You might have heard and believed a lot about female foeticide in India. Our decreasing female / male ratio (of 0 -6 years of age) is given as the proof. This is a completely vague argument as going by the same logic one would conclude that in all those countries that have more women than men are actually engaged in ‘Male’ feticide. So countries like Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus etc (86 boys in every 100 girls, 2010 UN women report) need to be considered murdering unborn male children as they have even skewed gender ratio compared to that India has (107 boys per 100 girls, 2010 UN Women report). Also, the same logic says that because worldwide the population of 60 years or older men is much less compared to women shows us that men are killed systematically during their lifetime.

Some believe women live longer due to biological reasons and hence it is quite logical to have more women than men at more than 60 years age bracket. But when we compare the average life expectancy we find that for both men and women the average life expectancy is higher than 60 years.

The other reasons are said to be proliferation and abuse of advanced technologies coupled with social factors contributing to the low status of women such as dowry, concerns with family name and looking up to the son as a breadwinner has made the evil practice of female foeticide to become common in the middle and higher socioeconomic households, especially in the northern states.

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Let’s consider each reason given as the cause and analyze.

A. Proliferation and abuse of advanced technologies – The law made in 1971 against abortion restricted it to 20 weeks of pregnancy. If it is within 10 weeks, one doctor needs to certify the medical clause. For more than ten weeks of pregnancy certificate from at least two doctors team is needed to go for abortion simply on medical ground. At present more than 20 weeks pregnancy can’t be terminated by law. If that happens that becomes foeticide.

The reason a pregnancy can’t be terminated legally is that the fetus develops ‘LIFE’ within it, starts making movements known in medical terminology as ‘QUICKEING’, develops sexual organs to distinguish it as ‘MALE’ or ‘FEMALE’.

So if this reasoning of feminist groups is correct regarding female foeticide, then the clinics having sex determination facility should be under strict surveillance by govt. agencies or women’s groups (like they are trying to monitor Indian corporate under new Sexual Harassment of Women in Workplaces bill – where they are making provisions for such group members being present in our offices to monitor such offenses against women). Now even after 40 years of the introduction of a law to prevent the killing of a fetus (?), this is cited as a major problem, that only means our govt. had failed miserably in achieving this and is answerable for such a failure or there is NO such problem existing and female foeticide is only a big HOAX created by feminist groups.

A recent news on February 3, 2013 states that NCW trying to increase abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy citing following reasons (can be seen from the article)-

a) In view of the present scientific development in medical diagnostic technologies as well as social scenario, laws/statutes need to be revamped
b) A woman may be raped or a minor may have become pregnant or a woman from a depressed class violated, a woman/girl deserted by partner who had promised to marry her
c) In 2008, a woman was not given permission to abort her child who has developed congenital heart disease.

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The reason argument (a) & (b) above is not valid as if we consider advancement of medical sciences that should REDUCE the age of abortion and NOT increase the same. If medical science advancement is to be considered then each complex disease should be considered as diagnosed earlier and hence the permissible pregnancy period need to be REDUCED. Unless the argument in favour of increasing legal age of abortion is that some of the diseases that were not diagnosed in earlier days are diagnosed nowadays and these can be diagnosed only after 24 weeks of pregnancy.

In a social scenario, these groups said – a woman might be raped or a minor violated in some way or a woman deserted by her husband. This raises a serious question – “Were these crimes not happening in last 40 years?”
If YES, then how those women were dealing with the situation so far? A person raped and getting unwanted pregnancy will normally abort any child within 12 weeks of pregnancy (same newspaper report given above states that). Then changing social situation etc. is a completely vague argument. If the answer is NO, then what was the fuss about all such crimes through these years?

Coming to the argument [c] given above, it tries to portray that some disease like congenital heart disease can be detected only after 22 weeks of pregnancy and hence a couple should be given chance to go for abortion the legal way, rather than suffering the pain. Now solely based on this point the legal age cannot be increased. Rather it should be given to the courts to decide the matter after a thorough investigation and backed up by enough medical certificates from unbiased and secret govt. labs.

The sole reason that may be valid here will give rise to the termination of pregnancy by any woman and would lead to the killing of human beings indiscriminately if there is not legal interference. Already we have seen an increased number of cases of the mother terminating her pregnancy at will without knowledge of father and calling it a miscarriage.

So we can clearly see that the groups that shout for female foeticide are actually trying to promote the same (feticide as a whole, both male and female) under women empowerment. This only leads to a conclusion that female feticide is a BIG HOAX created by these groups which will never be resolved.

B.Reasons like social status of women or dowry problems etc stated as other reasons are also big fuss as everyone knows that today women are considered equal in all aspects. They can admit their child with their own name as guardian in schools (no need of father’s name) and also raise a child as a single mother (these are considered as empowered women). Also, everyone knows how BIG fraud is India’s dowry problem. Any marriage turning sour suddenly becomes dowry issue. So there is absolutely NO ISSUE today regarding the family name of the child. In fact, in India, thanks to our adultery laws many children are told lies about their true parentage by their mothers and many fathers are forced to maintain children even without being the biological father of the child.

C. The last reason given as male child being considered as breadwinner is also an evil outcome of the feminist movement. These women demanded everything as their right and shunned all responsibilities. They have an equal share in the parental property but they are not compelled to maintain their parents in old age. So we see parents filing maintenance cases against their sons but not against their daughters. Daughters can always cite (unless they themselves are willing) reasons like unemployment or take care of her own family to avoid such maintenance.

Lastly, even from the statistics, we find that the gender ratio India has today is normal and as per the world average.

So from the above discussion, we see that how these laws are being created based on complete lies and false argument. Let’s try to understand if the decreasing female / male ratio is really an outcome of feticide.

Under the present situation, there is no doubt that due to these gender biased laws women ask for anything and everything as their right and shun their responsibilities. This in a way promotes parents to think that a boy can at least earn and save the parents when they become invalid. Also raising a child nowadays is a big issue. With increased competition and nuclear families, this issue has become even more prominent. So many couples are stopping with one child more likely when the child is a boy. Since a daughter will get married and go to another house and will not stay with them when such parents have a girl child first, they go for another child expecting a boy. And hence our female / male ratio decreases. There is absolutely NO foeticide involved in it. But decreased sex ratio is ALWAYS projected as female foeticide.

Based on the above analysis and recent move by NCW it is clear that India’s female foeticide is a BIG HOAX and the whole world is constantly being fooled every day by every propaganda of female foeticide.