Birthing the Nation: Sex Selection and Reproductive Justice in India
Aarna Dixit, LS & CAS '25
Bachelor of Arts: Global Liberal Studies
Bachelor of Arts: Social and Cultural Analysis
Acknowledgements
This thesis has been completed with the assistance and guidance of faculty and staff in the NYU undergraduate departments of Social and Cultural Analysis and Global Liberal Studies. I would especially like to thank my thesis advisors Professors Brendan Hogan (GLS) and Gayatri Gopinath (SCA). Additionally, it was through discussions and conversations with various professors and scholars that this thesis was possible; a huge thank you to everyone who has been involved in this endeavor.
A special thanks to Swasti, the public health organization based in Bangalore, India, that I worked with during Summer 2024, an experience that deepened my understanding of reproductive justice. I am deeply grateful to all the advocates, mentors and peers who have shaped my understanding of reproductive justice, especially the Teen Council of Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette, the Young Wxmen of Color for Reproductive Justice Council at Advocates of Youth, and the Reproductive Justice Collective of NY.
I would also like to thank my peers in my thesis workshops and my friends, for listening to my ideas and helping me refine my work. A special thanks to my mother and grandmother, for instilling in me values of resilience and advocacy, and my father, for always supporting me.
Abstract
This thesis explores reproductive justice in India through looking at sex selection and the manipulation of reproductive labor. Through this analysis, it seeks to raise larger questions regarding how national politics may interfere with reproductive justice and individual autonomy. The conceptualizations and interactions of the body and the nation are central to understanding global reproductive justice.
Sex selection in India, rather than being an autonomous choice, occurs due to various pressures and cultural understandings of gender, family and nationhood. This thesis is grounded in an examination of cultural practices and norms that create gender difference and devalue women’s bodies. Structures of colonialism, patriarchy and capitalism contribute to India’s national politics as well as understandings of gender and reproduction. The impacts of sex selection and the regulation of reproduction in India is linked to these cultural and gendered norms. Furthermore, utilizing social reproduction theory, the thesis seeks to build an understanding of how reproductive labor is exploited and alienated at the national level, while reproductive labor and parenthood are also seen as crucial for national development.
Bodies with uteruses have been charged with pressures to reproduce and maintain national identity through gestational reproductive labor as well as social reproduction. Even in moments of conflict, it is bodies with uteruses that become battlegrounds, subjects of conquest to reassert patriarchal, capitalist and colonial power. Disentangling these connections—between the nation, identity, the body and reproductive labor—is crucial for recentering individual autonomy and building an intersectional reproductive justice movement.
Introduction
This thesis analyzes sex selection in India through examining reproductive labor is manipulated for national development, specifically due to patriarchal and capitalist influences. The case study of India reflects larger, global implications regarding how national politics interfere with reproductive justice and how the nationalist agenda impedes individual autonomy. Regarding sex selection, this thesis explores how reproductive labor is exploited and deemed more valuable if it results in male offspring, and what this reflects about the national politics of India.
Individual autonomy is a central aspect of this analysis, particularly how it's affected by national agendas and hierarchies. As such, this paper seeks to disentangle how the regulation and control of reproduction sustains hierarchies, and what this means for individual autonomy. The primary aim of this thesis is to emphasize how nationalist politics impact reproductive justice, and why this is crucial to be addressed.
From the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. to the constitutionalization of abortion rights in France, there have been monumental shifts regarding reproductive justice across the world, some more positive than others. Nevertheless, conversations of reproductive justice in the Global South are often misrepresented or ignored in the larger discourse. When thinking beyond the Western mainstream of reproductive justice, India is an interesting case study, due to complex issues of population control, sex selective abortion and reproductive rights. Reproductive rights and justice in India have shifted greatly across time, especially with colonialism and partition. Additionally, the complex history of India has resulted in family planning becoming a central focus of national development.
Context of Sex Selection
Across the board, the discussion on sex selection and reproductive justice is complex, especially with respect to autonomy. Global discourse on sex selection has various perspectives, ranging from feminist and women-centered perspectives, anti-abortion views, and eugenics and gene modification related concerns (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 52).
For this thesis, the analysis of sex selection will be grounded in an exploration of the female body’s positioning in the Indian national discourse, alongside an analysis of the cultural and gender norms that persist in India. Questions of autonomy, gender relations, class and caste are crucial to addressing this issue. Additionally, social reproduction theory will be central to this thesis, building an understanding of how reproductive labor is exploited and alienated at the national level, while reproduction and family planning are also central to national development.
When discussing sex selection, the context is that of the gender binary. An intersectional feminist perspective to reproductive justice emphasizes that gender is a social construct, and thus a spectrum of identities. However, in the case of sex selection in India, gender is considered in the binary perspective. In an effort to hold a feminist perspective, any reference to “female bodies” or “women” in this thesis is meant to be inclusive of all peoples with uteruses. This thesis utilizes an intersectional, feminist lens, reflecting upon how hierarchies of gender, sexuality, caste, class and histories of colonialism and nationalism create the environment for sex selection.
Sex selection in India is a major issue, with the Child Sex Ratio being disproportionately skewed towards male offspring. According to the 2011 Population Census of India, the sex ratio was 943 females per 1,000 males (Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation). Women experience a variety of pressures to sex select, including gendered aspects of culture like dowries, family structures, and anxieties of population control. Currently, sex selection is illegal in India under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT Act) of 1994, later amended in 2003. However, even with this legislation, sex selection has continued to occur in India. Sex selection poses important questions regarding global feminisms, autonomy and reproductive justice.
Contextualizing Global Reproductive Justice
Reproductive justice is a visionary framework for building healthy, empowered communities. SisterSong defines Reproductive Justice “as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities” (Sister Song). A framework first developed by women of color activists in a US context, reproductive justice aims to “contest a range of hierarchies and forms of oppression that curtailed reproductive freedom” (Sreenivas, 2021, pg. 13).
Analyzing reproduction involves examining intersections that entangle individual reproducing bodies to the reproduction of a wider body politic, connecting systems of reproduction to larger systems of power (Sreenivas, 2021, pg. 11). As Professor Aiko Takeuchi Demirci argues, “the knowledge and discourses regarding female reproduction have been socially constructed to justify hierarchical power relations: between men and women, Westerners and non- Westerners, whites and nonwhites, and the elites and the masses” (Sreenivas, 2021, pg. 10). Reproductive justice is thus an intersectional framework that seeks to address various sociopolitical issues and hierarchies by emphasizing values of autonomy, equity and access. While in the Western context reproductive justice is often narrowed in on abortion rights, reproductive justice is so much more than that. Examining sex-selection and reproductive justice in India is just one way of understanding how various reproductive and gender justice issuesmanifest differently across different geopolitical contexts. A global framework of reproductive justice cannot be realized unless all people across the globe achieve liberation and autonomy. At the root of the reproductive justice movement is prioritizing the individual autonomy, choice and access of all people to live freely, rather than projecting the aims of the nation onto the body.
Chapter by Chapter Summary
Chapter 1, ‘Culture and Gender’, examines how the culture and history of India impact the current context of sex selection. This chapter analyzes how ideas of son preference, dowries, structures of colonialism, family norms and population control impact sex selection. Chapter 2, Sex Selection, delves deeper into the context of sex selection, child sex ratios and policies regulating sex selection. Phenomenona like missing women are also discussed in relation to the impacts of sex selection.Chapter 3, 'Woman and Nation,' focuses on the theoretical frameworks of this thesis, examining social reproduction theory, the nation, reproductive labor, and autonomy. It also discusses abortion rights, highlighting how national politics impact rights and justice movements.
