The unwelcome sex
BMJ 2008; 336 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/sbmj.0805190 (Published 01 May 2008) Cite this as: BMJ 2008;336:0805190
- Khagendra Bikram Dahal, intern1,
- Sulakshana Tripathi, second year medical student2
- 1Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal
- 2Nalanda Medical College, Patna, India
She is 18 weeks pregnant. The woman looks anxiously at the face of the ultrasound technician as he scans her abdomen. As he looks at the monitor, the technician suddenly frowns without saying anything. She understands—she has a female fetus inside her. She takes a deep breath. The brightness of her face is already gone.
“Oh my God, this means that I will have to have an abortion again, for the second time,” she cries helplessly.
In many prenatal diagnostic centres in India, frowning is used as a means to express that the fetus being examined is female. A smile indicates the fetus is male. The technician, however, mentions none of this in his report. Prenatal determination of the sex of a fetus is illegal in India. But once known, the fetus may be terminated if it is female—a phenomenon known as female feticide.
The risks to women of repeated abortion include mental problems, infections, bleeding, uterine injuries leading to rupture, sterility, and even death. And this problem is also prevalent in other countries, including mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Vietnam.1
The wrong sex?
This was the woman's fourth pregnancy. Her first two pregnancies resulted in boys, but her subsequent pregnancies were aborted because prenatal examination identified their sex as female. Her family seems determined. Boys, according to her relatives, will continue the family hierarchy, and so unless she conceives a boy, her subsequent pregnancies will end up with the same fate.
She is not alone. She represents the plight of many Indian women throughout the country. Although the phenomena is widely prevalent, exact data on how many female feticides occur in India every year are not available. In 2002 the Indian Medical Association estimated …
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