Selective abortion in India could lead to 6.8m fewer girls being born by 2030

[BurningBright]

Guardian article: www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/aug/21/selective-abortion-in-india-could-lead-to-68m-fewer-girls-being-born-by-2030

There are already an estimated 1.2 to 1.5 million missing female births worldwide each year because of selective abortion.

Amazing how everyone seems to know the difference between boys and girls when it comes to aborting female foetuses. And long before they get 'assigned female at birth'.

[DryHeave]

China has the same male:female ratio as India. (1.11). World average is 1.05. With a billion+ people in each country, that’s a lot of missing females.

[ISaySteadyOn]

So what could be a practical solution I wonder? How does one persuade people of the inherent worth of women and girls? Not that persuasion should be needed of course but it is nevertheless.

[Alexandernevermind]

It's a horrible, horrible situation with no easy solution.

[Siablue]

So horrible. This will only stop when girls are valued equally. If you make it harder to have sex selective abortions then the girls will be at risk once they are here.

[CarlottaValdez]

Amazing how everyone seems to know the difference between boys and girls when it comes to aborting female foetuses

I doubt many desperate women in India under pressure to abort their daughters are transactivists so but really sure the point you’re trying to make here.

[OhGodWhatTheHellNow]

Really Carlotta? Guess you missed the ActionAid 'no such thing as a biological women' statement then. After all, these are the people who are supposed to be looking out for the desperate, and apparently non-existent, women in India.

[CarlottaValdez]

They may be the ones looking out for them (or, as you say, meant to be). My point was that I can’t see there’s much crossover between people aborting their female foetuses and those who think you can change sex.

I assume the OP was saying it’s hypocritical or nonsensical to both abort females and believe sex is imaginary. Which is is of course but I don’t think these people holding both views exist so I wasn’t sure who she was spearing there.

[Akire]

I can’t get my head around it, surely sons are only valuable if they marry and produce next generation of sons. A son is no use without wife or family wealth just get what? Passed onto some distance relation?

[minnieok]

It's tradition for the girls to join their husbands family and boys support their parents in old age so if a family only has girls they are destitute and without care in old age traditionally. Plus there's the dowry (meant to now be illegal but still happens). Things are changing in cities, in the middle classes but society change takes a lot longer. I have British Indian friends with only girls and they couldn't care less but I know they were under pressure to try "one more time" for a boy which they rejected

[Gronky]

@Akire

I can’t get my head around it, surely sons are only valuable if they marry and produce next generation of sons. A son is no use without wife or family wealth just get what? Passed onto some distance relation?

It's a stochastic game with long intervals between stages. This encourages decisions which are also detrimental to all participants (selective abortion) if taken by a sizeable minority-majority, with a particular benefit to early participants. Unfortunately, the detriments of this decision being taken on a wider scale do not manifest for over a decade.

I find it disheartening that advances which were intended to improve the welfare of children are being exploited by a backwards culture (by which I mean those who use them this way, not all Indians).

[Mum2154]

It’s not just in India these old fashioned views are carried into the so called “modern” Indians backgrounds here in UK too! DH’s family are Indian and modern but when I had first (DD) it was like someone had died. I stopped talking to his sister as she kept saying inappropriate things about my daughter. His relatives gave their “condolences” to us and told us they’ll be praying next one is a boy!

His mum said it too but I have to speak to her for DH’s sake. He didn’t stick up for our daughter and said some idiotic things. Now I have a boy it’s like (in their eyes) that I’m the biggest star in the world!

They all dote on my DD but evil me is planning subtle ways of reminding them everything they said when she was born.

[Mum2154]

Sorry went off on a tangent and talking about myself only lol!

Back to the article - the only way they will learn is when there’s a shortage of girls and their previous sons will have no one to marry and carry on their names. This can’t continue.

[nepeta]

@Mum2154

Sorry went off on a tangent and talking about myself only lol!

Back to the article - the only way they will learn is when there’s a shortage of girls and their previous sons will have no one to marry and carry on their names. This can’t continue.

The articles from some parts of China suggest that even the shortage of wives doesn't have much impact on this problem as wives can then be acquired from neighboring countries, by force, if necessary.
www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2151075/vietnam-without-love-child-brides-china

This is a terrible problem, of course, and its roots really are in a patrilocal society where brides move away so are not available to care for their aging parents in the future but must be provided with dowries instead. Without general old age security and the marrying of daughters away there is no real pressure for girls to be equally valued with boys.

