Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

File photo of a sewer Shutterstock/SvedOliver

Indian police find 19 female foetuses dumped in sewer

Women in India can face pressure to produce male children, who are seen as breadwinners.

INDIAN POLICE HAVE said they have found 19 aborted female foetuses dumped in a sewer in the western state of Maharashtra, highlighting the country’s problem of female foeticide.

Prenatal gender tests are illegal in India, a policy designed to stop unborn girls being aborted by parents desperate for a boy.

However, the tests are still thought to be common, particularly in poor rural areas, and sex ratios are skewed towards males across India.

“We have recovered 19 foetuses and are trying to arrest the doctor, who is absconding,” Dattatray Shinde, a police superintendent in Maharasthra’s Sangli district, told AFP.

He said the foetuses were found late on Sunday, wrapped in blue plastic bags in a sewer next to a clinic run by doctor Babasaheb Khidrapure in the village of Mhaisal.

Officers made the discovery after a 26-year-old woman died during a failed abortion attempt at the surgery, Shinde said.

“We have arrested the victim’s husband Praveen Jamdade for pressuring her into an abortion,” he said.

Jailed for up to five years 

Parents and doctors can be jailed for up to five years for requesting or conducting a pre-natal gender test.

A 2011 study in the British medical journal The Lancet found that up to 12 million girls had been aborted in the last three decades in India.

India had 940 females for every 1,000 males, according to the last official census published in 2011, up from 933 in 2001.

In Sangli, where the foetuses were found, there are just 867 girls per 1,000 boys, the figures show.

Women in India can face pressure to produce male children, who are seen as breadwinners. Girls are often viewed as a financial burden as they require hefty marriage dowries.

© AFP 2017

Read: Fury in France over ‘degrading’ Saint Laurent ad campaign

Read: Surgeons remove 915 coins swallowed by Thai sea turtle

Author
View 65 comments
Close
65 Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute David Dickenson
    Favourite David Dickenson
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:05 PM

    God help them, they have slumped down to our level.

    193
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Emeralds
    Favourite Emeralds
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 2:20 PM

    But a level above the UK, where parliament declines to make gender-selective abortions illegal

    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-31596968

    and where aborted babies are burned for fuel

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/15/aborted-babies-incinerated-to-heat-uk-hospitals/

    47
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Francis Mc Carthy
    Favourite Francis Mc Carthy
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 2:34 PM

    @Emeralds : Is the practice of gender selective abortions illegal in the UK ?

    6
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute OpenBorders
    Favourite OpenBorders
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 10:55 PM

    @Emeralds: All post-operation material is incinerated on health and safety grounds, what do you think happens to it? That it’s freeze dried and put in a frame?

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Tony Daly
    Favourite Tony Daly
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 12:55 PM

    Only in India?

    Or maybe not, now that I think of Tuam and other places in Ireland.

    130
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ciarán Masterson
    Favourite Ciarán Masterson
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:00 PM

    @Tony Daly:

    Horrific as it is that children who died in that “home” in Tuam were buried that manner, the consequences of sex-selective abortion are potentially apocalyptic, i.e. numerical imbalance between the sexes, which means that many men in India (and China) can’t get a potential wife, leading to more violence against women, and also possibly to a third world war because of all that testosterone.

    102
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Deborah Behan
    Favourite Deborah Behan
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 5:14 PM

    This is why feminism is needed. Women can earn money just as well as men and the idea of a dowery is out dated and should be stamped out. Inequality will hurt this male generation greatly.

    41
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Daniel R
    Favourite Daniel R
    Report
    Mar 8th 2017, 2:46 AM

    Exactly. Feminists should concentrate their efforts on countries like India and the Middle East instead of on trivialities in the West.

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ciarán Masterson
    Favourite Ciarán Masterson
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 12:56 PM

    And Indian people have the nerve to lecture us about women’s rights?!

    128
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dave O Keeffe
    Favourite Dave O Keeffe
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 2:04 PM

    Yeah because she people are able to look and see that both are wrong

    18
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Deborah Behan
    Favourite Deborah Behan
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 5:12 PM

    Yeah. Sure aren’t we perfect!

