Sex Detection Tests and Female Foeticide: Discrimination Before Birth

Abstract

The high female infant mortality rates (Miller, 1985), the practice of female infanticide (Krishnaswamy, 1988), the neglect of female children with regard to access to health services, nutrition (Sen and Sengupta 1983) and education (Mankekar, 1985), and the sexual abuse of girls (Bhalerao, 1985) are manifestations of a deep-rooted patriarchal bias against women. This negative bias has assumed an alarming dimension in the recent past, with the utilisation of the amniocentesis test for detecting the sex of the foetus, followed by a selective abortion of the foetus if the test shows it is female. Apart from considerable risk to the foetus and the woman, the utilisation of pre-natal diagnostic techniques for the selective abortion of female foetuses perpetuates the negative social worth of women. This essay makes a case against the test and positions it as a critical issue to be confronted.