Sex-Selective Abortion in India: Gender, Society and New Reproductive Technologies

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Tulsi Patel
SAGE Publications, 2007 - Medical - 432 pages
This collection of 11 essays unravels the reasons for the depleting child sex ratio in India. The contributors, all distinguished demographers and social scientists, describe the political economy of sentiments and sexual mores that leads parents to kill unborn daughters.

The contributors examine ways in which reproductive technologies, such as, the ultrasound, are misused at the family, community and state levels. In this alarming scenario, the volume highlights both the participation and defiance of the various authorities dealing with reproduction, health services and the problem of female foeticide. Engagement with the state is analysed in the light of colonial policies, the law of adoption, health policies, family planning programmes and the Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) Act of 1994 and its amendment in 2002.

Applying a multidisciplinary perspective to the problem of fewer girls being born in India, this volume addresses this critical issue with the help of qualitative and quantitative data, both historical and contemporary.

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About the author (2007)

Tulsi Patel is Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, Delhi. She has recently been Rotating Chair, India Studies at Heidelberg University, Germany for a full semester (2005–06). An Honorary Research Associate at the Department of Sociology, University of Manchester (2001–04), she has also undertaken teaching assignments at the London School of Economics and the Royal Holloway College of the University of London (1996–97). Professor Patel has previously taught at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi and Miranda House (University of Delhi). Her areas of interest include gender, anthropology of fertility and reproduction, medical sociology, sociology of the family, and old age. She has authored Fertility Behaviour: Population and Society in a Rajasthan Village (1994, 2nd edn 2006) and edited The Family in India: Structure and Practice (2005). In addition, she has published several articles in national and international journals.

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