India Officials Catch Doctor Engaged in Sex-Selection Abortion, Faces Jail
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 20, 2008
Rewari, India (LifeNews.com) — Officials in India continue to work overtime to try to stop the practice of female infanticides and sex-selection abortions that have ravaged the nation’s male-female ratio. Yesterday, in a town near New Delhi, a team of officials caught a doctor in the middle of a sex-selection abortion.
After hearing from a staffer at a local hospital, police arrested the doctor and the woman who underwent the illegal abortion and her husband.
They were charged with violating the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques and Medical Termination of Pregnancy acts, according to a Meri News report.
The doctor and the husband were remanded into judicial custody for 14 days and the woman remained at the hospital for further treatment.
Meri News indicated the region of Haryana is facing a severe shortage of women of marrying age and a black market has developed where people are bringing in women from other parts of India and selling them into marriage.
In April, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called sex-selection abortions and the gender ratio problems a "national shame" and said the laws need better enforcement.
Singh noted that the sex-selection abortion problem is causing an "alarming" change in the nation’s male-female ratio, with 927 girls born in 2001 for every 1,000 boys. That’s down from a 962-1,000 split in 1981.
"This indicates that growing economic prosperity and education levels have not led to a corresponding mitigation in this acute problem," Singh said, according to an International Herald Tribune report.
"No nation, no society, no community can hold its head high and claim to be part of the civilized world if it condones the practice of discriminating against one half of humanity represented by women," the prime minister said.
He described sex-selection abortions as "inhuman, uncivilized and reprehensible."
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