We had to, as a part of our Chevening Gurukul sponsored "Leadership and excellence" course requirement in LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science) , write a policy strategy paper on any of the issues pertaining to UK and I used the opportunity to explore whether there exists any sex discrimination at birth in UK (in terms of son-preference) and whether there exists any trends ethnicity wise in UK especially among the Indian diaspora. What came out during the research study was shocking and an eye-opener. I will try and briefly put forth the main findings based on my paper. The main source of information for my paper was the statistics from Office of National Statistics (ONS), UK and Department of Health, UK .
Lets first start with the legal status of the foetus in terms of whether it has any Rights as an individual. The debate has varied from
Lets first start with the legal status of the foetus in terms of whether it has any Rights as an individual. The debate has varied from
“conception is the point at which a new individual comes into being and acquires all the rights of personhood” (John Finnis) ;
“While foetus may be human, it is not yet a person and that’s its potential to become a person cannot justify giving its primacy over the rights of the pregnant mother”(Mary Ann Warren ).
“While foetus may be human, it is not yet a person and that’s its potential to become a person cannot justify giving its primacy over the rights of the pregnant mother”(Mary Ann Warren ).
“Abortion deprives foetus of everything it might value in future and thus it amounts to killing a human being” (Don Marquis )
But by same analogy, “using contraception or deciding not to have sexual intercourse on a particular day may also deprive a possible future person of a future value but that does not mean that either is wrong”! (Julian Savluescu )
Deprivation of future of value does not mean that their right to that future has been violated and one’s right can’t be at the expense of the autonomy, bodily integrity and well-being of another person (Mark Brown).
But by same analogy, “using contraception or deciding not to have sexual intercourse on a particular day may also deprive a possible future person of a future value but that does not mean that either is wrong”! (Julian Savluescu )
Deprivation of future of value does not mean that their right to that future has been violated and one’s right can’t be at the expense of the autonomy, bodily integrity and well-being of another person (Mark Brown).
If one looks at the issue from the point of view of Pregnant woman's right to self determination,
restrictions on women’s access to abortion effectively compel them to exercise unprecedented self-sacrifice. (Judith Jarvis Thomson and Eileen McDonagh) and it is felt that even though foetus is not a malicious intruder but the fact remains that the State does not have the right to force the woman to continue in it without her consent.
restrictions on women’s access to abortion effectively compel them to exercise unprecedented self-sacrifice. (Judith Jarvis Thomson and Eileen McDonagh) and it is felt that even though foetus is not a malicious intruder but the fact remains that the State does not have the right to force the woman to continue in it without her consent.
A middle ground acknowledges foetus’ potential personhood and that the pregnant woman has a legitimate interest in self-determination. This determines her right to terminate pregnancy under certain circumstances. And this is what is followed in most of the countries.
The average Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB) (the number of male live births per 100 female births) worldwide is around 105-106 (Garenne 2002). A slight larger number of boys at birth are because boys have lower immunity levels and these ‘extra’ boys die within one year of birth, ceteris paribus.
A mindset for ‘son-preference’, for various reasons in India has led to a situation where parents, not desiring to have daughters, go in for Ultrasound scan of the foetus during pregnancy leading to Sex Selective Abortion (SSA) if the foetus is that of a girl. Gender discrimination and violence against women takes many shapes. While there have been concerns and concrete actions against violation of women’s rights in reproductive health, education, maternal and child health, economic independence and empowerment, protection against domestic violence, sexual exploitation and trafficking all over the world, the issue of Sex selective Abortions (SSA) of girl foetuses, based on the sex of the Foetus, has largely remained invisible (Croll, Elisabeth J. 2001) and little literature is available to highlight the magnitude of the problem. Thus while Amartya Sen (1990) calculated the figures relating to “missing women” as 100 million, there is none available internationally for missing girl children who are not allowed to be born due to SSA.
However, the magnitude of abortion of girl’s foetuses in these countries is really alarming. What Amartya Sen (1992) called as “early days” for SSA in early nineties has become a fully blown emergency with the advent of and widespread misuse of Ultra-sound scanning for sex detection leading to abortion. While there have been significant reduction in mortality and compression of morbidity and improvements in the life expectancy of women, all these gains are counterbalanced by SSA and that’s the reason that the overall sex ratio might not have caught the severity of the problem (Sen, 2003).
