Indian Govt to register all pregnant women to curb illegal abortions
INDIA: A Cabinter minister’s proposal would require all pregnant
women in India to register with the government and get official
permission if they want to have an abortion, a newspaper reported
Friday.
The move would make it more difficult for couples to abort a fetus if
they find out it’s a girl, a serious problem in India where boys have
long been favored, Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury
told The Hindustan Times.
“This will help to check both feticide and infant mortality,”
Chowdhury told the newspaper. “With this, mysterious abortions will
become difficult.”
Abortions have been legal in India since 1971 and are viewed as a way
to curb population growth, but the number of facilities is limited and
rural women often resort to abortions performed under unsafe conditions.
Prenatal sex determination tests and abortions on the basis of gender
are both illegal.
Chowdhury said women will only be allowed to have an abortion when
there is a “valid and acceptable reason,” but she did not specify what
that would mean.
Indian society has long preferred boys, who do not require the
enormous dowry payments that bankrupt many poor families when their
daughters marry.
India’s latest census data shows that the preference for boys has
skewed the gender ratio in the population of more than 1.1 billion
people.
Experts say that sex-selective abortions are responsible for the
number of girls per 1,000 boys slipping from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001.
Prenatal sex-determination tests are outlawed in India and the
government says it is clamping down on doctors not following the law.
But social activists say there are many loopholes that allow those who
provide tests to remain free. Women’s rights activists objected to the
plan as a violation of privacy.
New Delhi, Friday, AP
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