U.S. Congressional Hearing Examines Gendercide in India

By Lisa Correnti | September 12, 2013

WASHINGTON DC, September 13 (C-FAM) The widespread killing of girls in India through sex-selective abortion and infanticide can be traced to coercive programs instituted by population alarmists, UN agencies, abortion groups and affluent countries including the United States.

“Sex-selection abortion was – a violent, nefarious and deliberate policy imposed on the world by the pro-abortion population control movement – it’s not an accident,” said Congressman Chris Smith, chairman of the subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights.

The House Foreign Affairs committee hearing on “India’s Missing Girls” examined gender discriminatory practices and the consequences of India’s skewed sex ratio resulting from over 37 million girls being aborted, or killed by their mother or family member shortly after birth.

“Rampant sex selection in recent decades has created a genocide,” testified Dr. Sabu George. “More girls in India and China are eliminated every year than the number of girls born in U.S.,” he continued. Dr. George has worked in India for 28 years to protect girls from neglect, female infanticide and sex selection.

Dr. George asked congressmen to prevent American companies from profiting from exploitive sex-selective practices in India, such as Google running advertisements promoting sex-selection tourism. Witnesses told of General Electric selling thousands of ultrasound machines to private clinics despite sex-determination being illegal.

To understand how sex-selective abortion spread globally, Columbia University professor Matthew Connelly investigated policies inspired by the population explosion myth popularized by Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich. Ehrlich’s call for a “simple method” to determine the sex of babies as a way to reduce population fueled the opening of the first reproductive physiology department in an Indian medical school. The Ford and Rockefeller Foundations funded it.

Population Council’s then-biomedical chief Sheldon Segal instructed Indian doctors on determining fetal sex-selection for the purpose of population reduction. Coercive population programs were administered through the Planned Parenthood Federation, the United Nations Population Fund and USAID.

“As long as these organizations refuse to come to terms with their history, they will be vulnerable to accusations that they are still trying to control people, rather than empower them,” testified Professor Connelly.

Jill McElya witnessed female infanticide while working in southern India. The founder of Invisible Girl Project told the committee of Indian women killing their newborn girls because their husbands and in-laws want to have sons. 

McElya said the shortfall in the number of women to men breeds bride-selling, trafficking of girls for prostitution, and child marriages.

India has a national law prohibiting sex determination. But the practice continues due to a lack of political will at the state level to enforce it, McElya said. She believes the U.S. should require annual reporting from countries, similar to what is required for human trafficking, to motivate countries to end sex-selective abortions and infanticide.

Mallika Dutt told the panel about spending the night in a hospital chasing rats from feeding on young women that had been burned by their husband or in-laws for inadequate dowries. Dutt president of Breakthrough, works at the community level to educate on the value of girls and women and end son preference.

While Dutt’s group advocates for an end to “gender-biased sex selection,” she is adamant abortion must not be restricted.

Rep. Smith challenged Ms. Dutt since 2 millions girls are aborted each year. “Prejudice against the girl child and women . . . begins in the womb,” said Smith. 

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