Glossary:
Nation: a social organization based on a collective identity constituted by various factors such as race, ethnicity, language and culture. In Benedict Anderson’s words, an imagined political community (Anderson, B., 1983)
Reproductive Labor: sexual, gestational and social labor that goes into sustaining life and future generations. It is often associated with care-based/domestic labor (Renault, E., 2022).
Reproduction: Reproduction is the biological process of procreation. For the sake of this thesis, reproduction refers to both sexual and social reproduction. Social reproduction is the ongoing processes, primarily performed by women, of maintaining and reproducing the nation and society through caregiving activities like child rearing, household chores, and emotional labor ((Renault, E., 2022).
Autonomy: ability to make decisions and act independently. Through a reproductive justice framework, autonomy is the power to make and act on independent, informed decisions regarding one’s body and reproductive choices (Christman, J., 2020, June 29)
Woman/Female Bodies: any and all bodies with uteri
Chapter 1: It’s a Boy: Cultural Factors of Gender Difference and Sex Selection in India
India as a nation has complex cultural values and norms surrounding gender, family and reproductive normativity. Interlocking aspects of culture, religion, colonial influence, population control and gender function to idealize a small family with male offspring. Aspects of son preference and daughter aversion, small family norms, caste politics, population control, colonial influence, dowries and masculinity all play a huge role in setting the scene for pressures of sex selection in India. Notions of gender, marriage, and familial and national duty are central to the culture, and thus the formation of the family becomes significant to the formation of the nation as a whole.
Son Preference and Motherhood
For many women in India, motherhood is a central aspect of their identity. Women in patrilineal societies gain status through motherhood, specifically through producing sons for the family and the lineage. A son’s birth thus indicates a privilege for the mother. Against the backdrop of patriarchal cultural norms, the birth of a son is seen as an opportunity for upward mobility while the birth of a daughter is considered to result in downward economic mobility of the household and the family (Patel 2006, pg. 142). Such notions of gender, family and value place various direct and indirect pressures on women to produce male heirs. In this atmosphere, the worth and identity of the woman is entangled with her production of offspring, the shame associated with producing a girl child juxtaposed against the pride of having a son.
There seem to be various cultural reasons for preferring a son over a daughter in Indian society. The desire for the male offspring stems from various social institutions and economic pressures, as well as religious and cultural practices. Social institutions and foundational ‘values’ of the Indian nation shape the intense desire to have a boy child (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 134). Economic and social status play a huge role in this effect. The tradition of patrilocal residence, where a couple settles into the husband’s family’s home, motivates son preference. In some communities in India, a daughter is thought to be “paraya dhan”, which translates to “someone else’s wealth”, given structures of patriarchal matrimony that govern many women’s lives in India (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 134). Privilege, power and resources are often influenced by the institution of marriage and the role of consanguinity, in the larger context of the patrilineal, patrilocal family. Such gendered relationships are central to decisions regarding the sex distribution of children. Daughters are seen as more of an economic investment, within the circumstances of dowries and marriage matches, whereas sons are valued more due to male power and capital in the patriarchal hierarchy (John, Palriwala, Kaur, 2011, pg. 73). All of these factors play a role in how the patriarchal, nationalist culture is propagated.
In India, a culture of male privilege significantly influences social and familial structures. According to Mary John’s examination of son preference, cultural factors like patrilineal descent, patrilineal inheritance, and patrilocal residence are prevalent cultural factors that devalue female bodies. Patrilineal descent means it is considered that daughters cannot continue the family line, only sons can. Among India's predominant Hindu population, sons are believed to be the only ones who can perform important death and ancestral rituals. In all the sites examined by Mary John, the equal inheritance of family property by all sons is the dominant ideology and practice (John, Palriwala, Kaur, 2011, pg. 56). Factors cited to explain a culture of “son preference” include norms of dowry, sons as caretakers in old age, and inheritance practices (Kalantry, 2017, pg.136). These practices highlight that son preference is not an isolated phenomenon but is deeply embedded in social institutions. All these structures and “values” of the nation thus continue to devalue women and impact their reproductive freedoms.
There is also more nuance to how son preference and daughter aversion interact; they are not necessarily two sides of the same coin. In fact, aborting of female fetuses is more common during births of second female fetuses than first ones. Thus the issue may not necessarily be having girl children, but more so the lack of boys in a family. It is through the centering of masculine power that women and girls are sidelined and devalued. Furthermore, women often undergo multiple sex selective abortions in their search for the elusive male child, their bodies repeatedly laboring. The mother’s health and autonomy is thus neglected in the face of social pressures shaped by national politics.
Moreover, the problem of adverse child sex ratios is not an isolated product of son preference and daughter aversion. Rather, these influences occur in a context of the desire for the ‘small family’. Families often want one boy and one girl (and often in that order), and what most families are particularly fearful of is the possibility of being a daughter-only family (John, 2018, pg. 4).
The Ideal Family
Framing family and reproductive life has been central to the Indian national project. The Indian national family planning programme has been promoting a family of two children as the appropriate or ideal family for several decades now (John, Palriwala, Kaur, 2011, pg. 54). The growing dominance of a small-family norm in Indian family planning has contributed to the centering of heterosexuality and masculinity that scholars like Nivedita Menon identify as critical to modern nation-building projects. The small-family norm legitimized heterosexuality as serving the interests of national development (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare) . National politics have thus been central to the ideal formations of family and sexuality in India. According to Mythelli Sreenivas, emphasizing family planning as central to national development conceptualized discussions of sex, sexuality and reproduction in more “respectable" ideas of nation and family, removing any associations with the “obscene” (Sreenivas, 2021, pg. 56). Reproduction and sexuality are thus often considered unruly, unless they occur in accordance with national development. Such conceptualizations further impact gender roles and family ideals.
The idealized small family becomes representative of heteronormativity and national economic practices. In the History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault reflects upon the “socialization of procreative behavior” in modern European history, where he argues that “the “Malthusian couple” was a privileged object of knowledge within modern sexual discourses whose behaviors were regulated by “an economic socialization via all the incitements and restrictions, the ‘social’ and fiscal measures brought to bear on the fertility of couples, [and] a political socialization achieved through the ‘responsibilization’ of couples with regard to the social body as a whole. The “Malthusian couple” was thus expected to align its reproductive sexuality to meet economic need for the benefit of “the social body” (Sreenivas, 2021, pg. 168). As such, the heteronormative family has been placed at the center of Indian national development, and the pressure to meet economic and national needs through reproduction of offspring and culture is placed on bodies with uteruses.
As Sreenivas highlights, the small family thus promises prosperity to those who adhere to normative sexualities and economic rationalities. She states that “by reorganizing bodies and lives, the small-family norm offered nothing less than a modern family alongside a modern Indian future. Consequently, the discourse of the small family was far more than just a call for reproductive regulation. It also required transformations on multiple levels, from reorganizing time to rethinking kinship to reorienting toward consumption and markets. It called forth new logics that put heterosexuality in service of familial well-being and national development and imagined a global economy composed of such rational subjects” (Sreenivas, 2021,pg. 199). National development, legitimization of family structures, heteronormativity and reproductive control are all central to how sex selection plays out in India.
Dowries
Dowries play a huge role in the culture of marriage and family in India. Although dowries are prohibited under the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, the practice remains prevalent in many parts of India (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 135) (Biswas, S., 2021). Women are thus commodified through the institution of marriage and dowries. Caste, family heritage, class and positionality define the worth of mothers and the worth of their future offspring. In this sense, female bodies once again become objects to be traded and manipulated for national development projects, with conflicts of caste and class playing out on these bodies.
