FSSR). Both FSSR and LCSR are much higher for completed (sterilized) families (Table 4 ) with the exception of birth orders greater than five where due to small sample sizes the ratios are not stable. 
The sample consists of all women in the villages who had a pregnancy outcome in the last five years and the study children comprise all their children; and this included some mothers who were desperate for sons; for instance, seven were willing to have six to nine girls just to have one or two sons. (According to a study executed in Haryana)