Selective abortion of 10 million female births in India

    London: A new study published in the online edition of the Lancet, has found that over the past two decades around 10 million female foetuses may have been aborted in India. The study, by Prabhat Jha from St. Michael's Hospital, University of Toronto, Canada, Rajesh Kumar from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India, and colleagues, concludes that prenatal sex determination, followed by abortion of female foetuses may be the reason for the alarming 10 million 'missing' female births.

    As a part of the study, researchers looked at data on female fertility from an ongoing Indian national survey of 6 million people, living in 1.1 million households, and analysed information from 133, 738 births. They found that fewer females born as second or third children to families who are yet to have a boy, and that the sex of the previous child or children born affects the sex ratio of the current birth. The researchers also found that the deficit in the number of girls born as second children was more than twice as great in educated than illiterate mothers, but did not vary by religion. Based on the natural sex ratio from other countries, the team estimated that around 13.6 to 13.8 million girls should have been born in 1997 in India. However, the actual number was 13.1 million - a deficit of 0.59 - 0.74 million female births. Dr Jha said that with 0.5 million missing girls yearly due to prenatal sex determination and selective abortion, the figure after two decades would add up to 10 million missing girls.

   "We conservatively estimate that prenatal sex determination and selective abortion accounts for 0.5 million missing girls yearly. If this practice has been common for most of the past two decades since access to ultrasound became widespread, then a figure of 10 million missing female births would not be unreasonable," he said. Shirish Sheth from the Breach Candy Hospital, Mumbai said that though fetal sex determination and medical termination of pregnancy on the basis of fetal sex have been illegal since 1994, it was still taking place. "In India, fetal sex determination and medical termination of pregnancy on the basis of fetal sex have been illegal since 1994' However, there is ample published evidence of rampant sex determination and female feticide," he said.

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