Female foeticide: a sociological perspective.

Abstract

Female infanticide is not uncommon in Indian society, and is still prevalent in certain parts of the country. With the advancement of modern technology its practice, however, has taken a different shape. Now it is possible to detect the sex of the baby when it is still in the womb of the mother. This has made it possible to abort the female foetus, if it is unwanted. The most commonly used sex determination test is amniocentesis. Discovered primarily for the detection of foetal malformations, it has, over the years, been used to determine the sex of the foetus. In India, since 1978, the test is being used as a sex determination or sex preselection test. Since then, the test has become extremely popular and has led to a mushrooming of private clinics, which perform the test, all over the country. The seriousness and social implications of this practice were realised only in 1986. The extent of the problem in Bombay and its suburbs was brought out by a survey (1) which showed that 84 percent of the gynecologists were performing about 270 amniocentesis tests per month. Only five percent of the tests were being done for detecting foetal malformation, while the remaining-as many as 95 percent were being carried out for sex determination and subsequent abortion if the foetus was found to be female. Some medical practitioners had been performing the test for the last 10-12 years (1) . Over the years, a number of news items and articles have also appeared in the newspapers highlighting the increasing popularity of the sex pre-selection test. Simultaneously, a number of social organisations started campaigning for a ban on the test. They pleaded that the test is not only discriminatory and inhuman but also has dangerous social implications. The reduced sex ratio would lead to polyandry, prostitution and other crimes against women (2) , (3) .

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