Gender Selection

The gender selection debate seems to be never ending. Especially when we compare countries in the developed world and the developing world.

The recent legalization of gender selection in the US for couples conceiving through IVF is a great step towards boosting their chances of having a child, of the gender they prefer. They may be wanting to have a girl, or a boy. In the US, there is more equality among the sexes at present than it used to be in the past. So, there is rarely any predisposition to select one gender over the other. Hence, the passage off this law would only be an addition to the personal choices people make, for themselves and their families, without bias towards having children of only one gender. The possibility of people misusing this law is very less.

One shudders to think what would happen if such a law is passed in a developing country, for instance, India. Clandestine abortion in the advanced stages, in the hope of trying one more time for a son, the heir, jeopardising the life of the mother in the process, is very well known. The mushrooming of quacks and illegal clinics and dispensaries all over towns and cities in the country, to cater to the demands of people, is an open secret.

Amniocentesis is the most used procedure in India to determine the sex of a child. This is a procedure carried out in the advanced stages of pregnancy, but when couples desiring a son gets to know that they had conceived a girl, they take all risks and terminate the pregnancy. The Indian government has made it mandatory for hospitals and clinics to carry signs that they do not carry out sex determination tests. But the reality is too well known. All the things go on under cover.

With the sex selection has come such enormous sociological changes in some areas of India, that to find a girl for marriage has started to become a problem now. In a village in the state of Rajasthan, there are mostly boys in the households. There are no girls that these boys could marry. And the few families that have girls, now have a huge advantage in terms of who they would choose to marry, what amount of dowry they would demand. And a situation has cropped up such that, one woman ends up with more than one husband. She marries multiple men as they have not found wives.

Gender selection have already brought about inalterable changes in many parts of India. The desire for a boy, deeply embedded in the culture, has brought about negative changes. A lop sided sex ratio has resulted in more violence against women, more prostitution and trafficking.

There is a need for immediate change of the mindset about having a boy or a girl child. Girls are no less than boys. In fact, they are the emotionally stronger gender. Hence either gender should not affect family happiness.