"No girls born for three months" in some parts of India

[MingingInTheRain]

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/no-girls-born-india-villages-female-foeticide-sex-selective-abortions-a9015541.html

Shared this on my FB and got a response from a goady fucker (friends husband) saying he thought I agreed with abortion on demand and that this is the natural consequence

I can't even formulate a reply to him because I'm so hot and angry!

We can take some comfort knowing these villages won’t be around much longer.

Once the male children grow up they’ll be heading for the city.

I think that my only response to your friend's husband would be:

That's what you take away from the human tragedy of this report? The addition of these girls to last year's report that sex-selection foeticide amounts to 63 million missing women?

The ability to focus on 'Gotcha' rather than the human tragedy involved is always discomforting. What are the man's next reflective 10 words or was that the entirety of his thought?

So the logic is
Either no abortions under any circumstances
OR
Feel free to abort females for being female

No analysis or nuance. Got it.

This isn't a logical consequence of abortion on demand but the outcome of an extreme son preference that considers daughters to be worthless. And in places where extreme son preference is common, this collective rejection of female children also happens even if abortion isn't allowed and/or testing the sex of an unborn is not available. Only in those places female babies are born and then murdered for being female, often by being left on rubbish dumps.

That would be no girls registered born.

Abortions cost money. Discreet infanticide is the traditional way.

In the cities, there are orphanages with large 'post-boxes' to drop off your unwanted packages.

I was about to point out that infanticide was like to be a major contributor alongside selective abortion. They are suffering major repercussions from this issue in China where the one child policy has led to shortages of females. Not great when the previous son’s want wife’s.

Yes, that might be the case that they would turn to infanticide. As I understand it part of the pressure for boys only is that now families are smaller, so you might only have one or two chances.

I read this on bbc earlier seems there were also loads of villages with no boys, they think dodgy record keeping, I'll find the link in a mo.

I know about missing millions but in this case it may not be what looks at first glance. Which is good.

That aside, your friends dh is being agoady twat.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-49109767

I do not agree with this .
The culture is the son stays home and works, keeps the parents, so they see raising a girl as pointless, as she just leaves to marry.

This isn't news,Iknow,but every time I read about female infanticide it just stunsme so badky I can't think about anything but poor scraps of life, abandoned and neglected until they just gutter out. How can girls and women be so valueless?

It is illegal to find out if a baby is male or female in India. So it is more likely to be infanticide than abortion.

It may be illegal in India to find out what your babys sex is but money talks, there is a lot of corruption and its easy to find someone who will tell you. Infanticide is also rife when girls are born. Whilst the boys are seen as being able to bring in money when they are older and producing heirs, girls are seen as en extra expenditure to have to feed, clothe and educate and then marry - not all think like this but it is rife. If you have a first born girl, people often offer commiserations rather than joy.

Do men like that realise that they will die out with no women to give birth to them?!

Some men like to control women’s bodies by denying them abortion.

Some men like to control women’s bodies by making them undergo abortion when there is a female fetus.

This is the latter. It doesn’t negate an argument for abortion, it highlights how the importance of women being in control of what happens to them. I don’t for one second think these women are fully complicit in having an abortion because they’re carrying a female fetus.

Do men like that realise that they will die out with no women to give birth to them?!

Women also seem to be invested in this sort of activity. But I think it is like many things, like commuting to work in a car. You know that on a large scale it's a problem, a deadly one, but you also know that in terms of your own family you have to get to your job or you can't pay the mortgage and there is no bus. There are economic consequences to having daughters and people can't figure out how to avoid them in a way that seems acceptable within their culture.

If you don't think of the abortion itself as being immoral apart from the choice to have a boy over a girl, it's not a crazier decision than a lot of things most of us do and know aren't good choices.

Killing baby girls is done out of fear and control.

Men know that deep down they’re superfluous once they’ve made a woman pregnant (when it comes to raising the child etc). By reducing numbers-and having more men around, they get to control women and treat them as commodities effectively.

It’s basically a culture borne out of war/fight for scarce resources.

Yes, I can see what you mean Goose. GF Facebook friend is still an arsehole though. It's a natural consequence of thinking women have no value not one of a accessibility to abortions.

It is illegal to find out if a baby is male or female in India. So it is more likely to be infanticide than abortion.

It's also illegal in China but everybody finds out regardless and it doesn't cost money. 'Connections' mean everybody knows somebody who works in the hospital who can discreetly pass you the information. Interestingly the Chinese metropolitan middle class now prefer daughters over sons because of the difficulties and expense of securing marriages for boys.

Did you all not read the article properly?

www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49109767

Just the first few paragraphs should tell you something.

I read an article in the Times about this today. My little baby daughter is asleep on me, snoring gently as I type this. These reports make me want to cry. As well as those millions of babies; those millions of women coerced or brainwashed into having a mid to late term abortion or killing their tiny newborn babies. To have to "get rid of it, get over it, don't tell anyone" and presumably suffer all over again if they get pregnant with another girl. To have to flip from being happy to be pregnant and imagining their future with their son to being expected to want rid of a female foetus as quickly as possible when they are told the bad news after a scan. To be forced to suppress their maternal urge to care for their newborn baby and instead kill her...it's grotesque. Millions of them probably mentally fucked up and suffering and not allowed to grieve. Heartbreak on a nationwide scale.

Its not just the men that are to blame here, its often the mother in law that insists on having a male heir thus insisting on abortions or infanticide if it turns out to be a girl.

Did you all not read the article properly?

I read the article in the OP.

The later-linked BBC article outlines a very different picture and concludes:

In a week's time, we will know more about the so-called "missing girls" of Uttarakhand.

It would be helpful if any of the media stories linked directly to the report and data. Presumably the report "in a week's time" will be from the officials who are factchecking the health workers' data.

Yes, so finding out your sex by ultrasound is technically illegal but if your technician gives you a thumbs up or down and pockets a neat bribe, who is watching or complaining? There are also thousands of illegal ultrasound clinics. Abortion btw is entirely legal in India and has always been since 1947 but sex selective abortion is not. But then how you make that distinction is quite difficult. I am very very very pro choice but while the PP’s friend was being goady, there is a more nuanced sensible argument to being made- that if we think that women should have access to abortion before a certain gestation no questions asked, then HOW do you prevent sex selective abortion? Incidentally sex selective abortions happen within British Asian families as well and there is some research on this.

As a small aside, my parents (both University professors) distributed sweets after my birth in the 1980s (my mum had a late stillbirth before me and many years of infertility). The nurses at the very upmarket private hospital in one of India’s largest cities were absolutely gobsmacked. They said this was the first parents of girls who had ever celebrated the birth in hospital in this manner. They apparently questioned my dad about whether he was ‘truly’ happy.

Sex selective abortion happens just as much in urban areas amongst the educated. Just that the methods are more sophisticated and the bribery rates are higher.

@PotalBabu very similar story to my dad, his first born was a girl in the 80s. My grandmother asked my mum and dad to get rid when mum was pregnant then tried to get them to give uo for adoption. My dad went to all friends and family and distributed sweets to all, peope would come to give their condolences for a first born girl and questioned my dad why on earth he was celebrating.