    14
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Emmet O'Keeffe
    Favourite Emmet O'Keeffe
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:20 PM

    The horrors of the abortion industry.

    78
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Censored
    Favourite Censored
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:27 PM

    Liberals go crazy at this, yet when a feminist says she will abort a male foetus, nobody cares

    60
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute James
    Favourite James
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:38 PM

    No word from you of course on the poor woman who died during one of these ILLEGAL ABORTIONS. Of course not.. just another article for your scrap book of fetus porn.

    37
    See 15 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Emmet O'Keeffe
    Favourite Emmet O'Keeffe
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:42 PM

    The liberal/feminist argument is riddled with cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy.

    43
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Thunder Snowman
    Favourite Thunder Snowman
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:48 PM

    Are you serious Censored? One woman ever who said she aborted a foetus purely based on the sex versus tens of millions of female foetuses aborted. This is not the right topic for you to push your anti choice agenda, it’s female infanticide.

    46
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Censored
    Favourite Censored
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 2:09 PM

    Merely pointing out a double standard. No need to wet yourself.

    22
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Thunder Snowman
    Favourite Thunder Snowman
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 2:15 PM

    Like I said Censored, you cannot compare one known case against millions. This really is not the right thread to incite your anti female rhetoric.

    26
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Emeralds
    Favourite Emeralds
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 2:17 PM

    It’s not one known case against millions (there’s a lot more than one anyway).

    Every case of gender-selective abortion is the same, regardless of whether you’re killing the foetus for being male or female.

    19
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Titus Groan
    Favourite Titus Groan
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 2:39 PM

    Well if twitter says it, it must be true. Your point is moronic and that has been clearly illustrated to you. You jog on. Place and time, sunny Jim.

    23
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Thunder Snowman
    Favourite Thunder Snowman
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 2:51 PM

    What feminists say on Twitter? Come back to me when they start digging up graves full of dead baby boys.

    20
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Censored
    Favourite Censored
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 3:14 PM

    So Twitter is only representative when you want it to be. Nice liberal hypocrisy

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Thunder Snowman
    Favourite Thunder Snowman
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 3:18 PM

    I’ve never recited Twitter comments as facts, that’s all you.

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Emmet O'Keeffe
    Favourite Emmet O'Keeffe
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 4:39 PM

    @Titus Groan:
    It does highlight the horrors of abortion though.

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Deborah Behan
    Favourite Deborah Behan
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 5:18 PM

    It highlights a society that does not value women as being equal to men. Boys are better so kill the girls only leads to a lot of lonely boys.

    24
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Thunder Snowman
    Favourite Thunder Snowman
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 5:42 PM

    Who’s to say if abortion was illegal they wouldn’t have just killed the female babies when born. This article is about female infanticide, not abortion.

    15
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean @114
    Favourite Sean @114
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 6:37 PM

    I notice that you use the phrase “kill the girls” there Deborah. A lot of abortionists would take umbrage with you over that terminology. The pregnancy is being terminated, not a person, nobody is dying etc. etc.

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute A H
    Favourite A H
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 8:54 PM

    Actually Sean by the time you can tell the sex, it’s pretty much almost a baby by then in fairness.

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean @114
    Favourite Sean @114
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 9:00 PM

    Most fanatical abortionists will deny the baby’s existence until it exits the womb. It is purely a foetus and fair game for dismemberment beforehand. I know it’s madness but it’s true.

    8
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Peter Fox
    Favourite Peter Fox
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 12:59 PM

    Nothing compared to our septic Isle!

    47
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ciarán Masterson
    Favourite Ciarán Masterson
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:09 PM

    @Peter Fox:

    Our island has had many atrocities but the Indian subcontinent makes it look like Tellytubbyland, e.g. the massacres committed by mutinous sepoys in 1857, by Hindu and Muslim militant groups against each other’s co-religionists in 1947 (There were more massacres of Muslim civilians in India in recent years), by the Pakistani Army against Bengalis in 1971 and by Sri Lankan Army against Tamils in 2009, the persecution of Christians and Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan.

