The strong preference for birthing sons over daughters has been a mindset deeply rooted in cultures across India, China, South Korea, Afghanistan, etc. The perception that men are more valuable than women can be explained by reasons such as men having a higher wage-earning capacity, being traditionally responsible for passing down the family name and taking care of parents in old age, and performing funeral rituals that are typically performed by the eldest son. Inevitably, patriarchal gender attitudes or in some applicable countries, Confucian values, are potent sources for how girls and women alike have been viewed and treated.
One family in Chandigarh, India recalled their experience with SSD (Sex Selective Drugs) and addressed the comments they have received from extended family members on how they must conceive a son. When Mukesh Sherma’s wife was pregnant with her second child, she expressed her distress because of the pressure she received from her husband and mother-in-law to conceive a son after having her first-born daughter. As a result, Sherma’s wife was contemplating taking SSDs again, which are traditional remedies taken by pregnant women to conceive sons. However, after her husband learned that sex cannot be changed in the womb, and SSDs are linked to stillbirths and birth defects, both the husband and wife are thankful for not using SSDs.
Although SSDs are one method of sex-selective practices, sex-selective practices may be implemented throughout multiple stages from pre-conception and pre-implantation to during-pregnancy and the post-natal period. Examples of these technologies and strategies include sperm sorting, in vitro pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, beta ultrasound identification, and sex-selective infanticide.
What is causing an increase in sex-selective methods? In addition to a preference for sons, or declining fertility rates, one may point to an increase in the accessibility of sex determination technology since the 1980s as a cause. Technology is rapidly evolving, which allows people to not only utilize post-implantation technology, but also pre-pregnancy methods (pre-conception and pre-implantation). Consequences for this however are demographic patterns such as skewed sex ratios, or in other words SRB; the sex ratio at birth (SRB) may be defined as the ratio of the number of live male births to the number of live female births.
In South Korea, the widespread uptake of sex-selective technology in the mid-1980s resulted in an SRB that was as high as 125 by 1992. Similarly, in China, the one-child policy contributed to an increase in SRB, which at one point was as high as 121 in 2005. In addition to a skewed sex ratio, one social implication and ethical consequence of a high SRB in particular are concepts like “bare branches,” which describes men who are unable to find a wife because they are deemed as undesirable, or “marriage squeeze,” which refers to an effect of a gender imbalance in a population of marriageable men and women. The usage of these terms imply that a high SRB is not only a biological issue but also a social consequence of using techniques that intentionally cause a sex ratio imbalance.
In response to evolving sex-selective technology, laws have been implemented in South Korea, China, India, Australia, and the United Kingdom to either prevent sex identification or sex-selective foeticide. In 1996, the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 in India banned physicians and other healthcare providers to provide sex-determination services, and in 2002, included sex selection at the time of conception. Similarly, the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 in the United Kingdom banned non-medical sex selection and embryo testing. However, implementing bans such as this may do more harm than good as it not only punishes medical practitioners but also the clients. Notably, sex-selection or foeticide/abortion bans may negatively affect the future lives of unwanted children and threaten womens’ reproductive rights; in some countries, the pressure to birth sons may be so intense that failure to do so may result in women being abandoned or harmed.
In the United States in particular, although they are one of the few countries that allow the usage of sex-selective technology and abortion, there has been opposition to banning sex-selective abortion because of research that reveals that bans are not the most effective method to influence SRB and combat issues of gender discrimination. Furthermore, banning sex-selective abortion services in a country where a high SRB is not an issue may lead to denial of health care services to minority groups; in some sources, it is said that the statements made in support of these bans during legislative hearings are made with the clear intention to place restrictions on abortion services overall.
In contrast to legislation that bans sex selection and foeticide services, sociology research professors and organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) suggest that the issue of high SRB needs to be resolved by promoting gender equity and empowerment of women and girls by providing access to education, reproductive health services, media advocacy, and policies that integrate women into the political and economic mainstream. Now, the question becomes, how will the effects of sex-selection practices and foeticide change the cultural and traditional norms of today.
References:
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