The Global Sociology Blog

It is a neat rhetorical trick of the forced pregnancy lobby to label pro-choice groups as pro-abortion because it displaces the discussion that should be at the heart of this: women’s agency and choice over their own bodies, and all the emotional, psychological, medical and social issues related to the lack thereof.

Actually, as the post title indicates, to force women to give birth or to force them to abort are two sides of the same anti-choice, patriarchal logic. It is not about life, it never has been. It is about patriarchal control.

This is why this four-part article over at the BBC News website on India’s missing girls is a must-read.

Part 1:

“Kulwant has three daughters aged 24, 23 and 20 and a son who is 16.

In the years between the birth of her third daughter and her son, Kulwant became pregnant three times.

“My mother-in-law said if I had a daughter, my husband would leave me. Thankfully, I had a son.”

Each time, she says, she was forced to abort the foetus by her family after ultrasound tests confirmed that they were girls.

“My mother-in-law taunted me for giving birth to girls. She said her son would divorce me if I didn’t bear a son.”

Kulwant still has vivid memories of the first abortion. “The baby was nearly five months old. She was beautiful. I miss her, and the others we killed,” she says, breaking down, wiping away her tears.

Until her son was born, Kulwant’s daily life consisted of beatings and abuse from her husband, mother-in-law and brother-in-law. Once, she says, they even attempted to set her on fire.

“They were angry. They didn’t want girls in the family. They wanted boys so they could get fat dowries,” she says.”

Part 2:

“Sreeja travelled more than 2,000km (1,240 miles) from her parents’ home in Kerala in southern India to set up home with her husband in Haryana. He had tired of waiting to find a local bride so he used connections to make contact with her family.

Inter-state marriages are rare in rural India. Yawning differences in language, food, cultural habits, weather, attitudes to women and even names easily conspire to make such alliances unworkable.

But Birbal was unable to find a bride in Haryana, which has the most unbalanced sex ratio in the country, with 877 women for every 1,000 men. Among under sevens, that ratio drops to just 830 girls for every 1,000 boys.

Experts say Haryana’s situation is the result of illegal sex-selective abortions, female infanticide, parental neglect and discrimination against girl children.

The good news is that both ratios are slightly higher than the rate in the 2001 census, thanks to moves against antenatal sex-determination clinics and a gender awareness drive.

The bad news is that the ratios are still way behind India’s average – 914 girls for every 1,000 boys under seven, and that gap itself has widened since 2001.

In contrast, Kerala has a laudable 1,084 women for every 1,000 men, according to the 2011 census, considerably higher than the national average of 940 women for every 1,000 men.

Birbal and Sreeja are not the only couple in Sorkhi from different Indian cultures.

Men in Haryana, unable to find a bride at home, are willing to pay up to 100,000 rupees ($2,222) to marry an “imported” girl from states like West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar or Madhya Pradesh.

With fewer women the “marriage market” has taken an interesting turn.

Usually, a bride’s family pays a large dowry to the groom’s family. But these days prospective grooms in areas short on women often need to have substantial amounts of land and a secure government job if they are to win a wife.

In Sorkhi, the “imported” brides have adapted to life in this alien land, giving up their jobs and learning the local Hindi dialect.”

Part 3:

“The Kashmir Valley, which has been in the grip of an armed insurgency against Indian rule for the past two decades, has now turned on its girls, killing them ruthlessly, in most cases even before they are born.

(…)

In 2001, for every 1,000 boys under seven in the state, there were 941 girls. Now the number is down to 859. No other Indian state has fared so badly over the past decade.

(…)

Dr Saleem-ur Rehman, director of health services for Kashmir Valley, says: “The 2001 census figures were good so we thought we were doing really well and we all became a little complacent.”

“I don’t want to be in denial mode. I admit something was happening. And we are doing our best, what best we can do, to change the situation,” he says.

On Dr Rehman’s order, 100 ultrasound clinics have been sealed in the valley. Action has been taken against centres in Srinagar, Budgam, Baramulla, Ganderbal, Kulgam and Kupwara. Many more have been sent notices and are in the process of being raided and sealed.

Any clinic which is not registered, or one that has not submitted the mandatory Form F (which has to be filled for each pregnant mother that visits the clinic), or a clinic that submits incomplete forms has been shut down.

“Some of them are big names, but they are doing very bad work. We know they are definitely doing sex determination tests. I will not allow medical technology to be part of this menace,” he says.

Dr Rehman says his job is made difficult by the fact that he can never have definite proof.

“The person who gets the sex selection done – like the pregnant mother, her husband or her mother-in-law – will never reveal anything. Nor will the person who does it, because he’s getting paid for it and he knows it’s illegal. So we can only have circumstantial evidence.”"

Part 4:

“On a steaming hot day, nearly two dozen women have gathered in the office of the government-run child development project in the Bihar village of Vidupur.

Most are accompanied by their little daughters. All of them have a white sheet of paper which they scramble to show me.

It’s a precious document – it carries the name of the girl, her date of birth and other details. And it’s proof that she is enrolled for the government’s Kanya Suraksha Yojana (Girl Protection Scheme).

Under the scheme, the state invests 2,000 rupees ($44; $27) in a fund in the name of the girl. The money grows along with the child – once she reaches 18, officials say it will be worth about 10 times that amount, and could be used to pay for her wedding or to fund a college education.

The scheme is available only to those living below the poverty line and a family can enrol just two daughters.

The initiative, announced in November 2007, is part of the government’s plan to make baby girls wanted and, at the same time, make small families an attractive idea.

“The scheme was launched to ensure the girl child is allowed to be born, that her birth is celebrated, and that she is cared for,” says Irina Sinha, an official in the state government’s Women’s Development Corporation.”

Read the whole thing.