[Reader-list] Desperate British Asians fly to India to abort baby girls

[Rana Dasgupta]

Someone should write a really detailed book about all the sorts of 
networks that sustain the idea of the Indian diaspora.

Fascinating article, including details about how medical regulations and 
ethics are shifting in the UK to accommodate an indian social norm.

R



Desperate British Asians fly to India to abort baby girls

Women refused terminations on the NHS are joining the millions of 
Indians who have surgery to uphold a sons-only tradition. Dan McDougall 
reports from Delhi

Sunday January 22, 2006
The Observer

Bringing up a girl, to quote a Punjabi saying, is like watering a 
neighbour's garden - and it is widely acknowledged that India's 
patriarchal society has long been based on a simple need for male heirs, 
often at the cost of unborn females, who are widely seen as little more 
than an economic burden.

As many as 13 million female foetuses may have been aborted in India in 
the past two decades following prenatal gender checks. Hi-tech mobile 
ultrasound technology, it seems, is responsible for sending millions of 
women to backstreet abortion clinics across the country.

But abortion of female foetuses has long been a part of life in Britain 
and The Observer has uncovered evidence that pregnant British Asian 
women, some in effect barred by the NHS after numerous abortions, are 
now coming to India for gender-defining ultrasounds and, if they are 
expecting girls, terminations.

The medical procedure is called partial-birth abortion. After around 24 
weeks in the womb, two-thirds of a full-term pregnancy, the foetus is 
pulled from the mother feet first, up to the neck. The doctor then 
creates a hole in the skull to take out the brain, making it easier to 
collapse the head and take out the foetus.

'We can abort at over 20 weeks pregnant and the delivery of the foetus 
at that stage is difficult,' says Dr Revati Mukundan matter-of-factly in 
the neat offices of the Kalkaji Family Planning Clinic in south Delhi, 
her clipped English making the matter sound clinical and routine.

'Certainly we can do it, but we would need to have specific grounds for 
the procedure, and I can assure you a complaint about the sex of the 
child is not a good reason. We have had a number of British clients, but 
also clients from the Middle East and Germany. We offer a professional 
and caring service.'

Behind her, in a waiting room, Ritu, 27, is fidgeting impatiently with 
her scarf. This mother of two children from Leicester has come to India 
while her husband, an engineer, has stayed with his family. With her is 
a cousin she barely knows. Ritu is just over 14 weeks pregnant. 'I'm 
here because we were already coming on holiday to see relatives,' she 
says quietly, motioning her cousin away. 'I had an ultrasound here a few 
days ago. It cost about £20 and we found out I was having a girl. My 
mother-in-law suggested we aborted the baby because the family wants a 
boy, but insisted we do it in Delhi. I've had an abortion in the UK and 
she is worried the NHS won't let it happen again; anyway, it is cheaper 
here - only £100 - and the doctors are excellent.'

Ritu says two of her aunts in Britain have had five abortions between 
them in their quest for a boy. Both were eventually refused ultrasound 
tests in Leicester and had them privately.

'There are clinics in Leicester that won't identify the sex of babies to 
Asian women. They have a policy, they say, so more British Asians are 
coming to India when they are pregnant to make sure everything goes to 
plan. All I want to do is keep my family happy. My husband doesn't seem 
to care. We already have two daughters and he agrees with his mother 
that we need a boy, so I'm going through with it; I don't have any 
choice. We are going on holiday after this and we will try again for a boy.'

There is more than anecdotal evidence that some British Asians are 
timing family visits to Amritsar, Ahmedabad and Delhi with trips to 
ultrasound and abortion clinics. For many couples in the UK, under 
pressure from traditional extended families, multiple abortions at home 
in their quest for male heirs are seen as increasingly risky.

Another case brought to the attention of The Observer is of Kulwant 
Seghal, 37, not her real name, from Sheffield, who horrified her own 
relatives by going to extreme lengths to give birth to a baby boy. 
Despite having two healthy daughters, she felt barren for not having 
produced a son and, above all, felt the scrutiny of her in-laws, in the 
UK and India, over her perceived failure. When she finally had a boy 
after three abortions he had a mental impairment so she is now trying 
for a second son.

'I might have two daughters,' she told The Observer, 'but they don't 
mean anything to me without a son. Who is going to look after me and my 
husband, who is going to take care of the family business? No woman is 
complete without a son.'

Asked about her son's learning difficulties, Kulwant goes quiet. A 
relative says she may have had four abortions, the third on a trip to 
India last autumn.

Last month, Saroj Adlakha, 59, a GP, stood in the dock with Shilpa 
Abrol, 20, at Birmingham magistrates' court. The doctor, with a surgery 
in the King's Heath area, is now on bail, alleged to have passed details 
of a clinic in Barcelona to the young expectant mother, who had passed 
the 24-week UK abortion limit.

A report by the Commons Science and Technology Committee conceded last 
year: 'Some UK communities do have a decided preference for boys over 
girls and permitting such choices leads to increased opportunities for 
reinforcing sexist attitudes.' It cited research at De Montfort 
University, Leicester, proving that a social need for male children, 
particularly among Britons of Indian descent, was widespread.

Dr Sabu George, a gender rights expert based in New Delhi, said aborting 
healthy baby girls was well documented among British Asians, and 
multiple abortions for married Indians in Britain had become 
increasingly common. 'The desire for boys transcends caste, social, 
educational and economic status. One in seven girls in Delhi is killed 
in the womb and the situation goes on in Britain, where the belief 
systems are identical.

Only health centres and clinics in the UK, particularly those in Asian 
communities, are now increasingly refusing to declare the sex of unborn 
babies,' he said.

'It is getting complicated and becoming an issue of a "right to know", 
but permissiveness by these clinics leads to abortions and the doctors 
working in them are digging their heels in. This is why we believe more 
and more British Indians are coming here for abortions.'

Another key issue is the development of gender pre-determination 
technology. Senior members of the Asian community in Scotland have 
called for the closure of a gender selection clinic in Glasgow after it 
placed adverts in the Punjabi press exploiting the preference for boys.

There is little dignity to be found in the small queue outside the 
entrance the Kalkaji Family Planning clinic. Shivering in the freezing 
night air in thin shalwar kameez, the painted nails and gold sandals of 
the women look out of place in this Delhi suburb. There are no men in 
sight. The damp, windowless basement they are waiting to descend into 
has three rooms. The teenage nurse there gave The Observer a tour 
earlier in the day. Patients are met in a dark hallway and taken to an 
examination room where they lie on bedsheets stained brown with blood 
and urine.

Next door is the operating theatre where, under a flickering sodium 
light, they are clamped on to a medieval-looking iron operating table, 
padded with a thin foam mattress. Strapped into two worn leather leg 
stirrups, the patient can see jars of formaldehyde or broken glass 
phials on metal surgical trays. The last thing they see before leaving 
the clinic is the thick layer of mould growing on the ceiling of the 
recovery room.

The abortion costs 1,000 rupees (£13). It takes less than an hour 
between the initial examination and returning to the street. The 
majority of the women in the queue are married and are giving up healthy 
unborn girls under pressure from husbands or other relatives.

Dr Puneet Bedi, a foetal medicine specialist in Delhi, said: 'People 
don't look at this as a life or death issue, or even as an ethical 
question. It's just an extension of our consumer culture. If someone can 
afford to buy a Mercedes, they feel they can afford to secure themselves 
a son.

'There is a common saying among Indians, Ladka marey kambakth ka; Ladki 
marey bhaagwaan ki (It is a fool who loses his male child and the 
fortunate who loses a girl). It's the logic these people hold and they 
will keep going until they get what they want, a son.'