Pro-abortion feminists remain largely silent as baby girls in the womb are targeted for sex-selection abortions at a massive rate across the world.
In India alone, experts estimate that approximately 46 million girls have been singled out for abortions specifically because they were girls in the past 50 years, the New York Post reports.
The discrimination hurts mothers, too. Frequently, mothers are forced or coerced into aborting their unborn daughters, or they are abused for refusing to do so. A few recently shared their stories with The Guardian to shed light on the growing problem.
One woman, a 40-year-old from Mumbai, said her family forced her to abort eight unborn babies this year because they were girls.
Another, Laali, 25, shared how distraught she was after her husband and in-laws forced her to have two abortions. She said they blamed her for giving birth to two daughters and insist that her third child be a son, according to the report.
“My mother-in-law refused to see my daughter’s face,” she said. “She refused to take care of me, saying: ‘You are giving birth to girl after girl. How far can I take care of you?’ Families want a son at any cost. Any cost! If I die, my husband will remarry tomorrow morning, hoping the next woman will give birth to a son.”
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Here’s more from the Post:
Prem Chowdhry, a gender activist and a retired University of Delhi professor explained to the outlet why India’s heavily patriarchal society is dominating women’s health.
“The traditional pattern of marriage and customs dictate an inferior position to women in Indian societies,” Chowdhry said, adding that girls leave their birth family after marriage. She noted that the dowry and the cost of raising a girl is seen as an unwelcome obligation, which is seen as an explanation for why sex-selective abortions are so frequent.
The problem with sex-selection abortions is so terrible that the Indian government began prohibiting prenatal testing for the sex of the baby in 1994, but the deadly discrimination still occurs. Several women told The Guardian that their families paid for illegal sex-determination screenings at private medical facilities before their abortions.
Sabu George, a researcher and activist from Delhi, said sex-selection abortions are part of a larger problem with discriminatory views against women in the culture.
“You are brought up in an environment where this violence against women is completely acceptable and normalized. The question is: How do you resist this on the ground? And that’s frightening,” George said.
Research studies, census data and more show a massive gender gap in the Asian country. In 2019, Newsweek reported no baby girls were born in a three-month period in all of the Uttarkashi district, Uttarakhand state, northern India. Birth data from the district indicates that all of the 216 babies who were born were boys, according to the report. Authorities suspect the reason was sex-selection abortions.
In 2001, India reported 93 girls born to every 100 boys. In 2016, the ratio was 89 girls to every 100 boys, according to population data.
In China, sex-selection abortions also are a problem, especially coupled with the communist leaders’ oppressive population control measures, which limit families to two or three children. Recent reports have documented how men are struggling to find wives because so many girls are missing due to sex-selection abortions.
Sex-selection abortions target baby girls across the world, but prominent feminist and human rights groups often ignore the deadly discrimination. The United Nations Population Fund, for example, condemns sex-selection abortions in its documents but does nothing to actually stop the discrimination, according to the Church Militant.
And in the United States, only a few states ban the discriminatory practice. Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups fight against bans on sex-selection abortions. They promote the idea that every reason to have an abortion is a valid reason, including for sex-selection.