Even though a law was promulgated in India in the year 1994 banning the use of ultrasound scan for sex detection and disclosure, the implementation has been totally lackadaisical and as a result, not only the number of Scan machines have grown in volcanic proportions, but also the number of abortions have gone up and about half million girl foetuses were aborted due to sex selection which is about 9% of all girls’ birth in India and implying that 1.61 girl foetuses are aborted every minute in India.
The worsening sex ratio begs the question what causes parents to prefer sons over daughters so blatantly in India (and other countries suffering from the same malaise such as China).An often cited reason is economic when parents prefer son so as to be looked after in old age (inter-generational obligation). The lack of or inadequate social security measures for the old age, continued poverty where son can work and thus earn from early ages thereby share the burden financially and a patriarchal norm makes son as the natural heir of all the economic hope and dependence. However, paradoxically, the sex ratio is worse in States (Punjab, Haryana) which are economically strong. The second excuse is that of institution of dowry and a mindset that the girl, in any case, will go away after marriage and that all expenses on her that way are a waste. Another strand of explanations stresses the cultural value attached to a male offspring. According to Hindi tradition, only a son can light a man’s funeral pyre and the family lineage is traced solely through the male, and failure to produce a son is considered tantamount to “extinction” of the family line. Tragically, the SSAs are going on under the garb of these excuses and efforts to curb the arrest of female foeticide are far too few. The implementation of Act, aimed to control the misuse of scanning for sex detection, has been tardy and most of the talk of ‘changing the mindset’ in favour of girls has not yielded any results.
This paper makes an attempt to understand SRB in Britain with specific focus on:
i) A look into the SRB in UK by collecting data from the Census;
ii) A detailed analysis of the trends in SRB;
iii) A brief examination of medico-legal framework in Britain regarding abortions;
iv) An analysis of trends in SRB among parents of Indian origin in UK;
UK scenario - the SRB in UK has shown an improvement over the years (1969-2005).
A mindset for ‘son-preference’, for various reasons in India has led to a situation where parents, not desiring to have daughters, go in for Ultrasound scan of the foetus during pregnancy leading to Sex Selective Abortion (SSA) if the foetus is that of a girl. Gender discrimination and violence against women takes many shapes. While there have been concerns and concrete actions against violation of women’s rights in reproductive health, education, maternal and child health, economic independence and empowerment, protection against domestic violence, sexual exploitation and trafficking all over the world, the issue of Sex selective Abortions (SSA) of girl foetuses, based on the sex of the Foetus, has largely remained invisible (Croll, Elisabeth J. 2001) and little literature is available to highlight the magnitude of the problem. Thus while Amartya Sen (1990) calculated the figures relating to “missing women” as 100 million, there is none available internationally for missing girl children who are not allowed to be born due to SSA.
However, the magnitude of abortion of girl’s foetuses in these countries is really alarming. What Amartya Sen (1992) called as “early days” for SSA in early nineties has become a fully blown emergency with the advent of and widespread misuse of Ultra-sound scanning for sex detection leading to abortion. While there have been significant reduction in mortality and compression of morbidity and improvements in the life expectancy of women, all these gains are counterbalanced by SSA and that’s the reason that the overall sex ratio might not have caught the severity of the problem (Sen, 2003).
Even though a law was promulgated in India in the year 1994 banning the use of ultrasound scan for sex detection and disclosure, the implementation has been totally lackadaisical and as a result, not only the number of Scan machines have grown in volcanic proportions, but also the number of abortions have gone up and about half million girl foetuses were aborted due to sex selection which is about 9% of all girls’ birth in India and implying that 1.61 girl foetuses are aborted every minute in India.
