A large network operating an illegal sex-selective abortion racket has been uncovered in south India, leading to several arrests.
Health officials uncovered the extensive sex-selective abortion network in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu through a decoy operation.
They were first alerted to the criminal activity by a botched abortion that was traced back to one of the accused who’d been arrested for similar offences dating back to 2017.
Women were paying ultrasounds, and once the sex of the unborn baby was determined, the network would administer abortion pills if required.
A decoy who was 18 to 19 weeks pregnant was used to infiltrate the criminal network. A man and woman picked her up at a bus stop, accepted 16,000 Indian Rupees and drove her away to a house where the scan was to take place.
The woman carried a locator device and was followed in a car that led to a house where an ultrasound machine and abortion pills were seized, along with the network of people operating in multiple districts.
The network was found to be charging Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 20,000 to determine the sex unborn babies, and Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 30,000 for abortions.
A similar decoy operation also took place this month which saw a government doctor and a staff nurse arrested.
In 2023, another doctor was arrested along with hospital staff for performing 900 sex-selective abortions in India, with each abortion costing around Rs. 30,000. One of the accused had reportedly been receiving a commission for every potential client they found.
While sex-selective abortion is illegal in India, there is still a common preference for boys, leading to 63 million fewer girls being born in the nation since sex-determination tests became widely available in the 1970s.
A 2020 study warned that female foeticide in India might lead to 6.8 million fewer girls being born by 2030, further skewing the male-to-female ratio.
India and China, which both have a traditional preference for boys, account for more than 90% of worldwide missing female births, according to a UN Population Fund estimate.
In 2023, a “100% pro-choice” Australian journalist was shocked to learn from her sonographer that babies are aborted because they are girls.
“I’ve had dads storm out because the baby is a girl; pregnant women left sobbing on the table”, the sonographer told her. “Some are so disappointed, they terminate based on the gender…
“I know this, because they come back to me for the ultrasound evaluation to confirm they are no longer pregnant.”
Recalling the revelation, the journalist said: “As a mother to two daughters, the idea that women may feel pressured into having an abortion after discovering they’re having a girl breaks my heart.”
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