Forced into abortion 6 times, woman turns whistleblower – Times Of India.
India has long held a cultural and economic preference for male babies. Those weddings for the girls are expensive, and the male children are more efficient as a social security policy for the parents.
Amisha (Yagnik) Bhatt, of Vastrapur has undergone five sex selection abortions, coerced by her husband, Priyavadan Bhatt, of Anand, and his parents, who desired a male heir. Only one girl child, Kamya, survives. Amisha was married in 2000, and, failing to produce a male child, was rejected by the family in 2009. They were expecting that another wife can produce a male heir, as the biology of sex determination is lost on them. Priyavadan and his parents Gunvantrai and Niranjana Bhatt were arrested in 2009, by the Vastrapur police based upon the charges by Amisha.
India has a Pre-Conception & Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, which prohibits sex selection abortions but this has not stopped collusion between sonography clinics and abortion clinics. Some sonographers are hiding the names of women who have been sent to the abortion clinics based upon the sex of the baby. The receipts and records supplied by Amisha Bhatt showed the connection between the sonographers and the abortion clinics, and has resulted in two doctors losing their licenses for malpractice. The state government is reviewing medical reporting requirements to prevent this collusion in the future. Yogkshem Manav Sansthan, a social welfare group has been providing assistance to Amisha Bhatt in exposing the crimes of her former in-laws, the sonographers and the abortionists.