When it comes to cultural pressures towards sex selection against female fetuses, the dowry phenomenon plays a huge role. For example, in the 1980s, advertisements promoting sex determination tests were pervasive in India. One such advertisement stated, “Pay 500 rupees now and save 50,000 [in dowry] later” (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 135). Such advertisements reflected the cultural, gendered consciousness surrounding the devaluation of women in Indian society, especially in relation to wealth and economic capital. Structures of marriage are continually impacted by economy and national politics, which further impacts reproductive decisions such as sex selective practices.
Caste
When thinking about culture and gender in India, it is crucial to recognize the role of caste and religion as the factors that shape reproductive oppression within India. Caste is and has been a central aspect of nation building in India. The current context of Hindu nationalism exacerbates gendered and reproductive oppression by targeting the reproductive rights of those who are oppressed by caste and religion hierarchies (Rajat and McLaren, 2023, pg. 80).
Indian feminist scholar Tamalapakula states that the “caste system is maintained not only by its unequal distribution of resources and superiority/ inferiority of each caste with regard to the immediate caste/sub-caste but also by controlling and/or exploiting women” (n.d., 7). Caste and patriarchal hegemonies are upheld simultaneously through the manipulation and control of women's sexuality and reproduction.
While sex-selection as a phenomena is pervasive across caste brackets (Nagpal 2013), the hegemonies of caste are still important to contextualize sex selection (Rajat and McLaren, 2023, pg. 87). Caste is maintained through endogamy, the custom of marrying only within the limits of one's clan or caste. According to B.R. Ambedkar, endogamy is essential to the reproduction of the caste system, maintaining the separation of the castes and preventing their fusion. In such a manner, marriage and family structures are further controlled by nationalist politics and hierarchies (Rajat and McLaren, 2023, pg. 87). Such a systemic division and fragmentation of communities in India impacts how different bodies are valued and devalued all the more, and what family structures are legitimized. As such, caste, marriage, family and reproduction are interconnected and together work to generate an attitude of son preference (Rajat and McLaren, 2023, pg. 88). In relation to sex selection, the caste census was discontinued after independence from British colonization, and thus it is difficult to directly relate sex ratios to caste and status. Nevertheless, it is important to consider the general devaluation and ‘disciplining’ of lower caste women’s bodies, and how this is part of the larger culture of nationalist politics impacting reproductive autonomy and freedom.
Colonialism and Reproductive Justice
The circumstances of sex selection, abortion and reproductive justice in India have been greatly influenced by colonialism and national development. Colonialism seeks to dismantle and distort the values and foundations of a nation while implementing new norms and policies. As women are viewed as the progenitors of colonized subjects, cultures and values, they face disproportionate violence and subjugation by colonial projects (Rajat and McLaren, 2023, pg. 84). In many ways, colonial policies and modern Indian national values have both worked to further patriarchy and reproductive oppression.
The Western liberal choice and reproductive rights approach can fall short to disentangle the complexities of reproductive justice, specifically sex selection, in a colonial context. Colonial ideas regarding gender, nation, progress and modernity have impacted India’s current development and reproductive policies (Rajat and McLaren, 2023, pg. 94). To sufficiently analyze reproductive justice issues in India, utilizing postcolonial theory with attention to neo-colonial power relations and national hegemonies is essential. An expanded decolonial reproductive justice framework must include analyses of how gender, class, caste, religion, and geopolitical contexts shape reproductive policies within India. Gendered, reproductive bodies have become a site to enact national development plans, and thus reproductive politics are enmeshed in postcolonial, nationalist development (Sreenivas, 2021). Women are the social and gestational reproducers of the nation, and in a sense the nation and national identity becomes a site of conflict and resistance against coloniality and patriarchy. As Sanjula Rajat and Margaret A. McLaren state, “the nation emerges as a salient and complex lens of analysis for understanding national independence and identity: as a counterpoint to colonial rule, as a site of struggle over reproduction, but also as a normatively gendered social and political construction thoroughly imbued with patriarchal ideologies of the family and its relationship to the nation” (Rajat and McLaren, 2023, pg. 84). Understanding concepts of the nation and nationalism are crucial to not only understanding sex selection in India, but also building a global reproductive justice framework, which Chapter 3 will further elaborate on.
The colonial project, like the one in India, aims to frame certain religions and populations as inherently backward, barbarians and savages. In this sense, the reproduction and autonomy of the colonized peoples was devalued and manipulated. The hierarchies and patriarchy upheld by colonial powers continue after colonization to subjugate the subaltern for the sake of the nation (Rajat and McLaren, 2023, pg. 81). British Imperialism in India sought to resolve ‘social evils’ through their social reform movements and the ‘civilizing mission.’ Feminist historians like Veena T. Oldenburg trace the roots of discrimination and violence against women and girls in contemporary India to the prejudicial policies of the colonial administration (Kipgen, 2023, pg. 54). Feminist postcolonial theory further examines the functions of gender and intersecting social identities regarding the impact of colonialism on shaping gender and womanhood. As such, colonial policies and influence have impacted how gendered bodies and reproduction is controlled, especially with phenomena like sex selection and son preference.
Impact of Colonization: Sex Selection, Masculinity and Population Control
The colonialist discourse around sex-selective abortion drew upon Orientalist views of Indians as barbaric and uncivilized. Introduced by postcolonial theorist Edward Said, Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the ‘Orient’” (Said, 1979, pg. 3). Orientalism functions as a justification of colonialism, by portraying colonized subjects as in need of civilizing and controlling. This is akin to the project of controlling women’s bodies along hegemonies of class, caste, ethnicity and religion in an effort to civilize and legitimize the nation’s families. Orientalism also plays out in terms of representation, or rather misrepresentation of the East and West as inherently different, with the West as supposedly superior (Said, 1979, pg. 104–109; Rajat and McLaren, pg. 83). In this effect, Western reproductive rights are often unable to align themselves or understand Global South reproductive justice and liberation movements due to distortive stereotypes and discriminations of Global South women primarily as victims in need of saving. In the case of India, Indian women were positioned as targets of the colonial project, but also used to rationalize colonial projects on the grounds of progressiveness and civilizing motives. British colonial powers in India rebuked practices like sex selection and sati to protray Indian communities as backwards and barabaric, while continuing to implement policies that would nevertheless further disenfranchise women and marginalized people. Colonial administrators also criticized and delegitimized Indian women’s sexuality and autonomy by arguing that Indian marital, sexual, and familial practices were primarily responsible for Indian impoverishment, once again placing pressures for national development on reproducing bodies (Sreenivas, 2021, pg.32). Women became emblematic of the Indian tradition that British colonizers were trying to suppress, emphasizing how women’s bodies become a space for national politics to play out. The experiences of Indian women under British colonization depict the larger dialectics of gender and coloniality.
Some of the ways the colonial administration impacted the gendered culture in India was through altering policies regarding landed property. Imperial economic policies declared men as the sole proprietors of landed property. While landed property was previously considered a collective and communal asset, the colonial recruitment of male proprietors led to a more “masculine” economy (Kipgen, 2023, pg. 54). Such confluences of masculinity, economy and capitalistic power from the colonial era have continued to influence gender and culture in modern day India.
Population control has been a central influencing factor on sex selection. During colonization, this phenomenon of population control was all the more prevalent. Under the constraints of British rule, Indian industries and resources were depleted and exploited. There was no relief for the “excess” population, since all land was already occupied through colonization. In this context, controlling the Indian population was a central colonial agenda. Population growth in India was viewed as disorderly/undisciplined, further invoking Orientalist and racist stereotypes of “hypersexualized, hyper-fertile” peoples who lacked self-control, and who’s reproductive and sexual practices went against the norm (Rajat and McLaren, 2023, pg. 89). Together, fears regarding the population emphasized a reproductive politic that linked conjugality to economy, which the current ideal of the small family is emblematic of.
