Etica
& Politica/ Ethics &Politics, 2004, 2
http://www.units.it/etica/2004_2/SORTA-BILAJAC.htm
Indian
Bioethics: the Issue of Female Foeticide and Infanticide. A Sikh Perspective
|
abstract A specific
bioethical problem which India encounters today, in the era of prenatal
diagnostics, is the problem of the foeticide or infanticide of female children.
This problem has also been discussed at various international bioethical
conferences as it was the case in February 2003 at the 8th International Bioethical Roundtable (TRT8) in the
Japanese Science City of Tsukuba, and in March 2002 in Leiden (Netherlands) at
the Asian Genomics – Cultural Values and
Bioethical Practice conference. This paper presents some of the key theses
resulting from the discussion at the above conferences, and also warns of the
serious problem of the misuse of modern medical technology and diagnostics,
which should primarily be used for a timely detection of various genetically
conditioned diseases or disorders of the course of the intra-uterus life of the
baby, rather than, as it is the case in India, to enable the (de)termination of
the foetus according to sex. That is, the Indian society is dominated by men,
and male children are highly valued, whereas female children are exceptionally
discriminated against. This dicrimination is manifested through female children
not being provided adequate nutrition or medical care, along with pronounced
emotional deprivation. The most recent and, in the same time, worst form of
discrimination is exactly female foeticide or infanticide, which – this should
be specifically mentioned – is most often carried out in the Indian state Tamil
Nadu. |
1. Introduction
The peninsular sub-continent with an ancient
culture dating back to the fifth millennium is perhaps the most diverse one,
both geneticaly and culturaly. The mega biodiversity apparent from over 122,000
wild species of plants and animals and the cauldron of over 40,000 human
endogamous groups reflect the geographical location of India at the
tri-junction of the African, the northern Eurasian and the Oriental realms.
Major ethnic groups include Indo-Aryan (72%), Dravidian (25%), Mongoloid and
others (3%). Eight main different religions prevail in this world’s largest
democratic set-up: Hinduism (80%), Islam (14%), Christianity (2.4%), Sikhism
(2%), Buddhism (0.7%), Jainism (0.5%) and others (0.4%). Furthermore, as many
as 1,500 languages and dialects specify the linguistic diversity (1).
2. Sikhism
The word “Sikh” means “a disciple”. Sikhs belive in
an Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent God. The religion itself is very
young, barely around 530 years old. It is synthetic in character. The founders,
The Ten Sikh “Gurus” (teachers) adopted whatever was practical, good and useful
for humanity, rejecting ritualism, formalism and parochialism in order to aim
for the moral and spiritual discipline for the well-being of humanity. The laws
of God work in every sphere: physical, moral and spiritual. Worldly phenomena
result in bodily ailment, which is the physical law of Causation. The law of
karma (predestination) is the moral law of causation moulded by our past and
present actions. The spiritual law of Love is the most significant – the
devotion of the Lord is love of the Lord and this assists in self-realisation
leading on to salvation (2).
The individual pulsates with vitality because of
the soul. The soul is pure consciousness - “the higher self” with no powers,
and ego – “the lower self” has free will (faculties of mind) with the objective
to be attuned to the will of God. Free will acts on the plane of ego where
Providence never interferes. There is a systematic evolution of the soul as it
passes through the mineral, vegetative and animal worlds. The Sikh scripture
recounts 840,000 species with the human being a climax of creation, for only by
being born as a human can realisation for God be achieved (3).
3. Sikh ethics
The main source of Sikh ethics is the holy
scripture – The Adi Granth (The First Holy Manuscript) and Vaars (Verses) of
Bhai Gurdas, the most famous exponent of Sikh tenets and the first interpreter
of Sikh religion. The main tenets are: thrutful living, purity, justice,
fearlessness, love, mercifulness, generosity, tolerance, sweet speech, humility
and goodness (4). The Sikh social, economic and political ethics
include non-discrimination on basis of caste or creed, communal harmony,
subsistence for the physical and spiritual well being, great reverence for
women, the institution of marriage as a spiritual bond, no child marriage,
widow re-marriage, limited and compact family, service to humanity, respect for
all professions (5).
In Hindu and Sikh traditions there is hardly any
distinction between religion and culture. The ethical decisions are grounded in
both religious beliefs and culture values. The Sikhs take a “duty”- rather than
a “rights”-based approach. Furthermore, the ethical subject in decision-making
is not the individual. A person is rather viewed as a combination of mind, soul
and body in the context of family, culture and environment. Therefore approach
to ethical issues, even such as Informed Consent, necessitates the person’s
social context as well as religious or spiritual dimensions of one’s
experiences (6).