The worsening sex ratio begs the question what causes parents to prefer sons over daughters so blatantly in India (and other countries suffering from the same malaise such as China).An often cited reason is economic when parents prefer son so as to be looked after in old age (inter-generational obligation). The lack of or inadequate social security measures for the old age, continued poverty where son can work and thus earn from early ages thereby share the burden financially and a patriarchal norm makes son as the natural heir of all the economic hope and dependence. However, paradoxically, the sex ratio is worse in States (Punjab, Haryana) which are economically strong. The second excuse is that of institution of dowry and a mindset that the girl, in any case, will go away after marriage and that all expenses on her that way are a waste. Another strand of explanations stresses the cultural value attached to a male offspring. According to Hindi tradition, only a son can light a man’s funeral pyre and the family lineage is traced solely through the male, and failure to produce a son is considered tantamount to “extinction” of the family line. Tragically, the SSAs are going on under the garb of these excuses and efforts to curb the arrest of female foeticide are far too few. The implementation of Act, aimed to control the misuse of scanning for sex detection, has been tardy and most of the talk of ‘changing the mindset’ in favour of girls has not yielded any results.
This paper makes an attempt to understand SRB in Britain with specific focus on:
i) A look into the SRB in UK by collecting data from the Census;
ii) A detailed analysis of the trends in SRB;
iii) A brief examination of medico-legal framework in Britain regarding abortions;
iv) An analysis of trends in SRB among parents of Indian origin in UK;
UK scenario - the SRB in UK has shown an improvement over the years (1969-2005).
What is striking about the SRB for England and Wales is that not only it is close to natural SRB but in fact, the SRB has been improving overtime. The average sex ratio at birth between 1969 and 1979 was 106.1 and improved to 105.2 between 1980 and 2005 (Dubuc & Coleman 2007). The linear forecast trend indicates a further favorable trend in SRB.
The SRB to mothers born in India was relatively stable in the 1970s and 1980s but started getting unfavorable for girl child from 1980s and the trend accelerated during 1990s (Dubuc & Coleman 2007) with the advent of and widespread misuse of Ultrasound Scan Machines and sex detections and SSAs. The average sex ratio at birth was 104.1 between 1969 and 1989, 107.9 between 1990 and 2005, and averaged 108.3 in the last ten years. 
Total Fertility Rate - There are vast variations in TFR if
one looks ethnicity wise. The TFR declined from 1991 to 2001 census. The decline was from 1.8 to 1.6 for mothers of UK origin, from 2.5 to 2.3 for mothers of Indian origin, a very marginal decrease from 4.8 to 4.7 for mothers of Pakistan origin and from 5.3 to 3.9 of Bangladesh origin. The TFR has improved since 2002 onwards and the increasing trend is continuing. As a result of wide variation in TFR, the percentage of live births to non-UK born mothers has gone up from 14.3 % in 1999 to 24.7% in 2009 while the percentage of live births to mothers of UK origin has come down from 88% in 1969 to 85.7% in 1999 to 75.3% in 2009 .
Total Fertility Rate - There are vast variations in TFR if
one looks ethnicity wise. The TFR declined from 1991 to 2001 census. The decline was from 1.8 to 1.6 for mothers of UK origin, from 2.5 to 2.3 for mothers of Indian origin, a very marginal decrease from 4.8 to 4.7 for mothers of Pakistan origin and from 5.3 to 3.9 of Bangladesh origin. The TFR has improved since 2002 onwards and the increasing trend is continuing. As a result of wide variation in TFR, the percentage of live births to non-UK born mothers has gone up from 14.3 % in 1999 to 24.7% in 2009 while the percentage of live births to mothers of UK origin has come down from 88% in 1969 to 85.7% in 1999 to 75.3% in 2009 .Abortion Laws in UK - Abortions in England, Scotland and Wales are governed by The Abortion Act 1967 under which abortion is permissible under the following 4 conditions (Jackson Emily, 2010):
i) That the pregnancy is less than 24 weeks and the continuation of pregnancy will involve greater risk of injury to the physical and mental health of the pregnant woman;
ii) That the termination is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or;
iii) that the continuation of the pregnancy would invoke risk to the life of the pregnant woman, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated or;
iv) That there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped
Two Doctors (registered medical practitioners) have to certify that the woman’s circumstances satisfy one of these four conditions and as such, the Act does not entitle a woman to decide to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. In practice, 70% of abortions take place during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and 90% take place within first 12 weeks and only around 1 % takes place after 19 weeks of pregnancy[http://www.dh.gov.uk/ - abortion statistics).