Someone once told me that there is a proverb from some country which says that bringing up a daughter is like watering your neighbor's garden.

The scarcity of wives doesn't do much for the valuing of daughters because it is like someone owning a rare antique vase or something similar. It is the owners of the vase who get the extra value, not the vase.

[NiceGerbil]

As per PP there is hand wringing about men not being able to find wives but this doesn't seem to result in any reduction in female children being got rid of.

[CarlottaValdez]

Thing is I suspect people would rather have an unmarried son (who will look after them) than a daughter anyway.

Quite if this model works with no daughters in law to do all the actual work of looking after them we’ll see I suppose.

[ThinEndoftheWedge]

An the UN think women are ‘formless‘.

This is horrendous.

A barbaric example of female sexed-based oppression.

Agree with PP that this doesn’t mean people perpetrating this think you can change sex - unlike Norfolk Police constabulary - these people clearly know you can’t.

[Angryresister]

All those poor men who will not get their dowry motor bike....

[MoltenLasagne]

It is just so awful - are there any countries who have done this and changed? What needs to happen to stop this?

[WhereYouLeftIt]

You would think that when a 'commodity' becomes scarce, then it's 'value' would increase - sadly not the case when the commodity is a female human. Local shortage? Kidnap them from the neighbouring regions! (Consent of region and females not required!)

I wonder where/when this will end .

[NiceGerbil]

Formless? What have I missed?

[ThinEndoftheWedge]

NiceGerbil

Try this - mobile.twitter.com/UN_Women/status/1235977079839166464

If you can’t define what a woman/female is - you can’t fight sex-selected abortion/femicide.

Sadly the UN doesn’t understand this very basic premise.

[BrassicaRabbit]

I doubt many desperate women in India under pressure to abort their daughters are transactivists so but really sure the point you’re trying to make here.

I took it to be a dig at the Guardian, who don't always know what a woman is. Although, to be fair, they generally do report clearly about women when they're reporting on non western countries. But in the UK and US, I gather they believe we no longer need a distinct category.

[NonnyMouse1337]

What a depressing article. Years ago as a young girl, I stupidly and naively imagined things would substantially improve for women and girls in India as education became prevalent. I'm now nearing forty and it seems like not much has changed, or sometimes it feels like it's gotten worse over the years.

The worthlessness and inferior status of women is so deeply ingrained in Indian culture. Sex selective abortions are only a modern manifestation of the underlying disdain and sexism channelled towards Indian women for millennia. The abortions are shocking, but somehow more humane. When baby girls are born they might be buried alive or drowned or strangled. As infants, girls are deliberately given less to eat or less nutritious food, while their brothers are allowed bigger and better portions, given milk etc. So many girls are chronically malnourished.
Women of all ages are groped, sexually assaulted, leered at, harassed and intimidated for being out in public, especially if not accompanied by a male.
Acid attacks are frequently the weapon of choice for entitled men who cannot tolerate a woman saying no to them. New brides are burned to death in 'kitchen accidents' because their family failed to cough up enough dowry for the in-laws. Widows and divorcees are shunned and abandoned to live a life of penuary, which I suppose is a step up from being burned alive on your husband's funeral pyre. I'm grateful that the British put a stop to that at least.

The 'educated' and middle/upper class families tend to carry out their hatred for women more discreetly.

Whenever the plight of Indian women is talked about, someone (usually a man) will wheel out some trivia about some goddess that is worshipped or a random spiritual text about how women are to be held in esteem. In reality it means fuck all for women and girls.
Like any other patriarchal religion, texts of Hinduism were created by men and for men. The Laws of Manu have impacted the lives of women in so many ways.

Women ultimately aren't viewed as full human beings in their own right. Their purpose is to facilitate the lives of men and bear their sons. I don't know how you change such entrenched views, but other societies have managed it, so it's not an impossible task.

[NiceGerbil]

Fucking hell

[user1471448556]

Women are so screwed over. I thought there was some kind of realisation of the issues in India when that poor woman was gang raped and murdered on a bus? What happened to the momentum after that?