    50
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Banana Rama
    Favourite Banana Rama
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:31 PM

    …aaand that’s why i’m against abortion.

    44
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mark Gearey
    Favourite Mark Gearey
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:37 PM

    @Banana Rama: You’re against abortion cos they use it to select the gender of their baby in parts of india. That’s very specific. Maybe that’s not what u meant.

    29
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean @114
    Favourite Sean @114
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 6:42 PM

    In the US it’s used 96% of the time for ‘convenience reasons’ according to their national stats. These reasons include; interfere with career or job prospects, too costly, too young to raise etc. Surely gender is a weak enough excuse also? About 900,000 abortions in the US in 2015 were for these convenience reasons. Is this acceptable? If it is then surely gender is also acceptable? You can’t have it every way.

    12
    See 7 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Francis Mc Carthy
    Favourite Francis Mc Carthy
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 7:06 PM

    @Sean @114: Hi Sean :) What number of abortions in the first trimester would be acceptable to you ?

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean @114
    Favourite Sean @114
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 7:21 PM

    Any number for FFA or mother’s life at risk. How about post first trimester for you Francis. There were about 91,000 of these in 2015 in the US alone. Where do you stand on post first trimester abortions Francis? I won’t bore you with the gorey unsightly youtube dismemberment videos as shock tactics are not my style. Thanks

    6
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Francis Mc Carthy
    Favourite Francis Mc Carthy
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 7:52 PM

    As you quoted the % of abortions in the first trimester that happen in America,what would your preferred % be ? Now,it’s pointless saying 0% as we both know that that is just pie in the sky stuff.

    I have no issue whatsoever with safe,legal 1st,2nd,3rd trimester abortions.
    As for your videos,why would you want me to watch something that I have no interest whatsoever in watching? Yikes!

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean @114
    Favourite Sean @114
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 7:58 PM

    Well I guess your words speak volumes there Francis. Couldn’t care less basically. For somebody who has no interest and doesn’t care you sure comment a lot on the subject. Anyway you know my stance on abortion, I think it’s an acceptable option in any trimester in a FFA or danger to woman’s life scenario. You on the other hand would clearly be content with limitless abortions at any stage of development and for any reason. That is something that I am vehemently opposed to but I respect your opinion all the same.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Francis Mc Carthy
    Favourite Francis Mc Carthy
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 8:10 PM

    @Sean @114: They do Sean.But you don’t even take the woman’s physical/mental well-being,into your considerations.It is birth all the way if mr/ms embryo is healthy.If the woman dies during her unwanted pregnancy,so what.

    I’m a realist Sean,you have nearly a million abortions happening every year in the US,they will not magically go away.Best to have them in a safe environment..

    Anybody like to buy a baby ? Genuine question as the back babies are going cheap.

    http://www.npr.org/2013/06/27/195967886/six-words-black-babies-cost-less-to-adopt

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean @114
    Favourite Sean @114
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 8:41 PM

    Yes danger to woman’s life so that would be considered health. The US abortion stats won’t go away Francis because there is no legislation preventing the act. That’s why the 8th must be repealed but not abolished. It’s like saying that gun killings will not decrease in the US because we won’t ban the sale of guns. You will never protect all lives but you can protect some.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Francis Mc Carthy
    Favourite Francis Mc Carthy
    Report
    Mar 8th 2017, 5:13 AM

    @Sean @114: “The US abortion stats won’t go away Francis because there is no legislation preventing the act”

    And before the legislation was brought in Sean,there were about 800,000 illegal abortions being carried out.The death rate per year was around 5,000 and “God” only knows how many women turned up at A&E’s with severe complications.Are these the times that the “pro life” people want to go back to? A time where only the well-to-do could get an abortion in a safe environment ? Okey dokey!

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Robert O'Neill
    Favourite Robert O'Neill
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:11 PM

    Send our nuns home

    41
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Emmet O'Keeffe
    Favourite Emmet O'Keeffe
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:17 PM

    @Robert O’Neill:
    ‘Aborted foetuses’

    17
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Censored
    Favourite Censored
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:24 PM

    Wait, I thought abortion was liberal?

