India: rewards offered in new bid to stop sex-selection abortion
July 04, 2011
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The Indian Medical Association, the country’s largest group of physicians, is offering financial reward to anyone who can help identify doctors performing illegal sex-determination tests on unborn children.
Plagued by sex-selection abortions, which have caused a severe imbalance in the ratio of male to female babies, India has outlawed sex-selection abortion (although abortion is generally legal) and even banned sex-determination tests. But many doctors apparently ignore the law.
On July 1—“Doctors’ Day” in India—the Medical Association announced a plan to give $2,250 to anyone who could provide evidence leading to the prosecution of doctors who perform sex-determination tests. The group promised to keep the informers’ names secret.
The campaign against sex-selection abortions took on new energy when a doctor in New Delhi, who had been at the forefront of the campaign, was exposed for having performed the same illegal sex-determination tests that she had publicly condemned.
The nationwide census in 2011 confirmed the severity of India’s problem, showing that there are 7 million girl babies “missing” in the population under the age of 6, evidently as the result of sex-selection abortions.
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