The dark side of ultrasound: selective girl abortions

The role of ultrasound sonogram in the massive selective abortion wave that replaces infanticide in India.

Narration & Subtitles in english:
In India, a country of over 800 million population, 40 million women are missing...

In Punjab district there is a birth ratio of just 730 girls for every 1000 boys.
In the rich regions of nothern India, embryocide (abortion) has replaced infanticide (murder of newborn babies). In the last 20 years, ultrasound technology that reveals the sex of the embryo has lead to massive abortions and miscarriages of female babies.
Revealing the gender of the embryo and selective abortion is today illegal but none controls what happens in private clinics.
In the name of tradition, there is a misuse of contemporary medical technological means.
*
There is a popular advertising from ultrasound clinics saying "spend 500 rupies now, save 50.000 later". With 500 rupies you get an ultrasound to see the sex of the baby. If you discover the baby is female, you get ride of her, so you don't have to pay dowry!

Knowing the sex of the unborn by ultrasound became so popular that sonogram centers and clinics were being setup in the countryside.

After 20 years of intense selective abortions, the number of women in villages of northern India has decreased sharply.
*
Satwan Core is midwife for 30 years in a village of Punjab. This year, she helped 10 women to have labor. 9 of them gave birth to a boy.
All women of the village have perfomed abortions. Few admit it because they could face imprisoment of up to 7 years or heavy penalty. Satwan persuaded some of them to talk in front of the camera.
- In the last 2 years, I did 4 abortions.
- In total, you 've had 10 abortions.
- Yes, but I have 4 daughters...
- Are you carrying a girl again?
- Yes... I feel my body empty, in pieces...
- Why did you have abortion?
- It's difficult to get daughters to marry. They cost too much. You have to pay dowry. I am happy with my daughters but I hope to have a son. I definitely need a son, otherwise I don't know what it'll become out of me.
- Don't worry. You'll have a son at the end. I'm sure... Calm down! Don't cry!
*
- Did you agree to have an abortion?
- My parents in law pushed me very hard. But I wanted a son too. My husband started beating me because I had only daughters. He also started drinking more and more. He hits me, kicks me, pounches me. He also hits my girls. He doesn't let us sleep, he beats us constantly. He just doesn't stop...
I am always thinking of the daughters I didn't keep. I hear them screaming in my womb: "Momy, please don't kill me, I'll eat lightly, only rice! Please, momy, I won't eat much!"
- You killed them because you couldn't feed them...
- I hear to my unborn daughters saying: "What kind of mother are you that you won't let us live?!"
- All this because of your husband, right?
- Yes...
- Indian women suffer, they have guilts. That's what we are forced to do. This is our fate. An Indian woman can either be silent or die...

***
"LA MALEDICTION DE NAÎTRE FILLE", by Manon Loizeau and Alexis Marant, Capa Presse TV, Albert- Londres prize 2006, 52'

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Εμβρυοκτονία & παιδοκτονία...
Στην Ινδία, η τεχνολογική πρόοδος με το υπερηχογράφημα σε εγκύους γυναίκες που φανερώνει το φύλο του εμβρύου έχει οδηγήσει σε μαζικές επιλεκτικές εκτρώσεις θηλυκών εμβρύων με αποτέλεσμα πάνω από 40 εκατομμύρια γυναίκες να αγνοούνται...

Από τη Θεματική Βραδιά της ΕΤ1 για την ημέρα της γυναίκας 2007.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• ultrasound
• sonogram
• gender
• female
• genocide
• abortion
• infanticide
• woman
• women
• asia
• baby
• girl
• india
• dowry

[davidprice16]

if they keep having abortions because girls cost to much than there will be no girls in which to marry and have other children. the whole country will end up being all boys then what will they do.

[stylianosm]

The documentary goes on to show exactly that several areas in India and China in general have acute 'shortage' in women due to massive selective abortions. Poor, uneducated men simply can't get married.

[JessNMika]

do this women know that it is the man's sperm that decides if the baby is boy or girl?

[stylianosm]

Probably not. But even so that alone wouldn't change given the traditional social status of women...

[Sulyaman]

And then the poor uneducated men will get what they deserve in that they can't have any babies so thats one less child being born into misery..

Women....Women experience alot more than men....what most men do is not add much to society but enjoy 90% of all the pleasure. Women suffer pain during childbirth, they have to be careful when pregnant, they have PMS and other things to painfully deal with... We should be kind to them, INSTEAD WE TREAT THEM LIKE GARBAGE.

[fancifelle]

Sulyaman, I so agree with what you said. In addition, during war times it creates a condition of absolute hell for females when the gender dynamic goes the other way. I live in the U.S. and I've seen a startling change in women and the attitudes toward women in the guys over the past few years. I can't even imagine how it must be for women in Iraq.

I agree that some men do not deserve to have a woman.

[steviesbackbitch]

Watch the rate of homosexuality skyrocket in India and China. No pussy to cock up, no women to marry. Less babies born.

[pelicansdontkayak]

These people are barbarians...thankfully (through their own efforts) they will be extinct within a few hundred years or so.

[69aussieguy]

Lets be honest here, there are way too many people in the world for our limited resources......we are all screwed when we run out of oil, which is going to start happening sooner than many realize. So the idea of India and China getting rid of girls, while not nice, must actually be a good thing for world population control, now and into the future.

[YHWHisSovereign]

Women's rights groups should support this 100%. If they don't, then they must not believe that a woman should have the right to do what they want to do with their own bodies. Of course, they just might be inconsistent. This is very typical among heathens.

[QassimOmarri]

@BobeeT0 The cultural difference is what you don't understand. In eastern cultures alot of people don't regard the female fetus as a legitimate human being....just a waste.

[inturn23]

@BobeeT0 I agree with you.. Abortion is murder. I wouldn't argue that. But these are just nasty corruptive people. the good new is that in China, they have made it against the law to find out what the sex of the baby will be before it's born.

[BobeeT0]

i mean ideally me myself like a mixed family i wouldn't be happy with all males or all females mixed family is ideal but it's in natures hand and it's not up to us to alter that or mess around with that straight up if ur meant to have all male or female children then so be it more over aborting a child is like killing a person that's what i personally believe anyways not to say i'm against birth control, but there is a fine line between birth control and killing a person abortion is murder

[BobeeT0]

straight up I agree its too bad that punjabi sikh men in india are so stupid and ignorant that they force there women to do that, i mean i'm not a religous guy at all actually far from it but i still believe in god and if ur meant to have a female chlld then ur meant to have a female child, i know a family where the husband desperately wanted a male child, but ended up with six female children now i still have to give him credit for execpting the responsibility to keep them and not aborting them

[G716M]

From woman, man is born; within woman, man is conceived; to woman he is engaged and married. Woman becomes his friend; through woman, the future generations come. When his woman dies, he seeks another woman; to woman he is bound. So why call her bad? From her, kings are born. From woman, woman is born; without woman, there would be no one at all.

Guru Nanak, Raag Aasaa Mehal 1, Page 473

[inturn23]

@davidprice16 Not a problem. They can always get a female from another country to cook their sperm and have their baby for them . And there's plenty of women to spare in America and other countries. Those single excess women can go to india and fill the void for those single excess men. There's plenty of women outside india.