Conclusion
The complex history and culture of India certainly has propelled social pressures to sex select. From dowries and son preference to coloniality and population control, there are a variety of factors that play a role in devaluing women’s reproductive labor and autonomy in India.
Understanding these underlying sociocultural factors helps us reflect on how issues of sex selection and reproductive justice should be tackled.
CHAPTER 2: Selecting for Sex, Regulating Reproduction
Regulating Sex Selection in India and the PCPNDT Act
Sex selection is a major reproductive justice issue in India, a prevalent phenomena despite being currently prohibited by law. In the 1970s, amniocentesis tests were introduced in India. They were initially designed to test for fetal abnormalities, but could also be used to identify the sex of a fetus. The use of amniocentesis for sex determination was banned in government hospitals in 1978, but private clinics began to fill the growing demand (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 127).
The pervasiveness of sex selection in India has been documented across socioeconomic and regional divides, affecting both affluent and impoverished areas. It is considered that Northern and Western rural regions have a higher prevalence of sex selection (Kaur and Kapoor, 2021; UNFPA 2014). Sex selection became widespread in the 1980s and 1990s in India with the advent and distribution of ultrasound machines. Sonograms were being used to detect the sex of the fetus. After low child sex ratios (CSRs) came to light in the early 1980s, government concerns over sex-selective abortion initially led to unofficial restrictions on fetal diagnostics tests and legal abortions (Kipgen, 2023, pg. 61). To further prevent this practice, the government of India enacted the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PNDT) in 1994, which prohibited the use of ultrasounds and amniocentesis to determine the sex of the fetus after conception. The law adopted in 1994 had only addressed post-implantation methods of sex selection, but with technology rapidly evolving in India, methods of pre-implantation sex selection became available on the market (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 142). In 2002, the Indian Parliament acknowledged this gap and amended the PDNT, changing its title to “The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act” (PCPNDT). The PCPNDT prohibits medical professionals in India from revealing the sex of a fetus and increases the penalties and regulations targeted at clinics. (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 142). Although the law does not restrict abortion directly, the PCPNDT denies people information about their bodies, thus in a sense calling into question the reproductive autonomy of a woman. These tensions between sex selection and reproductive autonomy are central to examining reproductive justice in India.
Sex selection in India has become its own industry. Before the law banning sex selection and determination came into effect, there was widespread collusion between government family planning and health workers in aiding and abetting sex-selective abortions. The impact of the ban on sex selection has also been very contested. Despite PNDT and PCPNDT, the use of ultrasound was found to be rampant across sites in India (John, Palriwala, Kaur, 2011,pg. 62). Reportedly, national sex ratios have only gotten more male-skewed since the adoption of the law (Kalantry, 2017). It has been claimed that the law is inherently difficult to enforce, as ultrasounds are not completely banned, and are a common part of prenatal care practices. It is difficult to prevent medical professionals from revealing the sex of fetuses in the privacy of patient rooms (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 143). The implementation of the law is thus inherently weak. While it is true that sex ratios have only gotten more male-skewed since the introduction of the ban on sex determination, one study in Maharashtra suggests that the ban had some merit. Six years before a ban was adopted by the central government, the state of Maharashtra acted to ban sex selection. Through a difference-in-difference analysis, economists concluded that although the sex ratio in Maharashtra got worse after the adoption of the ban, it was nevertheless better than the sex ratios in neighboring states (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 141). These dynamics of banning sex selection and their efficacy reflect political regulation of reproduction and cultural pushbacks. In evaluating the ban in India, it is important to consider its effectiveness in actually curbing sex selection. Policy approaches to sex selection prevention often work as a carpet solution, banning the practice but not truly addressing the underlying structural and cultural conditions that give rise to the practice.
Child Sex Ratios
Sex ratios are an important aspect of analyzing sex selection. Sex selection poses a threat to gender equality in a given society more so if the at-birth sex ratio is skewed, as has been the case in India. Once it appears that the at-birth sex ratio is severely imbalanced in any society, it then becomes important to examine the root causes and consequences of such an imbalance. However, societal impacts may not be noticed for decades after the recording of a skewed at-birth sex ratio. Thus one approach would be to wait until the consequences of widespread sex selection are tangible before adopting policy responses to the practice (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 70). Additionally, in India, a significant portion of births go unregistered, and thus the “child sex ratio” is more reliable; it measures the ratio of girls to boys who are six years of age and younger. This data is generated by the Indian government during a census. The child sex ratios are calculated as the number of females for every 1000 males. Under the Indian context, if there were no parental intervention or sex selection, normal child sex ratios would be anywhere between 930 and 970 women to 1000 men. However, the actual child sex ratio in India is highly skewed in favor of boys. The child sex ratio in the 2011 census was 914, which dropped from 927 in the 2001 Census, suggesting that sex selection became more widespread in that decade (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 129). It is important to note that the Indian Census hasn’t happened since 2011, an interruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but a census is expected to take place soon. However, this means that data on child sex ratios and thus the pervasiveness of sex selection is not very recent. Additionally, there have been other reasons cited that influence the sex ratio, like the improved life chances of men, poverty, and malnutrition. Sex selection is not the sole factor shifting the child sex ratio, but nevertheless a central influence to address, especially in regards to reproductive justice.
Impacts of Sex Selection and Missing Women
The skewed sex ratio overall reflects the ‘shortage’ of women in Indian society. Amartya Sen drew attention to the maltreatment of women when he coined the phrase “missing women.” In 1990, Sen stated that more than 100 million women were missing across the world due to social inequalities and structural oppression (Kalantry, 2017, pg.128). In the case of India, an estimated 6.8 million fewer female births will be recorded across the nation by 2030 because of the pervasive use of selective abortions (Dhillon, 2020). India’s skewed ratio of men to women reflects ingrained cultural and social attitudes regarding gender. Men are seen as worthy breadwinners and pillars of the family and nation, whereas women are seen as a burden.
Ideas of gender, tradition, and culture impact sex selection in India, and practices of sex selection with a son preference further impede gender equity. Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. Den Boer, international relations scholars, argued about the potential adverse impact of a surplus of unmarried men in Asia, stating that young men lacking “stable bonds” commit the most violent crimes (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 156). Indeed, emerging empirical studies about sex selection in India have indicated that a shortage of women is associated with an increase in violence against women. On the other hand, studies suggest that a “positive” impact is that some women are able to marry into higher castes and social classes when there is a shortage of women (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 48). However, while this social mobility seems like a plus, the idea that women need to marry upwards to increase their value once again perpetuates patriarchal norms regarding gender, marriage, and sexuality. Feminist scholar Mary Ann Warren emphasizes context in her sex ratio theory. She states that a shortage of women would harm women in societies where they have lower economic and sociopolitical agency (Kalantry, 2017, pg.72). Warren’s analysis takes into account the different levels of structural inequalities across different societies and countries. Warren emphasizes that sex selection and daughter aversion could increase patriarchal violence and structural oppression. In this sense, the politics of sex selection in India manipulate reproductive labor to further propel gendered systems of oppression.
Sex-Selective Abortions in India and National Development
The aforementioned laws and sociopolitical factors surrounding sex selection reflect complicated tensions of developmental politics, individual agency, and structural oppression (Rajat and McLaren, 2023, pg. 88).
