AMBIKA RECLINES ON A STRETCHER as Dr. Gupta applies a patch of sticky gel to her stomach.
She lies quite still, staring up at the makeshift clinic’s bare lightbulb. The doctor gazes into a computer monitor as he runs an electrode across her belly. Then, as if peering deep into a crystal ball, he searches for an answer. Ambika clenches her fists and waits.
Suddenly the physician moves over from the machine, looks at Ambika, and shakes her head from side to side.
She is pregnant with a female foetus – a daughter.
Ten minutes later, Ambika, who had her twenty-first birthday a week before, is undergoing a termination.
Ambika lives in the small town of Sirsa, in north-west India. Under pressure from her husband and his family to a produce a son, she is one of millions of women in India whose families consider bearing a daughter to be a disgrace, especially when there’s no male heir.
India’s ancient custom decrees that, when wed, the bride’s family must pay a dowry to the groom’s – meaning that girls are far less wanted than boys.
For centuries female infanticide has been quite common in India. But, now, advanced technology is enabling women to determine the gender of the foetus during pregnancy. The result: hundreds of thousands of female foetuses are aborted each year in India alone.
Ambika is no newcomer to Dr. Gupta’s infamous surgery.
The waiting area with its aborted female foetuses preserved in formalin (proof to clients that females are being hunted down and disposed of) no longer impresses her. For she’s undergone five abortions already. Each abortion followed a brief scan using state of the art Ultrasound equipment.
Billboards all over Sirsa remind people about the joys of bearing a son, and they give details of clinics which will help mothers realize their dream. At least five thousand female foetus’ are estimated to be aborted in Sirsa (a town of about 120,000 people) each year.
Across the Indian subcontinent, often with only the most rudimentary training, doctors are purchasing Ultrasound diagnostic equipment, and setting themselves up in business.
Since the mid 1980s Ultrasound equipment has been filtering into India. Making use of bank loans to buy the apparatus, unscrupulous physicians can recoup the initial expenditure in a matter of weeks, or even days. For those who can’t get a bank loan, companies across India lease out advanced Ultrasound units.
At least two electronic corporations are known to be manufacturing Ultrasound diagnostic equipment in India. Groups such as the Mumbaibased Forum Against Sex Determination believe that this will lead to less control in the standards and quantity of units being produced.
The Forum seems to be fighting an uphill battle.
Mumbai’s state, Maharashtra, was the first in India to proclaim S.D.T. (Sex Determination Tests) illegal. Far from reducing the Ultrasound testing, the ban has merely driven such clinics deep underground. The billboards have been taken down, but the surgeries are still booming. Diagnostic testing is far from a lower or middle class phenomenon. High society requires male heirs for its business empires. Women come from across India and even from abroad (particularly the Arab Gulf), to have S.D.T. in Mumbai. Ultrasound equipment in the city is probably the best on the Indian Subcontinent.
Chaitna, a twenty-three year old mother living near the southern city of Bangalore, has two daughters and has been trying to conceive a son. When she gave birth to a third daughter, her husband’s mother fed the baby the sap of the lethal Errukum plant mixed with milk. Death came instantly. The next time Chaitna was pregnant she solicited the services of a surgeon who arrived at her village with mobile Ultrasound unit – powered by a generator. The scan was done. Chaitna was assured that the foetus was female. She opted for abortion: which was performed a few minutes later. Only then was it discovered that the foetus had in fact been male.
Misinterpretation of Ultrasound images is extremely common. Most systems are completely operator dependent. When in the hands of an inexperienced user, the results can be anything but accurate. If in doubt, doctors generally maintain the foetus is female – so curtailing the chance of a daughter being born. Other, even more dissolute physicians are known to assert that the foetus is female when it is not, thus assuring themselves extra business: through abortion.
Despite its relatively short history in India, Ultrasound sex testing is having a devastating effect on the ratio between men to women. A recent census found there were 929 females to 1,000 males in India. Ten years before, there were 972 females to 1,000 males. Across the nation there’s a distinct lack of girls aged twelve or below.
During a meeting in one reputable clinic, in the southern city of Chennai, the telephone rings. On the line is a pregnant woman who wants to know if she’s carrying a son. The doctor shakes his head wearily, and replies:
‘Why do you want to know? Why? This is God’s greatest surprise to you, why do you want to kill that joy?!’
One state in southern India, Tamil Nadu, openly acknowledges that female foeticide is a major problem. In October last year, the state government launched a ‘cradle scheme’. Now, every state hospital or clinic has to provide a cradle – often just a cardboard box – outside its doors, twenty-four hours a day, so women can anonymously leave their unwanted daughters. These girls are sent to the main hospitals for medical check-ups before being sent to orphanages. Later, the fortunate ones are adopted. Although not providing a solution, this system at least gives the girls a chance to live a life that’s otherwise denied to them.