CULTURAL PATHOLOGY EIGHT: ABORTION OF FEMALE FETUS AND POSSIBLE KILLING OF FEMALE NEWBORN BABIES:
Abortion of female children is not unique to India. It is a practice prevalent in many countries in the east, in patriarchal societies, in societies where parents consider sons as blessings and assets and daughters as liabilities or a burden. The extent to which female fetus are aborted in India is so vast that the current male-female ratio is many parts of India is skewed. Instead of 50-50 or the 51 females to 50 males, typical of many developed countries, it is 933 females to 1000 males. I naively believed that education will lead to a healthier sex ratio and this is not so. People with education also abort female fetus; I naively believed that people of higher socio-economic status will not abort females as they don't have any 'financial problems' . But a study in Bombay, showed that the number of females born in 'affluent' areas of Bombay wee lesser than those born in less affluent areas of Bombay. Abortions are legal in India. However aborting a fetus because of it's gender i.e. because it's a female is not legal. Yet, millions of fetus are aborted in India every year! What does this say about Indian society? About our morals and ethics and decency? You have these middle-class and upper class people, who visit the scanning centre and pay to know if the fetus is a female or male. Then they decide to abort it as it's a female. Become pregnant again and check again and abort again if it's another female. Continue this until a male is born! They don't experience guilt, significant enough to stop them from aborting. They overcome their guilt, if any, through many rationalizations to themselves. Of course, they keep this abortion a secret and don't discuss it openly. They don't want any criticism of their act! The people aborting are often educated, know that it is both wrong and illegal, and are females themselves! I have seen a gynecologist abort her own female fetus until she had a son. I have seen lecturers who 'preach' to students about psychology, sociology, etc abort their fetus. The pathology leading to abortion is multi-dimensional and too much to discuss at length here. I will mention a few here, without going into depth.
(a)double standards...preaching equality of genders but practicing abortion of female fetus.
(b) believing they are 'decent', morally upright', 'educated', people and don't even seem to realize they are murdering a helpless fetus, their own daughter or granddaughter or niece or whatever who is innocent, helpless. (many women abort because they are pressured into aborting by their husbands, in-laws, their own parents, etc)
(c). Their need to show off that they have a 'son' and their shame about 'not having a son'...they consider having a son as an achievement to be proud of! They don't seem to realize it is just 'chance' and 'nature' that it happens to be a boy. Their sense of shame, anger, and frustration when they have a daughter...though the girl who is born has done no crime!
(d)All of these unwashed ass-holes want a good-looking, hard-working, obedient, educated daughter-in-law for their son; but don't want a daughter !
(e)The people running the 'scanning centres' don't feel guilty and think they are 'doing a favour to society'; The doctors aborting countless female fetus don't have any compunction doing what they do. To hell with the Hippocratic oath! They are here to make money! There is so much money in abortions in some parts of India, that doctors compete to do their masters in courses related to this field. The police turn a blind eye or take bribes and let these things continue.
(f)What I hate the most is the need these people have to project an IDEAL FAMILY PICTURE to the world..."We are a happy family; My husband is an engineer and we have one son and one daughter. we have a house and car" . Or "we are a happy family; we have two sons". I HATE THE LIES OF THESE PEOPLE; They don't admit that their happy family is because they aborted 3 female fetus and kept trying for a son; they don't admit that the car the family has is the dowry given by the woman's dad; that he is an engineer because his dad paid donation as he did not get good enough marks to get an engineering seat. That he got the job of engineer as his dad and father-in-law bribed to buy his job"
It is the utter callousness of the abortions, and the hiding and lying about the abortions that bothers me the most about this Indian culture's pathology of female feticide.
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