Material and gender-based hegemonies are at the crux of sex selection. In the 1990s, with increased foreign investment in India’s economy came a new era of liberalization. This liberalization led to the rise of the middle class, with consumption and labor practices evolving accordingly. For some, this newfound wealth in the middle class enabled access to sex determination tests, while others argued that liberalization created an increased demand for dowries and lavish weddings, driven by a renewed rise in consumerism. Economic practices and national developments thus further propelled desires to have a boy child to secure dowries and made it more expensive to have a girl child (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 138). As such, sex selection exists in the confluence of cultural patriarchal norms and neoliberal economic practices, both impacting reproductive decision-making.
Conclusion
Understanding the historical and present sociocultural context of sex selection and its regulation is central to advocating for reproductive justice in India. Aspects such as child sex ratios, policies like the PCPNDT and phenomena of missing women are all central to examining sex selection in India. Looking at sex selection, reproductive labor and social reproduction lens helps us understand reproductive justice in the patriarchal and material conditions that we exist in.
Chapter 3: Birthing the Nation: Woman, Nation and Reproductive Labor
The woman and the nation have always been entangled. This is no different in the case of India, where reproduction and family planning has been central to national development projects. Reproduction became a public and political issue in the late nineteenth century, with a rise in anxieties about the size of India’s population (Sreenivas, 2021, pg.9). Reforming individual reproduction thus became a way to influence the life and culture of India as a whole. As Mythelli Sreenivas argues, late nineteenth-century reproductive politics engaged in claims about colonial poverty, the nation, its sovereignty, and modern development. Essentially, reproductive politics became the terrain on which anxieties about India’s identity and future as a nation played out. The entanglement of “private” domains of reproducing bodies with “public” sphere of nations and states is central to reproductive justice issues like sex selection (Sreenivas, 2021, pg.9). Reproductive regulation has been an essential component of India’s development regime. Bodies with uteruses are the focal point regarding the vitality of the nation, and gendered bodies thus bear the pressures of national development.
To foster true reproductive justice, it is paramount to center people and their autonomy. Sreenivas advocates for thinking of reproductive justice as a “tool for women’s self-emancipation, rather than for individual or national self-governance” (Sreenivas, 2021, pg.88). Many feminists have spoken similarly on the issue of reproductive autonomy and control. S. Nilavati stated, “It is women who experience the benefits and difficulties that come with having children, they should be the ones to control reproduction” (Sreenivas, 2021, pg.88). However, complete reproductive autonomy and choice are, as of yet, somewhat of a utopian dream. Reproduction does not exist in isolation, rather it is intertwined in a wider net of social, economic, and political relationships.
Indian feminists have frequently discussed these phenomena of reproductive labor and justice. During the All India Women’s Conference presidential address in 1946, Hansa Mehta emphasized that “ a woman shall have a right to limit her family. It is the woman who has to suffer bearing children… bringing them up in a civilized way. The right to decide the family should therefore belong to her. Women should be conscious of this right which she must learn to exercise for her own good, for the good of the family and for the good of the country. India is over-populated and its population is going up while her resources are limited” (Sreenivas, 2021, pg.98). Mehta’s address is interesting in that it conflates the ideas of individual reproductive autonomy with the politicization of reproduction for the nation’s benefit. Mehta’s statement seems to propose that yes, women should take charge of their autonomy and reproduction, and use it in a way to benefit the nation. However, the continuous politicization of reproductive labor for national benefit inherently takes away from individual autonomy and choice. True reproductive justice and rights can only be fostered in an environment of complete autonomy of reproductive choice and agency.
Nation, Nationalism and the Body
Nationalism is a central concept to this thesis. There has been much discourse on what concepts like the nation and nationalism constitute, specifically by scholars like Anthony Smith, Anna Triandafyllidou and Benedict Anderson. In his book National Identity, Smith formulates a definition of the nation, as ‘a named human population sharing an historic territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members’ (Smith, 1991, p. 14). The collective identity aspect is central to the nation, but so is the idea of the ‘other’. In her essay “National Identity and the “Other”, Anna Triandafyllidou explores how nationalism systematically alienates certain groups for the sake of the national agenda. According to her, the nationalist doctrine contains three fundamental propositions. “First, the world is divided into nations. Each nation has its own culture, history and destiny that make it unique among other nations. Second, each individual belongs to a nation. Allegiance to the nation overrides all other loyalties.” (Triandafyllidou, 1998, pg. 595). As depicted by Triandafyllidou and Smith, the nation becomes a conceptualization of power, and duty and allegiance to the nation becomes a priority. It is in this context of nationalism that gendered othering occurs, and bodies with uteruses are pressured to sacrifice their individual autonomy for national agendas.
Benedict Anderson’s work Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism is another central text for understanding the development of nationalism. Anderson argues that nations are not just ancient communities united by history, blood, language, culture and/or territory, but rather a collective imagination bound together by national myths and values (Anderson, 1983). The constructed nation produces frameworks of identity and gender. Women and bodies with uteruses become central to these national imaginations and formations, and in upholding the myths and traditions of the nation through social reproduction. But often, these same national imaginations and values alienate the woman, making the reproducer of the nation a paradoxical internal other.
To understand the interaction of reproductive justice and the nation, it is important to also understand how the body is conceptualized in context of the nation and the public. In her text “Visualizing the Body”, Oyeronke Oyewumi reflects on the “notion of society that emerges from this conception is that society is constituted by bodies and as bodies” (Oyewumi, 2005, pg.3).
She references Naomi Scheman’s discussion of the body politic in premodern Europe: “The ways people knew their places in the world had to do with their bodies and the histories of those bodies, and when they violated the prescriptions for those places, their bodies were punished, often spectacularly. One’s place in the body politic was as natural as the places of the organs in one’s body, and political disorder [was] as unnatural as the shifting and displacement of those organs” (Oweyumi, 2005, pg. 5). How the nation influences the body politic and understandings of gendered bodies is crucial to understanding sex selection and reproductive labor.
Oyewumi goes on to say that the “body is the bedrock on which the social order is founded, the body is always in view and on view. As such, it invites a gaze, a gaze of difference, a gaze of differentiation—the most historically constant being the gendered gaze” (Oweyumi, 2005, pg.4). Oyewumi emphasizes how differences and hierarchy are enshrined on bodies, and gendered bodies in turn enshrine differences and hierarchy. The case of sex selection highlights the complex meanings and values embedded and encoded in bodies, and how gendered bodies are considered under the national project.
The nation and the gendered body are often in conflict. India has had its own particular, gendered national project, which results in reproductive justice issues like sex selection. Indian political theorist Partha Chaterjee reflects upon how femininity and the ‘Indian woman’ is conceptualized within frameworks of the nation, especially within the colonial context. Chaterjee emphasizes how norms for organizing family life and determining the right conduct for women within the modern world became a concern of the national agenda. The family is thus entangled in wider social relations. Women become emblematic of national culture and tradition, and the family becomes a representation of the nation. Marriage and reproduction become central to the national project. Chaterjee states that “nationalism was not simply about a political struggle for power: it related the question of the political independence of the nation to virtually every aspect of the material and spiritual life of the people” (Chaterjee, 1989, pg. 624). Mrinalini Sinha further elucidates the role of Indian women in the reconstitution of the nationalist project. She refers to Chaterjee, stating,
“Thus, the primary and real originality of Indian nationalism, according to Chatterjee, lay in the cultural project of fashioning an inner identity where the "difference" and autonomy of the nation could be located. The burden of representing the inner and authentic realm of the nation in nationalist discourse fell largely on the figure of the "modern Indian woman." The discourse of Indian nationalism thus offered new subject positions to women as the signifiers of an essentialized ‘Indianness’. This nationalist construct of the modern Indian woman was defined as distinct from, on the one hand, orthodox, lower-caste and lower-class women in India and, on the other hand, from Westernized or Western women. The cultural-nationalist project of fashioning the modern Indian woman, therefore, necessarily included some limited emancipation of, and even self-emancipation by, women within its own gendered logic” (Sinha, 2000, pg. 624-25).
