Abortion in India

Abortion in India

Due to selective abortion of female fetuses in India, Indian authorities may imprison entire families who pressure their female counterparts into aborting female fetuses. Defendants may be jailed too for up to seven years under the new initiative which seeks to reduce the stigma of women giving birth to baby girls. The law will also see medical professionals who perform ultrasound tests to determine a baby’s gender jailed or fined.

Indian activists estimate that as many as 8 million unborn females were aborted over the past decade due to pressurization of mothers to produce only boys. Amendments in the present law seek to make families equally liable for selective abortion of female fetuses since they go to clinics performing sex-selection tests initiating the process of sex selection and female feticide. Although the overall abortion rate in India is lower than that seen in many other countries, selective abortion of girls is higher and on the rise since girls die at twice the rate of boys before they reach the age of five.

In some Indian families.............