i) That the pregnancy is less than 24 weeks and the continuation of pregnancy will involve greater risk of injury to the physical and mental health of the pregnant woman;
ii) That the termination is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or;
iii) that the continuation of the pregnancy would invoke risk to the life of the pregnant woman, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated or;
iv) That there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped
Two Doctors (registered medical practitioners) have to certify that the woman’s circumstances satisfy one of these four conditions and as such, the Act does not entitle a woman to decide to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. In practice, 70% of abortions take place during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and 90% take place within first 12 weeks and only around 1 % takes place after 19 weeks of pregnancy[http://www.dh.gov.uk/ - abortion statistics).
The TFR of India-born women living in England and Wales has declined over time from 4.3 in 1971, to 3.1 in 1981, 2.5 in 1991, and 2.3 in 2001. Accordingly, the proportion of births of orders three and above has declined from 44.2 percent in 1969 to 12.7 percent in 2005, implying parents do not prefer to have 3rd child. It reminds me of the famous quote of Ansley Coale that gender now has been increasingly brought within the “calculus of conscious control” (Coale, 1973 ). As estimated by Dubuc & Coleman (2007), a total of 1481 girls have been ‘missing’ from 1990-2005 among the Indian born mothers. What is however worrisome is that the trend among the parents of Indian origins is worsening over time.
The total number of abortions, as percentag
e of live births in 2009 is 42.9% among parents of Indian origin while it is 26.8% for UK and is 17.5% and 19.1% for among parents of Pakistan and Bangladesh origins. This is an abnormally high for Indian community and even though live births to parents of Indian origins account for 1.78 % of total live births, they account for 2.9% of all abortions carried out in UK. While the number of abortions at 5,361 (among parents of Indian origin) might look less, most of these presumably are carried out either during 13-19 weeks or above 19 weeks of pregnancy when the sex of the foetus is known. A total of 13,819 abortions and another 2,036 abortions were carried out in UK in the foetus age group of 13-19 weeks and more than 19 weeks. The ONS could not furnish the ethnicity wise break up of timings of the abortions. But, based on my interaction with Medical Doctors of Indian origins, they did (without being quoted) confirm that there are certain Doctors of Indian origin in UK who, for a hefty fee, do certify the late pregnancy (13 weeks and above) to be aborted ostensibly on ground i) and ii) of the reasons mentioned under the Act but actually to enable parents to go in for SSA esp. in the cases of higher birth order. It’s because the overall number of abortions is relatively small that it is not getting noticed but it is happening and that too regularly.
e of live births in 2009 is 42.9% among parents of Indian origin while it is 26.8% for UK and is 17.5% and 19.1% for among parents of Pakistan and Bangladesh origins. This is an abnormally high for Indian community and even though live births to parents of Indian origins account for 1.78 % of total live births, they account for 2.9% of all abortions carried out in UK. While the number of abortions at 5,361 (among parents of Indian origin) might look less, most of these presumably are carried out either during 13-19 weeks or above 19 weeks of pregnancy when the sex of the foetus is known. A total of 13,819 abortions and another 2,036 abortions were carried out in UK in the foetus age group of 13-19 weeks and more than 19 weeks. The ONS could not furnish the ethnicity wise break up of timings of the abortions. But, based on my interaction with Medical Doctors of Indian origins, they did (without being quoted) confirm that there are certain Doctors of Indian origin in UK who, for a hefty fee, do certify the late pregnancy (13 weeks and above) to be aborted ostensibly on ground i) and ii) of the reasons mentioned under the Act but actually to enable parents to go in for SSA esp. in the cases of higher birth order. It’s because the overall number of abortions is relatively small that it is not getting noticed but it is happening and that too regularly. So, there are two aspects which have tremendous bearing on the demographic profile of UK:
1. the ethnic profile of UK population is changing fast. The proportion of livebirths to UK born mothers has already come down to 75% and is likely to be less than 50% by 2030!. TFR differentails among various ethnicities is huge and will lead to skewed population growth in certain communities while others continue to decline.
2. the sex ratio at birth is bound to change and get worse alongwith this changing demographic profile.
No comments:
Post a Comment