    26
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mark Gearey
    Favourite Mark Gearey
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:35 PM

    @Censored: Abortion is grand altogether. It’s favouring one gender over the other that’s not so good. Leaves lots of unattached men in society and a lot of the time they are up to no good. What was your point again?

    23
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Banana Rama
    Favourite Banana Rama
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:38 PM

    I swear, the world ‘liberal’ now sends shivers down my spine. We’re heading for such a miserable, lawless world.

    40
    See 5 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Martin Byrne
    Favourite Martin Byrne
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:43 PM

    Liberal means nothing. I’m pro choice but that doesn’t mean I’m ok with this kind of thing. But if you are dumb enough to think that this is an abortion problem rather than a women’s rights problem then I despair for the world.

    27
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute James
    Favourite James
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 2:11 PM

    It’s the “liberals” that allow Iona and Youth Defense (same thing) a platform in the discussion at all rather than have Revenue and the Charities Regulator go through their accounts like a dose of salts… and don’t for a second pretend you’re not affiliated to them…

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Emeralds
    Favourite Emeralds
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 2:15 PM

    If you’re pro-choice then you can’t have a problem with this kind of thing

    As Ann Furedi (Chief Exec of BPAS) said; “You can’t be pro-choice except when you don’t like the choice, because that’s not pro-choice at all.”

    https://www.google.ie/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pro-choice-abortion-charity-bpas-chief-exec-ann-furedi-says-women-are-legally-free-to-terminate-8824854.html%3Famp

    And she’s far from alone

    https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/19/sex-selective-abortion-womans-right

    25
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute James
    Favourite James
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 2:29 PM

    Really… you can’t be pro choice and against illegal abortions being carried out…. hmmm

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute MuckyMoo
    Favourite MuckyMoo
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 5:07 PM

    @James: Pro choice people don’t believe abortions should be considered illegal so no. Same way they go around handing out illegal pills to girls

    11
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jake Gundersonn
    Favourite Jake Gundersonn
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:54 PM

    Liberals probably feel the need to legalise and repeal this practice of sex selective abortion now. Imagine if liberals did rule, imagine how cold hearted and dead society would become. People would have equal value to an inanimate object . No culture and everyone being the same. Deciding to have a family would be considered archaic and old school as the population plummets down to economically disastrous levels. Oh yes and they think conservatives are bad

    19
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dave O Keeffe
    Favourite Dave O Keeffe
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 2:05 PM

    Jake, this isn’t your first argument against giving people more rights is it?

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Deborah Behan
    Favourite Deborah Behan
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 5:22 PM

    Yeah just let men set the rules like the good old days.

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute George McCarthy
    Favourite George McCarthy
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 1:35 PM

    India is Ireland 50 years ago.

    11
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute MuckyMoo
    Favourite MuckyMoo
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 5:06 PM

    Will the people who shout repeal the 8th shout it in the name of the girls to are killed just because they are girls?

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Francis Mc Carthy
    Favourite Francis Mc Carthy
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 6:13 PM

    @MuckyMoo: Can you give us a list of their names ? Thanks.

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean @114
    Favourite Sean @114
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 7:41 PM

    Ask Deborah up above. She was banging on about the Indians killing the girls. Something doesn’t have to have a name for it to be alive Francis. You do realise that, yes? How do you feel about post first trimester abortions? There were 91,000 of these in the US in 2015. All ok with you? Thanks

    10
    See 2 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Francis Mc Carthy
    Favourite Francis Mc Carthy
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 7:59 PM

    @Sean @114: I have no problem whatsoever with those procedures.

    You are the lad that wants every woman to go full term with an unwanted pregnancy.YIKES!

    8
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean @114
    Favourite Sean @114
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 8:42 PM

    Really? Where did I say that Francis or are you making things up again?

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Brendan Moriarty
    Favourite Brendan Moriarty
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 3:38 PM

    They have sewers in India? #WentThere

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John O'Driscoll
    Favourite John O'Driscoll
    Report
    Mar 7th 2017, 3:10 PM

    India’s Tuam.

    2
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds