Whether Female Foeticide is Justied or not?

 These unscrupulous murders of female or girls is justified on two grounds. First, it reduces the population and second is that the poor parents will be saved from the expenses which they would have to incur in the marriage of their daughter if she had born. So the murder of a female foetus is considered to be a solution to two major problems i.e. population problem and dowry. But how far are these grounds justified. India was the first country to adopt family planning as an official programme to reduce the birthrate. But population of the country is still growing. One of the reasons for the growth of population in India is the desire for a son. Today the sex-determination tests have provided an easy way out to know whether or not a woman will get a son. Each time a woman gets pregnant she can have the sex of the foetus determined and get it aborted if it happens to be a female child. Abortion was punishable under Indian Penal Code but it was legalized with the passing of Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971.This act along with its revised rules was envisaged as a mile stone in the modernization of Indian society through laws. Doctors are against the ban on amniocentesis because it will lead to an underground practice in the field.

None of these arguments given in favour of the continuance of sex determination tests holds good. It is true that people should have every right to plan their families. If a man has a daughter and he wants son let him have it. But difficulty lies if he wants son only. How far it is correct to permit him to do so. The sex determination test is used to destroy the female foetus than to control the number of children or to have a child of the sex of one’s choice. In India the choice is always male child and it is the female only that is unwanted child. Though it is the individual interest that is paramount but he has a duty towards the society also as a member of the society. The argument that banning the test would lead to underground practice does not mean that no law should be passed to check it. And the argument that it is a symbol of female emancipation is a nullity. Because how far is it just to be too liberal to one generation of women that they have right even to have the children of their own choice and too cruel to the other generation to which the very right to take birth and come into existence be denied. If female foeticide is continued the way it is continuing, it will render all the women and child health programmes a nullity.[4]