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  • Title: When daughters are unwanted. Sex determination tests in India.
    Author: Kishwar M.
    Journal: Manushi; 1995; (86):15-22. PubMed ID: 12319799.
    Abstract:
    Amniocentesis and ultrasound have been used for detecting fetal abnormalities, but in India they have been used for sex determination, leading to the abortion of hundreds of thousands of female fetuses. As a result, by 1991 the sex ratio had declined to 929 females per 1000 males from 972 females per 1000 males in 1901. This amounts to a deficit of almost 30 million females in the whole population. The regional prevalence of sex preferences has spread horizontally and vertically in the south and the northeast, where the ratios used to be more favorable. A ban on such prenatal diagnosis was passed in several states, but it proved to be ineffective and unenforceable. The result was only that the fees charged soared. Finally, in August 1994 the Indian Parliament enacted the Prenatal Diagnostics Techniques Act that prohibited genetic counseling centers to perform such procedures unless strict criteria were observed (age over 35 years, two or more previous abortions, exposure to drugs, infections, and mental or physical retardation). However, the emergence of a police-doctor nexus is dangerous for the well-being of any society and could lead to criminalization of the medical profession. Some doctors also rationalize this practice as a means of controlling population, because the custom continues to have children until the desired number of sons are born. In low sex ratio regions seclusion, disinheritance of women from property, low female literacy, poor health, greater incidence of domestic violence, and low employment rates are typical. The aversion to female infants is a culturally conditioned choice which materializes in the pervasive dread of daughters. Women themselves perpetuate the dread because of their own misery, low status, abuse, and the burden of the dowry. The devaluation of women is rooted in history, particularly in the northwest where constant wars favored a martial society for males (with strict purdah for females), and in addition British colonialism perpetuated land rights giving preference to property ownership over the value of labor.
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