4. Status of the
foetus in indian literature and culture
The Vedic
culture dates back to about 3,000 years BC. During this cultural period there
were Pancha Maha Pathakas (five cardinal sins). They are: Stree Hatya (Killing
of a Women), Go Hatya (Killing of a Cow), Bhruna Hatya (Killing of a foetus),
Brama Hatya (Killing of a Brahmin), Shisu Hatya (Killing of a Baby). Bhruna
(Sanskrit=fetus) Hatya (=kill) is a Mahapapam (Maha=great, papam=sin). Four of
the five sins relate to human life: foetus (Bhruna), baby (Shishu), woman
(Stree) and Brahma (all those men and women, irrespective of caste/color/creed,
who have adopted the Brahmanical way of life by choice; during Vedic period one
is not a Brahmin by birth but anyone who has adopted that type of life). The
Vedic culture’s recognition of Bhruna Hatya as a cardinal sin emphasisez the
point that foetus is a person with awareness. In their view, foetus is a person
just like a baby (Shishu), woman and adults. They have equated fetal life with
adult life (7).
In the famous epic of Mahabharatham, Krishna tells Subhathra, his sister, who is
pregnant with a child (Abhimanyu), how to break into the military formation of
the city of Chakravyha (8). Unfortunately Krishna did not complete the story
and stoped in the middle, without telling how to get out of it, once the
formation is broken. At the age of 16 or so Abhimanyu got into the city of Chakravyha
but did not know how to come out of it. Beeing unsuccessful in his attempt to
get out of it, he was killed. This means that the child in the womb was able to
listen to the story and apply and put that information into practice in
real-life situation after birth. The story is from a Hindu mythology. These
religious stories can be accepted or rejected and need not to be questioned.
The following generalizations can be made:
1.
the foetus has the
ability to listen to conversations originating outside of its milieu;
2.
the foetus has the
ability to understand the essence of the conversation;
3.
it can learn and reason
out;
4.
can retain it in
postnatal life and put it into practice (9).
Among the Sikhs, the religious beliefs explicitly
underline that the moment of conception is the rebirth of a fully developed
person who has lived many previous lives. Each human being is born with a
purpose and his birth is never accidental. Each person has a store of memory
tracing from previous lives that is transferred and this together with
exercising free will in the present life will influence rebirth in the
next-one. The life of the foetus is pristine. The Sikh scripture describes the
foetus praying for salvation even upside-down while still in the womb. To be
born as a human is a gift, for only in this birth, by devotion to the Lord and
service to humanity, can salvation be achieved. The determination by abortion,
therefore sends the soul back into the karmic cycle of rebirth (10). The Sikh Gurus strictly condemned and abhorred the
practice of female foeticide and
infanticide (for reasons of dowry and social stigma), which has not
been practiced by the Sikhs. Hence, prenatal diagnosis for sex selection is
traditionally condemned. However, the neo-Sikhs have been taken to prenatal
diagnosis for sex selection like a duck-to-water since the standardisation of
the ultrasonography for sex selection during the late 1970s (11). This has been viewed with a clear conscience
because of economic stability, a personal 2-child norm and social status in the
wake of the non-stringent implementation of the Prenatal Diagnostic Act.
5. The issue of female foeticide and
infanticide with specific reference to the state of tamil nadu
The State of tamil nadu or “the Land of Tamil” is the most-southern state of India, situated in the southern Indian peninsula on the shores of the bay of bengal and the Indian Ocean. The capitol-city is Chennay (Madras). Around 62 million people live today in Tamil nadu. In terms of population, it holds the sixth position among the States and Union territories in the Country. The decadal growth rate of population during 1991-2001 slipped to 11,19%, from 15,39% during 1981-1991. The sex ratio (i.e. the number of females per thousand males) in the 2001 census of Tamil Nadu was 986, and for population from 0-6 years - 939. The interesting point is that more males have been recorded as beeing born in Sikh that in Hindu families, probably pointing to female foeticide and infanticide (for which no records exist).
