India: bishops condemn sex-change operations for infant girls
July 11, 2011
The Indian episcopal conference has “strongly condemned” sex-change operations performed on infant girls at the request of their parents. In Indore--a city of 1.5 million in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh--some 300 girls under the age of one have reportedly been victims of the operation.
“We have strongly condemned, as Indian bishops, this horrible practice,” said Father Charles Irudayam, an official of the Episcopal Conference of India. “It is the result of a mindset that favors [the] male as a source of profit and as a son of greater value, mortifying the dignity of women.”
“We knew about the phenomenon of selective abortion which, according to some studies, over the past 20 years has concerned more than five million young girls,” he added. “Now surgery emerges … A lot needs to be done--just like what the Church is doing--to spread a culture of equality and to promote the dignity and the rights of women in society. But we have to fight a rooted mindset, and [it] is therefore a work that takes time.”
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Further information:
- Surgery to change sex to female infants: the condemnation of the Church (Fides)
- NCPCR seeks report on genitoplasty in Indore (The Hindu)
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Posted by: voxfem -
Jul. 12, 2011 2:20 AM ET USA
How appalling! There should be world-wide outrage at this horror. But it's already happened to 300 girls with no condemnation. May God and his angels intervene to save these poor children.
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Posted by: -
Jul. 11, 2011 9:57 PM ET USA
Unspeakable.
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Posted by: AgnesDay -
Jul. 11, 2011 4:04 PM ET USA
What a horrific, repulsive idea! How do parents who love their children even think about this, let alone do it? Seriously, do they think that by mutilating a little girl they will turn her into a man? Who is preying on the ignorance of these parents?
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Posted by: fred3885 -
Jul. 11, 2011 9:12 AM ET USA
It seems there is no end to evil.. I'm horrified this is allowed by Indian law, or maybe not seeing what horrors are still going on there, every day...
