India’s Missing Women
Middle-class families determined to have male heirs, according to a survey of more than a million families, have aborted at least 10 million female babies in India in the past 20 years. The study by the British medical journal, The Lancet, also found that sex determination in pregnancy and selective abortion accounts for 500,000 missing girls each year. This deficit is deepest among the educated.
Ultrasound equipment was introduced in India in 1979 and was immediately used to determine the sex of unborn children. The practice of prenatal selection and selective abortion has been illegal since 1994, but it remains a common practice.
The practice is common among all religious groups, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Muslims, and Christians, but the study shows the practice of selective abortion of female babies appears to be most common among educated women.
“More educated women have more access to technology, they are more privileged, and most educated families have the least number of children,” reports Sabu George, a Center for Women’s Development Studies researcher in New Delhi. “This is not just India. Everywhere in the world, smaller families come at the expense of girls.”
India encourages parents to have two-child families using financial incentives and public relations campaigns. Faced with pressure, many women use prenatal selection to ensure that they bear a son.
The Lancet survey looked at government data collected from a 1998 sample of Indian families in all the districts of the country and concluded that 1 out of every 25 female fetuses is aborted, roughly 500,000 per year.
As evident in China, the use of abortion for sex selection has caused a skewed proportion of girls and boys in India. According to the official 2001 Indian Census, there were 927 girl babies for every 1,000 boy babies, nationwide.
Why would a parent abort a baby girl? Female feticide is not considered a crime in India. “This is not a cultural thing,” says Donna Fernandez, director of Vimochana, a women’s rights group based in Bangalore. “This is much more of an economic and political issue. It has got a lot to do with the globalization of technology. It’s about the commodification of choices.”
See the Source: Scott Baldauf “India’s ‘girl deficit’ deepest among educated,” The Christian Science Monitor, 13 January 2006, www.csmonitor.com/2006/0113/p01s04-wosc.html;
Jeremy Laurance, “Ten million girls aborted as Indians seek male heirs,” The Independent, 9 January 2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article337386.ece
China Meets Euthanasia
Chinese government officials have no respect for the life of the unborn, and it seems they have little more for the handicapped already-born.
Recently, a Chinese court sentenced Wang Tinghe to only three years in prison for killing his paraplegic daughter, Wang Qiong. The court cited his wish to end her suffering as reason for giving such a light sentence, according to Xinhua News Agency reports.
“The sentence was handed down with leniency, as the court considered the particulars of the defendant’s appeal” said Wang Tinghe’s attorney, Sun Wenjie. After a one-day trial in Panjin in northeastern China, the sentence of the jail term was handed down along with three years of probation.
While it is believed to be widely accepted among doctors, assisted suicide is not legal in China. Lawmakers have repeatedly asked for legal regulation of euthanasia, citing the country’s rapidly aging population and the heavy burden of health care costs.
Euthanasia remains a highly controversial topic in many countries around the world. As the world’s aged population grows, the call for assisted suicide legislation expansion continues.
In the United States, Oregon is the only state with legalized assisted suicide; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled recently that the federal government cannot punish a doctor who prescribes a lethal drug dose to the terminally ill.
Belgium and Netherlands already allow euthanasia. As they have attempted to expand euthanasia legislation, they both have met strong opposition.
The Netherlands was the First country to legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill people in 2001.
Christopher Bodeen, “Chinese Man Gets 3 Years for Euthanasia,” The Washington Post, 27 April 2006, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/27/AR2006042700496.html
Male contraceptives
Male contraceptives are one step closer to reality. A British study recently found that male contraceptive pills appear to be safe and effective in a trial involving 1,500 men. The pill worked as a contraceptive, and sperm levels recovered in about three months of stopping pill use, said The Lancet.
“These findings thereby increase the promise of new contraceptive drugs, allowing men to share more fairly the satisfaction and burden of family planning,” Peter Liu of the University of Sydney said. Fred Wu of the University of Manchester expects such a pill for men to be marketed within five to eight years, according to the Daily Mail.
Lyndsay Moss, “Reversible birth control pill for men moves closer,” Scotsman.com, 28 April 2006, http://news.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=634752006; “Study finds male birth control pill safe,” United Press International, 28 April 2006, http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php’storyID=20060428-101719-9260r
