BSTRACT:
Through this paper, I would like to address the heinous act of female foeticide practiced at an alarming rate in various Indian states. I would like to focus on how the phenomenon of selectively eliminating female foetus is not dying away, but rather is emerging as a new disturbing trend. I even wish to highlight how with rapid advancement, technologies such as ultrasound and pre-natal diagnosis are being misused in order to find the gender of the infant.
What I wish to mainly examine is the failure of implementation of the PNDT Act. Along with it, I critically wish to analyze why despite awareness being created against such crime there hasn't been much substantial reduction achieved in this matter.
I plan to structure the paper as such where initially I shall be dealing with what is female infanticide and foeticide. What thin line distinguishes the two and what has kept this practice intact despite 66 years of Independence. Later I shall point out how the law has been misused largely to dispose off the unwanted girl child, which instead were in first place made to ensure them being born. And this will be followed by a conclusion.
INTRODUCTION:
It has been 66 years since India has gained Independence by driving away the colonial forces. From 1947 till date, India as a nation has successfully tackled and surpassed most of its hindrances to walk down the path of modernization, advancement and prosperity. But we shouldn't get disillusioned just by the rosy picture India projects on global forum as the other side of the coin highlights the gloomy portrayal of widespread corruption, mass unemployment, casteism, poverty and illiteracy which is steadily crippling the nation's identity. Despite many measures taken to eradicate i...
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...a law banning the advertising and use of prenatal diagnostic technologies for the purpose of sex determination. Similar actions were taken in some other states by social activists. Soon the issue was brought into national focus, and it eventually culminated with the central government’s bill i.e.the Pre Natal Diagnostic Technique (PNDT) Act of 1994.
The Act was supposed to prohibit the use of STDs (including ultra sonogram) which were used for determining the sex of the fetus. It further prohibited the advertising of such technologies for detection of sex. It had provision to punish people conducting these tests as well as people seeking for this test. "Under the Act, prenatal diagnostic techniques could only be used for the detecting abnormalities under certain conditions by registered institutions"4 (Chauhan 1998; Kapur, Khan & Radhakrishnan 1999 and Kumar1994).
In Annawadi, the slum setting of the book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” nearly everything falls under the law of the free market. Things that most countries deem “basic rights,” the Indian people of Annawadi have to pay for. Clean water, education, and medical attention from hospitals are just a few things that are exploited by police officers, gangs and slumlords. The liberalization of India caused the country to begin a process of economic reform. People from the countryside flocked to the cities to find work in the new booming economy that no longer depended on its agriculture. With the increase in population around the bustling cities, came competiveness for opportunity. This competiveness made poverty rates skyrocket, making corruption (and corrupt activities) in Annawadi the only clear way of making it out of the slums. “In the West, and among some in the Indian elite, this word, corruption, had purely negative connotations; it was seen as blocking India’s modern, global ambitions. But for the poor of the country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corrupti...
Though the world economy as a whole has grown in recent years, a factor that is not taken into account is that the number “of the poor in the world has increased by 100 million” (Roy 3). In other words, the gap between rich and poor is widening. For India, this has startling implications. Though it is a nation that is developing in many ways, it also is a nation blessed with over one billion citizens, a population tally that continues to grow at a rapid rate. This population increase will greatly tax resources, which can create a setback in the development process. The tragedy, of course, is that the world is full of resources and wealth. In fact, Roy quotes a statistic showing that corporations, and not even just countries, represent 51 of the 100 largest economies in the world (Roy 3). For a country struggling to develop, such information is disheartening. However, there is also a more nefarious consequence of the growing disparity between rich and poor, and power and money being concentrated in the hands of multinational corporations: war is propagated in the name of resource acquisition, and corruption can reign as multinationals seek confederates in developing countries that will help companies drive through their plans, resulting in not only environmental destruction but also the subversion of democracy (Roy 3).
Dena Davis in the 5th chapter of “Genetic Dilemmas: Reproductive Technology, Parental Choices, and Children’s Futures” explores the global attitudes, policies, and morality towards determination of sex. She begins with presenting empirical evidence of some preferences held in countries such as India or China where there is a clear desire for male children. This inclination is so deeply held that mothers can be socially and physically harmed when, by pure biological chance, they fail to produce a male child. Davis and others allow sex selection in these cases, purely in the interest of harm reduction of mothers and their daughters born into such a situation. This example is contrasted with so-called “western” societies, where the preference
The birth of a child is usually a wonderful and priceless occasion. However, on June 5, 2015, an eleven-year-old girl gave birth to a newborn girl. Approximately a year before she gave birth, her 40-year-old father repeatedly sexually assaulted her. In this case, the unprepared eleven-year-old child decided to have the baby. This is a prime example that illustrates that the right to abortion should always be vested in the woman. Abortion, which has been debated for centuries and will continue to be fought upon for centuries to come, is a hot issue among social, political, and religious entities. This research paper will inform the reader about abortion using scholarly journals to define abortion, specifically when a fetus becomes a human being,
A gynaecologist can easily perform an ultrasound and tell parents what gender to expect their child to be. Reasonably, parents have the choice to learn the gender or to keep it a surprise. However, For parents to know they are expecting a daughter by chance or for them to choose that they want a daughter are two different cases. There are a variety of methods that allow parents to choose the gender of their child. In some cases, there may be fear of passing down a sex-linked genetic disease and so a certain gender may be preferred to protect the child’s health. However, a contentious issue is whether or not gender selection for non-medical reasons is ethically defensible. There are three positions that one could take: gender selection can never, sometimes, or always be ethically defended. In this paper, I intend to argue that gender selection is always permissible.