Sinha and Chaterjee thus provide a succinct analysis of how the Indian national project positioned women, and how gendered frameworks of marriage, family, and motherhood constituted the national culture. A woman’s body becomes not her own, but a space for national politics to play out. For example, in the case of dowries, class and caste conflicts play out on female bodies, and in the case of sex selection, patriarchal influences act upon female bodies. The body and the nation are thus intricately intertwined.
Social Reproduction Theory, Reproductive Labor and the Nation
The politicization of bodies with uteruses and the manipulation of reproductive labor for national development is a pervasive phenomenon. Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) can help examine how reproductive labor is exploited in nationalist, capitalist settings. SRT accounts for the role of invisible reproductive labor in capitalism, and the interaction between capitalist production and the reproduction of capitalist social relations (Bryson, 2023). Reproductive labor and domestic labor such as childcare, cooking, and cleaning— usually unwaged work performed by women— were not considered a mainstream “economic” activity and were thus excluded from the public sphere and discourse. Silvia Federici’s Wages Against Housework reflects upon the invisibility, sexualization, and naturalization of care-based and reproductive labor, a framework that translates to gestational labor (Federici, 1975). The woman is made invisible, exploited for her labor, and seen as a vessel to reproduce the patriarchal nation. Sidelined from the national, public sphere, women’s labor becomes susceptible to manipulation, as is the case with sex selection and the inherent pressures to produce male offspring.
To understand the alienation and exploitation of reproductive labor, theorizing gestational labor is important. Gestational labor is defined as labor that “through the reproduction of human beings, produces “both place and history” (Lewis, 2018, pg. 208). While gestational labor and social reproduction are not interchangeable, they are inextricably linked. Just as social reproduction “reproduces the central social relations of the capitalist mode of production itself,” gestational labor reproduces the social relations of capitalism in addition to labor power (Ferguson and McNally, 2013) (Bryson, 2023). Thus, women reproduce the nation but are themselves alienated within it, their agency and labor exploited. Reproductive labor is at once external to mainstream economic systems and the nation, yet central to reproducing and maintaining these systems (Renault, E., 2022, July 28). The specificities of how certain women are more external to the nation than others based on class, caste, and status are also essential to consider when examining sex selection. Women in India are not completely disenfranchised, but many women, especially in lower-class and rural areas, nevertheless lack agency over their reproductive labor. Social reproduction functions as the reproduction of labor power as well as capitalist social relations (Bryson, 2023). In a sense, sex selection in the context of a son preference culture functions to reproduce patriarchal, capitalist relations. Women’s reproductive labor is alienated and exploited from them to reproduce the systems that further oppress them. The nation seeks to exploit reproductive labor to uphold national structures such as those of caste, family and gender.
Alienation is the unavoidable condition of capitalism under which the worker lacks control over their labor (Marx, 1994). This is very true for women, especially women in India who face various social pressures and a lack of agency. Arlie Russell Hoschild, following Marx’s modeling, provides four views of the worker’s alienation: alienation from the product of one’s labor, alienation from the acts of production (or labor process), alienation from the worker’s own humanity, and alienation of the worker from society (Hochschild, 1983). Women face all these forms of alienation, exacerbated by their oppression in society. Cinzia Arruzza’s conceptualization of alienation argues that some forms of labor are more alienating than others. The more personal, private, or intimate emotional engagement of the worker, the more acutely they experience alienation (Bryson, 2023). If the level of alienation a worker experiences can be affected by the level of control they have over their labor and the extent of emotional engagement, then reproductive labor manipulated for national development is perhaps more alienating than waged market labor, given the lack of agency and height of emotional labor that goes into gestational labor. When feeling external pressures to have sex-selective abortions, women can experience alienation from the labor process, from themselves, and their bodies (Bryson, 2023). Thinking about alienation in the context of the nation and bodies is central to addressing reproductive justice issues like sex selection. Social reproduction and reproductive labor are crucial concepts to understanding global reproductive justice, specifically in terms of how systems and bodies interact and reproduce.
How Reproduction is Valued and Devalued
Issues of population growth further complicate how reproductive labor is manipulated for national development. British economist Thomas Malthus in his 1798 book An Essay on the Principle of Population theorized that population growth will always outpace the growth of the food supply and resources (Malthus, 1976). Malthusian ideas about “the population” and its relationship to place, reproduction, and economy saturated colonial and national framings of women’s bodies in the Indian context. Fears about global population increase— especially in Asia, Africa, and Latin America - were further propelled during World War II and its aftermath due to food scarcity. These fears promoted a mission to control population growth on a worldwide scale (Sarcar, 2021). Gendered, classed, and racialized anxieties of the “population bomb” were at the base of various campaigns to tackle population growth in India (Sreenivas, 2021, pg. 105). As fears about population grew alongside campaigns for national development and power in global hegemonies, it was women’s reproduction that was targeted and exploited.
Efforts of mass population control have often called for the manipulation of reproductive rights and labor of women. Feminist critics of population control have made visible the anti-women underpinnings of this discourse and have challenged the Neo-Malthusian assumptions that blame reproduction, rather than the unequal distribution of resources. The representation of Indian women’s bodies as “targets to be sacrificed for national need” aligned with global representations of a population “explosion” caused by the “Third World Woman’s” reproduction (Sreenivas, 2021, pg. 141). Control of reproduction was thus influenced by both national and global politics, both playing out on women’s bodies. In India, like much of the Global South, the bodies of subaltern women were further positioned as bombs to be defused (Sreenivas, 2021, pg.138).
Such rhetoric of family planning and reproductive control reflects questions regarding which bodies, and which peoples, have been considered fit to reproduce, and how reproduction is valued differently in certain circumstances.
At the core of the Indian family planning agenda was the understanding of women and parents as reproductive subjects whose main contribution to national development was the limitation and manipulation of their fertility (Sreenivas, 2021, pg.125). The family planning project in India promised to improve the health of impoverished families by containing and regulating their reproduction (Sreenivas, 2021,pg. 52). The primary goal was economic development through stabilizing population growth, with the additional appeal of health. It was expected that the general public would become “more governable” and willing to adhere to the state's development regime if they were promoted the health benefits of family planning (Sreenivas, 2021, pg.119). As such, the population control and family planning projects in India have existed on the grounds of state control, manipulating the reproduction of the individual for the benefit of the nation. These strategies have further influenced the environment of sex selection and reproduction in contemporary India. Population control and sex selection have functioned in tandem throughout Indian history. A central question raised by the issue of sex selection is when reproductive labor is valued, which offspring are valued, and which woman is worthy of producing sons for the nation. Sex selection emerges at the nexus of patriarchy, capitalism, and nationalism, and reproductive rights in India are thus governed by heteronormative and traditionalist ideas of family and gender.
