Female fetus find in Indian State hints at failed campaign
(April 22, 2010) The discovery of 15 fetuses in a garbage bin in Ahmedabad, capital
of India’s western Gujarat State, indicates the law’s failure to check female feticide,
said Church workers and others.“Although sex determination tests are illegal, they
are still being carried out rampantly in Gujarat,” Jesuit Father Cedric Prakash told
UCA News on April 20, a day after police found the fetuses in a garbage bin. The
priest, who runs a human rights center in the city, says the discovery reflected
the callousness of society toward female children. Preliminary investigations
revealed eight of the fetuses were females. Police are awaiting the results of autopsies
on all the unborn babies. Investigators suspect the fetuses were aborted after sex
determination tests found them to be female. “We are very sad,” Missionaries of Charity
Sister Jeanvie, superior of an adoption center in the city, told UCA News. She slammed
the sex determination tests as “misuse of technology” and branded abortion as “cold-blooded
murder of babies.” She said her center accepts abandoned babies and has a waiting
list of 60 childless couples willing to adopt such children. However, “for the last
three months, we have not received a single baby,” the nun added. Ilaben Pathak,
a Hindu who heads the Ahmedabad Women’s Action Group, said the incident indicated
the government’s slackness in monitoring feticide. Official statistics show a
drop in Gujarat’s sex ratio from 934 females to 1,000 males in 1991, to 921 females
to 1,000 males in 2001.