Female Feticide: A Social Evil in India (Challenges before Us)

Abstract

In a modern time, Female feticide--the selective abortion of female fetuses, females not only face discrimination in this culture, they are even denied the right to be born female feticide determined by many factors, but mostly by the vision of having to pay a dowry to the upcoming bridegroom of a daughter. While birth of the baby boy offer refuge of their families in old time and can execute the rites for the souls of late parents and ancestors, daughters are treated as a social and economic encumber. In India feticide is a moderately new practice, rising concurrently with the advent of technological advancements in prenatal sex determination on a large scale in the 1990s. Detection technologies have been distorted, allowing the selective abortions of female offspring to proliferate. Legally, however, female feticide is a penal offence although female infanticide has long been committed in India, According to the Census 2001 report the declining sex ratio which has been dropped to alarming levels, female feticide become common in the middle and higher socio-economic households, especially in north zone because of the low status of women such as dowry, looking up for son, as concern with family name are the main evil 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. The paper will discuss the socio-legal challenges female feticide presents, as well as the consequence of having too few women in Indian society.