In this paper I will be arguing in favor of Judith Jarvis Thomson view point on abortion. I am defending the use abortion and only in the first trimester. I will consider Don Marquis objections of the practice but ultimately side with Thomson.
Gama de, Katherine. “A Brave New World/ Rights Discourse and the Politics of Reproductive Autonomy.” Journal of Law and Society 201 (1993): 114-30.
Abortion is defined as the premature expulsion of a fetus so that it does not live. Abortions can happen as a result of natural occurrences, but the interest of this paper is abortion that is induced. Abortion has been the topic of heated debates in many places. Nicole Miller went through an abortion at the age of 18, now 20 and is attempting to talk about the experance that it put her through. The government has had long difficult battles over the aspects of abortion. Legal cases have set benchmarks that are somewhat vulnerable. The church has had to analyze doctrines to decide whether abortion is right or wrong. There has also been violence in the way of abortion clinic bombings, assassinations, and political protest.
Spielman, B. (1995). [Review of Women and prenatal testing]. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 23, 199-201.
One of the most disputed subjects into day’s society is abortion. Children have been sacrificed by millions of women all across the world. There’s always a powerful urge to vindicate the suffering, emotional pain, and deprivation by the mother and her significant other. Therefore, in any debate, you will run up against an invisible brick wall. Which means even the greatest Knowledge will neglect to influence. When it comes to abortion the best way to tackle the subject is through facts. Some of the wondrous arguments stem from the law, science, and the rights women have to aid the pro-life case opposed to abortion.
In June of 1999 all hospitals in the state of New York were notified by the New York State Department of Health that beginning August first, 1999, a radical new approach to HIV screening was to be initiated. According to the policy, "for those women without prenatal HIV test results who decline HIV testing during delivery, hospitals are required to conduct expedited HIV testing of all newborns" (New York State Department of Health, June, 1999). This policy was the consequence of a heated debate in the legislature over the results of anonymous HIV screening performed on pregnant women in the state of New York (Cameron, 2002). New York State had been engaged in anonymous testing of newborns since the late 1980s, and this testing consistently reve...
Prenatal genetic screening in particular is a polarizing topic of discussion, more specifically, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). PGD is one of the two techniques commonly used to genetically screen embryos in vitro; it is usually done at the eight-cell stage of division. PGD is most often performed when there is the risk that one or both parents carry disease-causing mutations. It is extensively used by high-risk individuals trying to conceive babes who will be free of particular mutations. PGD can test for over 50 genetic conditions and even allows for sex selection if there are underlying gender-associated medical conditions. When the results are satisfactory, the selected embryo is implanted into the mother’s uterus. While a controversial technique, preimplantation genetic diagnosis is one example of some of the good genetic testing can do, more benefits will be furthe...
...an HDI of 0.36. These discrepancies in levels of development have led to an exodus of people, from less developed areas to the areas that have been benefitted by development. This situation seems to depict that predicted by the Dependency theory in which the developed countries progressed due to the exploitation of peripheral nations; the same seems to be happening in India. The states that are wealthier are exploiting the poorer states. It would be difficult to imagine India having the economic status that it now has, if it was not for the terrible working conditions and wages at which the Indians are willing to work and the massive work force available in the country. Now that India has seen economic growth the government should start taking care of its citizens by implementing policies that protect the labor rights of the workforce.
Murder has arguably existed in our society since the beginning of time and is one type of crime that may never cease to exist. There are many different justifications made for people who willingly choose to end the life of another human being. However, one of the few types of murder that throughout time is inexcusable is known as infanticide. Infanticide is defined the crime of killing a child within a year and is commonly committed by the mother of said child. Nowadays, the crime of infanticide is split up into 3 categories, the category of neonaticide; which is the murder of a child up to 24 hours after birth1, is the one which will be the focus of this paper. In the past this crime was seen to be one of the most egregious and appalling as
In this paper I am going to be introducing a very current and discussed social problem, abortion. I will