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{{cleanup|Needs to be rewritten as an encyclopedia article pertaining primarily to the Church's view.}}'''Female feticide''' is the termination of the life of a fetus within the womb on the grounds that its sex is female. '''Female feticide''' is thus the conjunction of two ethical evils: abortion and gender bias. A fetus’s fetus's right to life outweighs the parents' rights to wealth, pride, or convenience, whether the fetus is male or female. The term "sex selective abortion" is preferable to the term feticide, since it points to both of the ethical evils inherent in this practice.
Female feticide has replaced female [[infanticide]] as a means to reduce or eliminate female offspring. In societies where women's status is very low, many female fetuses are rejected. Thus, at least 100 million of the total number of aborted female fetuses have been victims of female feticide. This number is based on a predicted ratio of boy-to-girl births and does not take into account the male and female fetuses that are aborted for non-gender-based reasons.
In countries such as China and India, the practice of infanticide continued into the 20th century. However, the 1970s saw a dramatic drop in the girl-to-boy ratio in India, when abortion was legalized and ultrasound technology enabled families to determine the sex of their child by the fourth month of pregnancy. By 2005 the ratio slipped to 814 girls for every 1,000 boys, as opposed to the natural rate of 952 girls for every 1,000 boys.
According to the British medical journal Lancet, approximately 50 million girl fetuses have been victims of feticide in China. In India the number is estimated at 43 million.² Approximately seven million more are credited to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, and South Korea. Because China and India account for 40% of the world’s world's population, an imbalance in these two countries alone has a profound impact on global population statistics.³ According to a December 2007 UNICEF report, India is "missing" 7,000 girls per day, or 2.5 million each year.
==Case Study: India&sup4;==
The life of a woman in India is often marked by such disrespect that some feel it is better for the family, and even for the baby girl, that she not be born. Perhaps the greatest factor in this is the practice of dowries. One slogan of the female feticide industry is "better 500 rupees now [for an abortion] rather than 50,000 rupees later [for a dowry]." The first amount equals about $11 (USD), the second about $1,100. India has a longstanding tradition of requiring a wife's family to support her financially in her marriage. This begins with a dowry of extraordinary sums of cash, gold, and goods.
Defenders of this system point out that a dowry takes the place of inheritance, which some women in India do not receive. However, in many cases the groom's parents take possession of the dowry and do not set any of it aside for the bride's future use. Furthermore, the bride's family's responsibilities extend to further supporting the new family in substantial ways, beyond the initial dowry. Some Indian castes even require a wife’s wife's family to cover her funeral expenses. Some brides have been rejected by the groom's families and even killed because their families did not meet the groom's family's expectations for dowry. All these cultural and financial factors act as disincentives for Indian families to permit their girl babies to be born.
===Effects of Female Feticide in India===
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20070228-113751-7882r.htm
==Further Readingreading==
*''The Rise of Christianity'', Rodney Stark, Princeton University Press (1997)
*''May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons'', Elizabeth Bumiller.
