Only not daughter: Why do people do selective abortions
Until now, many parents want a child of a certain sex: a girl who is supposedly easier to bring up, or a boy who will become "the continuer of the race" and "protector." Sometimes this desire is so strong that the parents are ready to give up the unborn child simply because it turned out to be of the "wrong" sex. In this case, abortion is called “selective”, since it is not the parents who are not satisfied with the fact of pregnancy, but the particular characteristics of a particular embryo.
Situations leading to selective abortions are different: for example, the procedure may be due to medical indications - if the fetus is diagnosed with genetic disorders or diseases, and the parents understand that they are not ready to raise such a child. Often, selective abortions are associated with assisted reproductive technologies, such as IVF: for multiple pregnancies, with certain indications, the pair may abandon one embryo in order not to interfere with the development of others.
Diagnosis, however, made another type of selective abortion possible - based on gender. In many countries and cultures, boys have historically valued more than girls, and parents were ready to go to extremes to get an heir — even donate a newborn girl. For this there is a whole term - female infanticide, that is, the murder of newborn girls. With the advent of modern technologies that allow you to determine the sex of your unborn child before birth, the situation has become even more difficult: many families get rid of the fetus, simply because they do not want to raise a girl.
Of course, the reason for such selective abortions is not new technology. Most often these are cultural attitudes and inequality in society, when newborn boys are treated differently than girls, and the appearance of a son in a family is considered more honorable. For example, in some countries, only boys can inherit property and with the advent of the girl, the family loses its wealth. Often families rely more on sons than on daughters: when girls get married, they go to live in a new family (they can also carry with them a large dowry that hits the family budget), and boys, on the contrary, traditionally stay with their parents and after the wedding. It is believed that it is the grown-up sons who will take care of the elderly parents and help them financially - despite the fact that women are now much more independent than even in the middle of the last century. In addition, couples on average have fewer children — and in order not to give birth to several daughters in anticipation of a boy, they often resort to selective abortions.
Identifying selective abortions in the total mass is quite difficult: most often we do not know anything about the motives of a pregnant woman, and besides, an abortion can have several reasons. Nevertheless, there are signs by which one can roughly understand how common they are in a particular country. For example, according to the United Nations Population Fund, between one hundred and two to one hundred and six boys should be born to a hundred girls - this ratio is considered the biological norm. If there are many more boys than girls born in the country, this may mean that children of the same sex are preferred there.
The first country that inevitably pops up in the discussion of selective abortions is China. Everything here is really not easy: in 2014, 115.9 boys were born for every hundred girls. In Chinese families, boys have always been more appreciated, and the policy of “one family - one child” and the advent of ultrasound examinations only aggravated the situation: in the late eighties of the last century, doctors in the country even legally forbade parents to disclose the sex of their unborn child so that they would not interrupt unwanted pregnancy.
But the floor of the embryos continues to be recognized illegally - it happens, for example, that the inhabitants of several villages buy their own ultrasound machine. True, the data on the number of newborn girls in China cannot be considered ideally accurate: until the ban on the number of children was lifted, some families did not register daughters to circumvent the rule about one child and continued to try to have a son.
Selective abortions by gender are also common in India: in 1901, there were 972 women per thousand men in the country, and in 2001 there were 933 women. According to the data for 2011-2013, for every hundred newborn girls in the country there were one hundred and ten boys. But, contrary to stereotypes, the problem concerns not only Asia: in the second place after China in the number of selective abortions in the world is Azerbaijan (115.6 boys for every hundred girls), and in the third - Armenia (114 boys for every hundred girls), similar there are processes in other countries of the region, for example Georgia.
This practice began in the nineties, and the largest imbalance was observed in the two thousandths. In this case, more often such abortions are done during the third pregnancy, especially if the family already has two girls. "During the first pregnancy, we have no problems with selective abortions, with the second, this process is already beginning, but not obvious yet, in the case of the third child, the difference in the ratio between boys and girls is very large - 100 girls and about 160 boys," the head of the department notes of the health of mother and child of the Ministry of Health of Armenia Karine Saribekyan. In addition to the Caucasus, figures above one hundred and ten are found in Albania, Montenegro, and also in some regions of Macedonia. There are selective abortions in Russia, for example, Dagestan.
There is a vicious circle: it is social and economic inequality that stimulates selective abortions - and their consequences only aggravate it. For example, in India and China, due to gender imbalance, many men who want to marry cannot find wives. The increase in the number of selective abortions in these countries is associated with an increase in violence as well as human trafficking: for example, there are more "foreign wives" - women who come from other countries to get married, and those who are brought into the country forcibly and forced to marry . Moreover, this state of affairs only strengthens the idea of the superiority of men over women - giving birth to boys is still considered more honorable.
And although they are trying to fight the situation at the state level, the methods they use are not very effective: after all, if the parents do not have the legal opportunity to find out the gender of the unborn child, they will still try to do it - simply illegally. In Nepal, where sex is illegal, they continue to be clandestinely - studies show that the ban only harms women.
In the UK, they tried to introduce punishment for doctors who perform abortions based on the field of the unborn child; last year a prohibitive law was introduced in the US state of Indiana, and in this in Arkansas. Each of these laws raises questions: for example, in Arkansas, starting next year, doctors will have to make sure that a woman does not have an abortion because of the sex of the fetus - for this they will have to carefully study the patient’s history, and also talk to her, ask, know whether she is the sex of a future child and whether she understands that having an abortion is illegal because of this - opponents of the law believe that a woman who is already in a very vulnerable position will simply be interrogated.
Prolifera, who deny the right of women to freely dispose of their bodies, often use the practice of selective abortions as an argument in their favor - supposedly it turns out that in this case supporters of the other movement support discrimination. However, the question itself is incorrect, because the choice of the gender of the future child is primarily a consequence of cultural pressure and social inequality. So, it is difficult to condemn a woman who decides on an abortion, knowing that the birth of a girl will harm her, and her daughter will have to live in a society where she will have less chance of education and a higher quality of life. This does not mean that the problem of selective abortions does not need to be raised - it’s just unlikely to be resolved by prohibitions. That is why in countries like the UK, such laws seem meaningless: in a society where women have more rights and opportunities, the future girl will not be considered a burden for the family.
Photo: lcswart - stock.adobe.com (1, 2), Will Thomas - stock.adobe.com, medistock - stock.adobe.com
