FEMALE FOETICIDE: A SOCIAL EVIL IN INDIA

ABSTRACT

Female foeticide is the termination of a female foetus inside the womb of a woman through unfair means for some cultural myths or societal reasons. It has now become a social vulnerability of global significance in this era of ultrasound technology and capitalist modernity. Similarly, Female infanticide, another form of sex-selective murder, is the deliberate killing of newborn female children. Poverty, the dowry system, births to unmarried women, deformed infants, famine, lack of support services and maternal illnesses such as postpartum depression are among the causes that have been proposed to explain the phenomenon of female infanticide in India. According to the Census 2001 report the declining sex ratio which has been dropped to alarming levels, female feticide turn out to be common in the middle and higher socio-economic households, especially in northern parts because of the lower status of women owing to dowry, looking up for son, etc. The concern with family-name is the main immoral practice performing sex selection abortions in India. There is an urge to reinforce the law to stop these kinds of illegal practices, it impact overall societies especially on women. These discriminatory malpractices can be removed by adopting a number of procedures like by defining a strong ethical code for the doctors, empowering women, adopting effective complaint registration system & developing awareness programmes. Awareness about the importance of girl child in the society is a major weapon to get relief from the female foeticide and infanticide. The paper will discuss the socio-legal challenges female feticide presents, as well as the consequence of having too few women in Indian society.

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