A new report shows that that India has aborted over 10 MILLION female fetuses based solely on their gender, and will abort up to 1 Million more each year unless something changes. However, the illogically selfish and unbalanced pro-choice position forces most of its adherents to be unable to condemn this criminal genocide, or "foeticide." As I’ve asked before in GATTACA Comes to Life, where does it stop? Liberal theology is unable to manage this because it is faulty.
But it’s not just liberal reasoning that is at fault – it’s the value system of the Indian culture that devalues women. We must encourage the promotion of equality and justice in such countries. And we should continue to evangelize them as well.
1. India’s misogynistic value system
‘Asking me why I need a son, instead of a daughter, is like asking me why I have two eyes and not one,’ says one woman in the northern district of Haryana, who has just had an abortion after discovering that the baby she was carrying was female.
‘We see women who are beaten or abused by their husband and especially their mother-in-law for producing daughters. They are not considered worthy or dutiful daughters-in-law.’
A key reason for the woman’s compliance is the fear that they may be replaced by a younger, more fertile woman who will produce sons if they do not submit.
‘I know women who have been persuaded to have multiple abortions and who feel absolutely rotten, but they have no choice — either abortion or divorce,’ says Sharma.
2. This is not a new problem in India
The female shortfall is not a new problem in India. Even during the days of the Raj, and the first census in 1881, the British made efforts to eradicate female infanticide. But the problem of female foeticide is a new phenomenon fueled by advances in technology and the widespread liberal attitudes to abortion.
3. What happens when you don’t have enough women?
The future is frightening. Over the next five years we could see more than a million foetuses eliminated every year,’ says Dr Sabu George, who has charted the problem. ‘At this pace we’ll soon have no girls born in the country. We don’t know where it will stop.’
Long-term worries are not simply the fear that such an imbalance will result in the rise of prostitution and sex trafficking. The danger to women’s emotional and physical health from repeated abortions is huge.
Sex-selective abortions are often performed later in the pregnancy and are therefore more dangerous. Only 20 per cent of all abortions conform to the provisions of Indian law and those performed outside hospital often result in complications that lead to the deaths of thousands of women.
4. What can liberal or feminist values do?
Feminists believe that until Indian society begins to value women, no amount of laws will help.
‘Until women take control of their own lives and refuse to give in to pressure, nothing will change,’ says Rasil Basu, who has made a film about the crisis called Vanishing Daughters. ‘Empowerment of women is the only answer.’
The best argument liberal feminists can make is that India should change the culture so that women have freedom of choice. If women WANT to have girls, they should not be socially punished or frowned upon for doing so. Yet, if a woman decides she doesn’t want a girl, this type of feminism still allows her to make that hideous choice.
Can liberals actually muster a position that prohibits ANY kind of abortion, and be of use in fighting this unrighteousness? I doubt it. Their ideology prevents them because they assign no value to the unborn, and supreme value to the woman making the choice.
5. The abject failure of liberal logic on abortion
What if we find a homosexual genetic marker? Can people abort potentially gay fetuses? Is that their right to do so, or are we doing something immoral? What about growing a fetus to about 5 months in order to harvest its bone marrow or organs, then throwing it away? I mean, if it’s not a person, and just part of the woman’s body just like one of her organs, why not?
The most rational, reasonable, ethical, and moral position is that we must legally give the fetus the status and rights of a person at some point BEFORE birth, either at conception, as many conservatives reason, or at some time soon after, as I have argued at c-ral.org. To conclude otherwise is intellectually, morally, objectively, and ethically wrong.
6. A biblical view, interpreted through many of the gains of modern feminism, is what they need.
I am not a theological liberal, but overly paternalistic interpretations of scripture are as bad as those that try to justify slavery from scripture. Sad to say for Christianity, it did not lead in the woman’s suffrage or feminist movements (though it did in abolition of slavery). However, there are such things as Christian Feminists, and Feminists for Life. Here are some relevant scriptures as well.
Exodus 21:22-25
"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.Psalm 127:2
Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him.Malachi 2:16
"I hate divorce," says the LORD God of IsraelEphesians 5:22-33
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
1 Corinthians 7:3-11
The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.
Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.