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The Ethics of Birth and Death: Gender Infanticide in India

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Abstract

This paper discusses the persistent devaluation of the girl child in India and the link between the entrenched perception of female valuelessness and the actual practice of infanticide of girl babies or foetuses. It seeks to place female infanticide, or ‘gendercide,’ within the context of Western-derived conceptions of ethics, justice and rights. To date, current ethical theories and internationally purveyed moral frameworks, as well as legal and political declarations, have fallen short of an adequate moral appraisal of infanticide. This paper seeks to rethink the issue.

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Notes

  1. The first Infanticide Act was enacted by the British; modern Indian states began enacting new Acts from 1988.

  2. An inheritance of woman’s own property that is usually given at the time of marriage but ‘without consideration in marriage,’ unlike dowry – which is in consideration of marriage.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is a posthumous adaptation of an unpublished paper by Renuka Sharma entitled Gender/Infanticide: Ethics of Death in the Shadow of Motherhood and Childbirth in India. It was adapted and edited by Sara Jayne Kerr with assistance from Professor Purushottama Bilimoria. A previous version was presented at the Doshi Lecture Series, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, in 1995 and printed in the Souvenir of The First International Conference on Dowry and Bride-Burning in India, September 30, October 1–2, 1995, Harvard Law School, Edited by H. Thakur and M. Witzel, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996, pp. 1–23. Sally Percival Wood provided current updates. Renuka Sharma was formerly associated with the University of Melbourne and the Monash Asia Institute. She was a medical and psychotherapeutic practitioner, feminist philosopher, and social activist in India and Australia.

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  1. University of Melbourne and Monash Asia Institute, Melbourne, Australia

    Renuka M. Sharma

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  1. Renuka M. Sharma
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Correspondence to Renuka M. Sharma.

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Sharma, R.M. The Ethics of Birth and Death: Gender Infanticide in India. Bioethical Inquiry 4, 181–192 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-007-9060-7

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