Autonomy
When thinking about reproductive labor, sex selection, and the nation, the questions of autonomy and agency are at the crux of it all. Within reproductive justice, autonomy is the power to make and act on independent, informed decisions regarding one’s body and reproductive choices. Exploitation of reproductive labor and autonomy are conflicting issues in the case of sex selection. The central tension is that sex selection is problematic to reproductive and gender justice, but prohibiting sex selection can also be seen as impeding reproductive autonomy. The general consensus in India is that sex selection in favor of boys is problematic and should be prevented. Feminists like Vibhuti Patel emphasize that “from 1976 onwards, the women’s movement in India has consistently campaigned to create public opinion against this form of femicide so that Indian women don’t become endangered species within the next 50 years” (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 141). However, there are differing global feminist perspectives on the issue of sex selection. In line with the liberal and universal feminist perspective, the Center for Reproductive Rights, an international reproductive rights organization, opposes sex selection bans in all contexts. Instead of regulating sex-selective abortion, it proposes that the Indian government should focus on gender justice and anti-discrimination policies and campaigns, rather than limiting reproductive rights. Rachel Rebouché describes this perspective as the “anti- discrimination” approach (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 55). This perspective does capture the importance of addressing the underlying sociocultural factors that perpetuate practices like sex selection, rather than further policing bodies. Feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon states that “In a context of mass abortions of female fetuses, the pressures on women to destroy potential female offspring are tremendous and oppressive unless restrictions exist. While under conditions of sex inequality monitoring women’s reasons for deciding to abort is worrying, the decision is not a free one, even absent governmental intervention, where a male life is valued and a female life is not” (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 56). Mckinnon’s perspective highlights that sex selection is a unique case of autonomy and reproductive rights, and it might be permissible to prohibit sex selection if we consider that women’s reproductive rights in India are infringed upon in any case.
Nivedita Menon recently questioned whether restrictions on sex selection go against a woman’s right to privacy, autonomy, and reproductive rights in general. Of course, there is also the underlying factor of population control and the perspective that sex selection should not be curbed because it helps control overpopulation (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 149). Views like these raise the question of how gendered bodies are valued and devalued in terms of population and reproduction.
Overall, the question persists: Is sex selection still a question of autonomy? Tackling conflicting values of autonomy and gender justice in this context involves reflecting on whether the harmful consequences on society are great enough to justify impinging on certain individual rights. Furthermore, it could be argued that coercive sex selection against the backdrop of patriarchy and capitalism is in itself a violation of reproductive justice. Restricting sex selection does not necessarily mean infringing on reproductive rights if women were being pressured or influenced by external, sociocultural factors in the first place.
Sital Kalantry argues that the restrictions on sex selection may be justifiable in certain contexts. She states that is appropriate to limit sex selection in countries where there is evidence of the practice being so widespread that it is harming other women and girls. However, if such negative consequences are not pervasive, then bans on sex selection are unnecessary and would impede reproductive autonomy (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 47). In her book Women’s Rights and Migration, Kalantry also talks about how a universalist approach to sex selection and reproductive justice in general can be problematic. Often, if a practice or phenomenon is thought to suppress gender equality in one country, most assume it will have a similar impact in any other country. As such, some liberal feminists take a universal position toward sex selection on the principles of autonomy and a person’s right to terminate a pregnancy, stating that it should not be prohibited. However, issues of reproductive justice differ across nations, and as Kalantry states, in countries like India sex selection serves to continue a cycle of gendered oppression and devaluation of women (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 13).
While access to abortion has been a central, global reproductive rights issue, the practice of sex-selective abortion complicates discussions of reproductive rights in terms of choice, coercion, autonomy, and gender discrimination. A preference for sons, the systematic devaluation of women, and patriarchal norms of status and power account for the phenomenon of sex-selective abortion. Research shows that women seeking a sex-selective abortion are likely to have less autonomy and lower decision-making power, and might feel pressured by extended family and cultural politics (Kalantry, 2017). As such, the presence of individual autonomy in decisions of sex selection is up for debate. A decontextualized liberal pro-choice framework of abortion rights, which views sex selection as a violation of autonomy, thus fails to encapsulate the full picture of sex-selective abortion in India as a manifestation of structural gender violence and patriarchal coercive conditions.
The balancing act of emphasizing the right of women to control their bodies while addressing sex selection’s impact on gender justice is an important aspect of reproductive justice in India. While women’s reproductive rights and agency are crucial, it is important to note that sex selection can also affect the wider environment of gender justice. Kalantry concludes that while she agrees with the liberal feminist position that restrictions on sex-selective abortion can infringe on women’s reproductive liberties, she also believes in a perspective that allows for certain restrictions on sex selection if the practice functions oppressively in a certain society (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 48). Kalantry’s approach emphasizes taking into account harm to women as a group and allowing for limitations on individual autonomy if it promotes wider gender equality. Recognizing the need for a new understanding of sex selection, Mallika Kaur Sarkaria argues that the practice of sex selection in India challenges Western concepts of “choice” and must be reevaluated from a global feminist perspective (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 51).
There are various feminist opinions regarding sex selection, with priorities of autonomy, gender justice, and geopolitical context complicating the discourse. Many feminists want to preserve a woman’s right to choose and avoid taking positions that suggest that a pre-viability fetus or embryo has a right to life, which gets complicated in the sex selection discourse. However, as emphasized before, Western liberal frameworks of autonomy and reproductive rights cannot be blindly applied to sex selection discourses in India. While the abortion rights debate in the United States positions reproductive rights against the right of a fetus to life, scholars like Sital Kalantry call for a more nuanced framing of autonomy and sex selection, placing women’s rights on both sides of the equation (Kalantry, 2017, pg.68).
One of the central concerns regarding autonomy and sex selection is whether women have complete agency and choice in choosing to sex select. According to Mary E. John’s examination of sex selection, the factors and influences on choosing to sex select are multifaceted. While a woman may on her own take the initiative to determine and select the sex of a pregnancy, decisions regarding family size, sex distribution, and fertility control often ultimately rest with the man, or in some cases, the extended family. In “Planning Families, Planning Gender”, John, Palriwala, and Kaur conclude that "the couple, the mother-in-law, the father-in-law, and the woman’s parents are all actors in a system that systematically devalues the girl child and the mother without sons”(John, Palriwala, Kaur, 2011,pg. 63) . Therefore, to understand agency, autonomy, and sex selection in the Indian context, it is essential to be cognisant of how sociocultural structures of family, sexuality, gender, and heteronormativity shape the circumstances within which sex selection occurs. Sex selection in India is not occurring in a vacuum and thus cannot be solely looked at as an issue of autonomy. Rather, sex selection in India occurs under a complex backdrop of class, caste, gender, and family issues, thus constituting it as a problematic phenomenon. To apply Western, liberal standards of autonomy haphazardly on issues of sex selection in India would be misguided. Sex selection is both an issue of autonomy and gender justice in a complimentary yet conflicting manner; how do we honor the autonomy and agency of women while ensuring the discontinuation of patriarchally oppressive structures? Reflecting upon how reproductive labor is manipulated in the public sphere for national development and identity is crucial to championing individual autonomy and reproductive justice.
It is important to recognize that reproductive decision-making in India as not simply an individual or couple-oriented decision but as a decision influenced by the broader context of family and society. In their text, John et. al. emphasize how intra-family dynamics of reproductive planning are undeniably relevant to sex selection and reproductive justice, especially given the strong cultural values around gender and family in India. John states that “there is a contentious politics of reproduction within the family, with fertility itself having become a contested arena between couples and between generations” (John, Palriwala, Kaur, 2011,pg. 64). Of course, it is important to note that sex selection practices in India cannot be generalized or oversimplified. There is much to be clarified about the circumstances around sex selection in India, and many factors to examine.
The politics of sex selection play out in the heteronormative, binary culture of gender and sex. The complicated dynamics of male and female agency are also important to understand. Male agency and involvement in the reproductive process generally operate in a ‘backstage manner’ (John, 2022). Men rarely experience the pressure of making decisions or taking active steps regarding reproductive planning, but pull many of the financial and cultural strings that influence reproductive decisions for their female counterparts. Patriarchal and capitalist structures persisting in India and globally further contribute to the alienation of women from their reproductive labor, their autonomy and agency being exploited for societal and national ideals. Such is the nexus of family, nation, and the devaluation of bodies with uteruses that underlies sex selection.
