Since Nepal legalized abortion in 2002 there has been an epidemic of gender-based abortions. At least 50,000 abortions a year are performed after parents find out their unborn child is a girl. Gender identifi-cation of fetuses is illegal but many clinics do not follow the 11th amendment to the country’s civil code that details how abortions can be performed.
In Section 28C, the code prohibits the termination of a pregnancy for the sole purpose of sex-selection with a maximum punishment of two years in prison.
However, the law is flouted so much that there was a marked decrease in the female birth rate. A study in 2013 by British researcher Melanie Dawn Frost and her team found there were 742 girls per 1,000 boys in 2007-2010, down from 1,021 girls per 1,000 boys in 1998-2000.
Many married couples prefer male children is because tradi-tionally, girls leave the family when they are married to serve their in-laws. They are also an economic burden due to the dowry system. Few people question the misogyny that underlies these cultural beliefs.
The desire for boys is higher in urban areas. The Nepal demographic health survey in 2011 found that the number of gender-based abortions in towns was twice as high as in rural areas.
The practice may be higher in educated and wealthy families given that the proportion of pregnancies ending in abortion rises proportionally with household wealth. It ranges from three percent in the poorest households to 18 percent in the wealthiest.
The Nepal medical council once suspended a reputable gynecologist for three months on the charge of sex-selective abortion in Patan city in 2015. Half of induced abortions are estimated to be unsafe. It’s a worldwide problem. According to the World Health Organization, about 22 million unsafe abortions are performed every year resulting in the deaths of 47,000 women and maiming an additional 5 million internationally.
