Sunday, July 10, 2011

India: Two Doctors Face Action Over Female Feticide

Abortion advocates often downplay the issue of gender-specific abortion.  Specifically, the fact that in many parts of the world, boys are preferred to girls.  As of 2007 in New Delhi, the birth rate is 814 girls for every 1000 boys.
The Times of India

2 doctors face action over female foeticide

THANE: An abortion clinic and a sonography centre were sealed in the lake city and two doctors may be booked for conducting illegal sex determination tests after a sting operation by activists Varsha Deshpande and the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) indicated their role in female foeticide.
Dr Umesh Londhe, who heads Gopika Clinic in Naupada and Dr V N Jawahar, who owns the New Ultrasound Sonography Centre at Pokhran road II, are under the scanner for carrying out a prenatal gender check on a five-month pregnant woman, who was a decoy.
The woman, a practicing advocate and a member of Deshpande's NGO, Lek Ladki, which is campaigning against female foeticide, and another activist, Kailash Jadhav, approached Dr Londhe on Saturday to inquire about the test to determine their baby's sex.
"The couple was sent as a decoy after we noticed an advertisement that Dr Londhe's clinic offered help to the "needy'' who wanted to abort. Our activists met Dr Londhe at his clinic on Saturday and asked if could carry out tests. They told him that they would prefer an abortion if it was a girl as their parents were orthodox,'' Deshpande said.
An unsuspecting Dr Londhe made a feeble attempt to disuade the couple from the tests. "He said it was ironic that educated people from urban cities were consulting him for such illegal acts. Dr Londhe also told them that the state authorities had intensified their campaign against such illegal tests and such abortions attract a heavy penalty. However, the next moment he agreed to help them on the payment of Rs 70,000. After haggling, he consented to do the tests and an abortion for Rs 30,000,'' Deshpande said.
The conversation was recorded and filmed secretly by the decoys. The couple was told that should the tests show the gender of the foetus as male, they would still have to pay Rs 30,000. In fact, an advance payment of Rs 5,000 was demanded upfront and the couple was asked to report to the clinic on Sunday.
When the decoys went to the clinic on Sunday, Dr Londhe took Rs 25,000 from them. He then told the husband to sit at the clinic while he and his nurse Ashwini drove away to a sonography centre of Dr Jawahar.
"They were secretive about the centre's location. Ashwini accompanied them to the centre where tests were conducted by Dr Jawahar without filling any form or registering the patient's name.
After returning to his clinic, Dr Landhe announced that the foetus was of a girl child and that the mother would have to be admitted to his clinic for an abortion '' civic health officer Dr R Kendre said. Dr Londhe said the abortion would have to be conducted on Sunday itself and should the couple delay they would have to forfeit the Rs 25,000 paid to him. An acitivist involved in the raid told TOI that in one month 30 centres in Thane have been sealed.
Though we would like to think gender-specific abortion doesn't happen in the US, it does.  If doctors in India will break the law for cash, you can bet there are doctors here that do it too. 

11 comments:

  1. And if you thought this is bad, follow the link;

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2008623/Girls-young-ONE-forced-sex-change-operations-India.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. This should be a nice lesson for you people. Sex based abortions are illegal in India. Instead of addressing the factors that influence women to illegally obtain an abortion, they just make it illegal....which obviously doesn't stop it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jackie, Does making it legal stop it? No, of course it doesn't. Abortion, and sex selective abortion, can be reduced by making them illegal though.

    ReplyDelete
  4. obviously not from the article you posted.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Obviously not stopped? Do you agree that making abortion illegal reduces the number of abortions?

    ReplyDelete
  6. No it doesn't. As a matter of fact, in countries where it is illegal there are more performed. Look it up.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I looked, I didn't see anything to back up your claim.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "On the whole, the abortion rate decreased more in developed countries, where abortion is generally safe and legal on broad grounds (from 39 to 26), than in developing countries, where the procedure is largely illegal and unsafe (from 34 to 29). Significantly, the abortion rate for 2003 was roughly equal in developed and developing regions—26 and 29, respectively—despite abortion being largely illegal in developing regions. Health consequences, however, vary greatly between the two regions, since abortion is generally safe where it is broadly legal and mostly unsafe where restricted."

    http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2007/10/11/index.html

    ReplyDelete
  9. Jackie - There is no hard data for pre-Roe illegal abortions. Therefore, no one can say that the abortion rate in the US was reduced by abortion being made legal.

    For example, if in the year post-Roe, every woman that wanted an abortion, had an abortion, then in the year pre-Roe, every woman that wanted an abortion, must have had one, illegally.

    ReplyDelete
  10. that;s not what the article is about. You would know that if you read it.

    And there is information about pre-Roe--but by region (particularly cities). But you don't really care about that right?

    ReplyDelete