Regarding the autonomy of women, Kalantry states that the coercion narrative is often dismissed by authors in India, and is simply a Western feminist imagination (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 149). For Kalantry, the presumption that women are forced to sex select perhaps obscures other factors in play. But perhaps it is less about whether women are forced to sex select by others around them, and more about the structural oppressions that devalue women and girls in India, leading to an aversion to raising girls for various reasons.
The Abortion Question
Reproductive rights such as abortions rights are also impacted by national politics and further complicate issues of sex selection in India. In India, the right to abortion is not as contested as it is in countries like the United States, but this is partly because population control purposes have been central to the legalization of abortion rather than reproductive freedom and autonomy (Kalantry, 2017, pg.57).
Abortion is meant to be a liberatory practice when exercised autonomously. Janna Bryson argues that abortion can in fact be liberation from capitalist and reproductive manipulations by interrupting the status quo of reproductive production and family structures (Bryson, 2023). But in the case of India, abortion- sex selective or not- is disrupted by national politics. The environment is such that women, especially lower class and caste women, are deeply disenfranchised from their bodies and alienated from reproductive agency, every decision and action influenced to be in alignment with national politics. Furthermore, reproductive rights, abortion and the use of contraception are often associated not with sexual freedom but with further controlled planning of ideal families for the sake of the nation (Sreenivas, 2021, pg. 166).
Reproductive autonomy and rights are thus manipulated for nationalist politics in multifaceted ways: sex selection and abortion rights while in some manners on opposite ends of the global discourse on autonomy are both impacted by nationalist politics in a way that disrupts true agency and autonomy of women and people with uteruses. In this sense, the reproductive justice problem in India is not primarily about individual decisions of abortion or sex selection carried out by women, but rather the overall infringement of reproductive autonomy in various ways by nationalist politics.
MTP Act
The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 (MTP Act) that regulates the circumstances under which abortions are legally permitted, was most recently amended in 2021 (Amendment Act). The Amendment Act of 2021 is a substantially yet inadequately reformed version of the original MTP Act, including an extension of the gestational limit from 20 to 24 weeks for “certain categories of women”: survivors of rape, incest, minors, women experiencing a change of marital status (widowhood or divorce), women with disabilities, women with fetal anomaly and those living in emergency, disaster, or humanitarian crises (Jain, 2023).
The major element that was changed from the 1971 version of the MTP was the expanded the scope of access to abortion services from 20 to 24 weeks, taking note of the factors and circumstances changing the material realities of women and how individuals’ unique circumstances cannot be exhaustively accounted for by the law (Jain, 2023).While amending the MTP, the Supreme Court established that every pregnant person in India has a right to reproductive decisional autonomy, including transgender and gender-variant persons (Jain, 2023). Other amendments included the establishment rape as grounds for abortion, including marital rape (Jain, 2023).
Additionally, the Court issued directions to the government to ensure amelioration of that equitable reproductive healthcare access, including: abortion and contraception services, information regarding reproduction and safe sexual practices, and that medical facilities and RMPs must be available in every district to provide services to all pregnant persons including marginalized persons with sensitivity and care (Jain, 2023). Thus, there has been an effort to address structural barriers impact reproductive healthcare access. While this has been a huge step forward for reproductive rights in India, the implementation of these policies and recommendations is where issues arise.
Persisting Barriers to Abortion Care
Despite legal protections for abortion rights in India, such as the recent MTP Act amendments, there are still barriers to equitable access. Indian abortion laws are still not considered equitable or progressive by the World Health Organization, and the Guttmacher Institute estimates that 56% of abortions in India are “unsafe” (Guttmacher, 2022). Laws like the
MTP don’t address the structural issues associated with abortion: continued stigma linked to the procedure, influence of patriarchal norms, lack of access to clinics that perform abortions in rural areas, and caste discrimination in public health facilities.
There is certainly a lot more the government can do to ameliorate reproductive rights and justice in India. Governmental powers are often complicit in restricting abortion access. Waiting periods, invasive ultrasounds, and multiple doctor’s visits—bureaucratic requirements in India limit access to legal abortion (Krutzsch, 2023). Even with the revision of the MTP in 2021, the law still requires doctor certification to receive an abortion, often causing a barrier for many women in healthcare deserts, from economically or caste marginalized communities (CRR). Legality and access are once again disrupted by the national agenda. Laws addressing abortion rights as well as bans on sex selection and testing end up working in favor of these national politics, rather than addressing the root factors impacting sociocultural gender norms and the devaluation of women’s bodies. In this respect, empowering autonomy and agency are often not the main priorities or impacts of these laws.
There have also been arguments that the Indian government, in alignment with Hindu nationalist movements, has liberalized abortion rights in India as a mechanism of further upholding patriarchy, casteism, and nationalist views of the ideal Hindu family (Sarcar, 2021). Such arguments highlight that for the nation, reproductive rights are often manipulated to shape society through- in this case- an upper-caste, nationalist lens while furthering population and reproductive control (Krutzsch, 2023) . Consequently, access to safe abortions for many pregnant people remains limited. In effect, reproductive rights policies like the MTP function in alignment with national politics, rather than empowering individual autonomy and agency.
Furthermore, new data suggests that the ban on sex selection has had negative implications on access to nonselective abortions. Medical professionals have refused to provide second- trimester abortions altogether for fear that the patient may be intentionally aborting a female fetus. Other evidence suggests that access to medication to induce abortion is more difficult to obtain as sex ratios continue to become more male- skewed in India (Kalantry, 2017, pg. 153). Overall, the ban on the information about the future sex of a fetus and it’s implementation have complicated overall access to reproductive healthcare while doing little to address the root causes and issues regarding sex selection and reproductive oppression. The conflict between autonomy, abortion rights and sex selection depicts how reproductive rights are awarded and infringed upon primarily when it suits national interests, rather than honoring the true autonomy of people.
Conclusion:
Sex selection in India is influenced by various sociocultural factors, and its impact is reflected in sociopolitical aspects such as the child sex ratio, the phenomenon of missing women, issues of autonomy, and gender justice. At the root of it all is the manipulation of reproductive labor for national development, and the public politicization of bodies with uteruses. Disentangling our ideas of bodies, reproduction, and the nation is the first step to centering individual autonomy over national politics and championing reproductive justice.
CONCLUSION:
Chapter 1, Culture and Gender, analyzes how the cultural, historical and gendered frameworks of Indian society create social pressures for sex selection. Specific issues and phenomena considered include dowries, son preference, colonial influences and population control. `Chapter 2, Sex Selection, elaborates further on how sex selection manifests in India, how it is regulated, and what its impacts are. The final Chapter, Woman and Nation, explores how issues of autonomy, sex selection and abortion rights manifest in India. The chapter’s argument centers on how reproductive labor is manipulated for national development, using social reproduction theory and ideas of reproductive labor, alienation and exploitation to ground the analysis.
To tackle sex selection in India, it is crucial to understand what sociocultural factors are creating an the environment and pressures to sex select. Rather than an autonomous choice, this thesis argues that sex selection in India occurs due to various pressures and cultural understandings of gender, family, class and caste. Structures of colonialism, patriarchy and capitalism contribute to India’s national politics as well as understandings of gender and reproduction.
While this thesis focuses on sex selection in India, it seeks to raise larger questions regarding how national politics may interfere with reproductive justice. The conceptualizations and interactions of the body and the nation are central to understanding global reproductive justice.To foster true reproductive and gender justice and autonomy, it is important to reflect upon how bodies with uteruses are politicized at a national level.
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