According to recent report by the United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) up to 50 million girls and women are missing from
India’s population as a result of sistematic
gender discrimination in India
(12). In most countries in the world, there are
approximately 105 female births for every 100 males. In India, there are less
than 93 women for every 100 men in the population. The accepted reason for such
a disparity is the practice of female
foeticide and infanticide in India, prompted by the existence of a dowry system which requires the
family to pay out a great deal of money when a female child is married. Dowry or Dahej is the payment in cash
or/and kind by the bride’s family to the bridegrooms family along with the
giving away of the bride (called Kanyadaan)
in the Indian marriage. Kanyadaan is an important part of Indian marital rites.
Kanya means daughter, and
Daan means gift (13). For a poor family, the birth of a girl child can
signal the beginning of financial ruin and extreme hardship. However, this
anti-female bias is by no means limited to poor families. Much of the
discrimination is to do with cultural beliefs and social norms. Even in the
Atharva Veda it stays: “…the birth of a girl grant elsewhere; here, grant a
boy…”(14). These norms themselves must be challenged if this
practice is to stop.
Diagnostic teams with ultrasound scanners which
detect the sex of a child advertise with catchlines such as “spend 600 rupees
now and save 50,000 rupees later”. The implication is that by avoiding a girl,
a family will avoid payng a large dowry on the marriage of the daughter.
According to UNICEF, the problem is getting worse as scientific methods of
detecting the sex of a baby and of performing abortions are improving. These
methods are becoming increasingly available in rural areas of India, fuelling
fears that the trend towards the abortion of female foetuses is on the increase
(15).
The Pre-Natal Diagnostic
Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act was enacted in 1994 and was brought into
operation on January 1st 1996. This Act was intended to regulate the
use of pre-natal diagnostic techniques for detecting genetic and metabolic
disorders, chromosomal abnormalities, certain congenital mal-formations and/or
sex linked disorders. In practice, the techniques for pre-natal determination
of sex of the foetus led to female foeticide and reinforced the gender bias.
This technology is misused on a large scale for sex determination of the
foetus, and mostly if the foetus is pronounced as female, this prompts
termination of pregnancy bringing to an abrupt end the growth of an unborn
child (16).
The Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PNDT) has
been amended, and these amendments have come into operation from February 14th
2003 (17). Legaly, the PNDT upholds screening only for genetic
disorders in government approved institutes, yet female foeticide prevails.
Falling social and moral values in all strata of society whether illiterate,
highly educated or professionally qualified continues with this malpractice
aided by the medical practitioners, who indulge in it for financial gains even
though, recently, they have been placed under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986
(18). Those
in Government hospitals and charging nominal fees, however, have been exempted.
Various State government agencies and Medical associations are now questioning
the declining sex ratio and the laxity in the strict implementation of the
legislation. The Sikh Clergy through its Religious- and Sikh Temple-
organisations has issued a decree condemning female foeticide – it is still to
be seen if this will prevail among the Sikhs (19).
6. Conclusion
Deliberate discrimination against girl children takes several forms: nutritional denial, insufficient or delayed medical care, lack of attention causing emotional deprivation. The worst and the most recent one is the deliberate foeticide and infanticide of female foetuses, due to biomedical tests such as ultrasonography and the sex determination tests. This is a gross misuse of medical research procedures intended for detection of fatal deseases, which now permits the choice of bringing a baby to the world, according to the sex of the foetus. Much of the discrimination is to do with cultural beliefs and social norms. These norms themselves must be challenged if this practice is to stop.
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www.religioustolerance.org/sikhism.htm
Notes
(2) www.religioustolerance.org/sikhism.htm
(3) Ibid.
(4) Gandhi, G., Impact of
Modern Genetics: a Sikh Perspective, Asian Genomics, Cultural Values and
Bioethical Practice, Book of Papers, Leiden, 28-29 March 2002, pp. 2-3.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Ibid.
(7) Azariah, Jayapaul, Status
of Human Life and the Fetus in Hindu, Christian and Islamic Scriptures,
Bioethics in India, Eubios Ethics Institute, 1998, pp. 53-54.
(9) Azariah, Jayapaul, ibid.
(10) Gandhi, G., ibid., p. 4.
(11) J. R. Singh, Bioethics
of Sex Preference, Bioethics in Asia, Eubios Ethics Institute, 1998, pp.
398-402.
(12) www.indiafemalefoeticide.org
(16) www.datamationfoundation.org
(17) www.indiafemalefoeticide.org
(18) Verma, I., C., Ethics
and the Human Genome Studies and Genetic Services in India, Eubios Ethics
Institute, 1998, pp. 215-220.
(19) Sikh Clergy, Takht bans female foeticide – Offenders to be
excommunicated, The Tribune, April 18th, 2001.