NEW DELHI – Over 20 aborted fetuses, suspected to be female, were recently found in a dumpsite in Bangalore, India.
The fetuses were found in the Jakkarayanakere area and have been sent to Victoria Hospital – Bangalore’s largest hospital and among the most prominent in South India – for sex determination.
Pramila Nesargi, chairperson for the Karnataka State Commission for Women, arrived at the site of the discovery in response to complaints from the people reporting that the police tried to keep the incident under wraps and ignored it. After Nesargi's intervention, the police agreed to register a FIR (First Information Report), the first report of crime filed by police.
The police have yet to ascertain the exact source from where the fetuses were brought in.
Last month, seven dead female newborns were discovered near the Duburi foothills in the Nayagarh district of India’s Orissa state.
Female infanticide and feticide is still prevalent in several parts of the country, as boys are traditionally preferred over girls.
A woman Christian activist, who did not want her name to be quoted in the news, told New Delhi-based Christian Today that the mindsets of the people are so narrow and that only the understanding and love of God can set them free.
It is time that people understand that all humans have been created equally by God in His image, she said. Whether boy or girl, all humans are created, accepted and equally blessed by God.
According to a study published last year in the British medical journal The Lancet, as many as 10 million female fetuses may have been aborted in India over the last 20 years as families try to secure a male heir.
In the two decades since ultrasound equipment – which allows prenatal determination of sex – became widely available, the number of girls born in India has declined steeply, reported the International Herald Tribune. And that is despite a law banning doctors from disclosing the sex of a fetus to parents.
