Fighting Female Foeticide - A Long Way to Go

Abstract

In 1975, amniocentesis arrived in India as a method for the detection of genetic abnormalities. Soon it came to be used more commonly for sex determination (S.D.), actually a misnomer for sex prediction leading to sex selective abortions. In response to an official directive, government hospitals stopped the misuse of this technique for S.D., but it resulted in opening the floodgates for large scale commercialization in the private
sector. S.D. soon became a booming business in Delhi, Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana, U.P., and spread like an epidemic in north and west India. This was the region which had shown a much sharper skewing of the sex ratio (adverse to females) in the past decades, thanks to a pronounced sexist bias and prejudice leading to discrimination against females in all walks of life. Young daughters, in lakhs, died silent deaths as their health and wellbeing received low priority in the family and society. In fact, amniocentesis came as a gift of modern technology to 'Mother India' who has always been cruel to her daughters.