It’s a Girl Documentary

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In China and India, three of the worst words to hear at the birth of your child are, “It’s a Girl.” Why? In both cultures sons epitomize strength, blessing, and wealth. Daughters represent poverty.

The documentary opens with an Indian couple standing over a giant mound of dirt. Buried beneath the mound are 8 dead baby girls. The Indian woman says,

“Women have the power to give life and the power to take it away.”

She would know. All 8 baby girls were killed by her hands as she pushed them into this world. She is just one person involved in this mass gendercide.

In India 1 out of 4 girls does not live past puberty. The mortality rate for girls, ages 1-5, is 50% higher than the mortality rate for boys. If baby girls survive pregnancy and birth, then there is the risk of surviving illness and disease. Many sick girls are neglected, because they are not valued as much as boys.

More than 100,000 women are murdered each year, because they fail to produce sons, or their husband and in-laws are not satisfied with the dowry. (A dowry is basically a large sum of money or possessions given as a gift from the parents of the bride to the grooms family.)

Women are a Commodity

One strong point the documentary makes is how greed is the basis for the dowry system, and in turn much of female feticide and infanticide. Women become commodities that you can casually dispose of, whether by inconvenienced parents who are greedy and don’t want to pay a dowry, or by husbands who are greedy for money through a dowry or through sons.

Many people in India go the less messy route, which is sex selective abortion. In 1994, Indian government outlawed this type of abortion, but cases are rarely investigated, there is no accountability, and these types of abortions are overlooked.

China and the One Child Policy

The Chinese government is very active in enforcing their regulations. This can be seen in the One Child Policy, which was established in 1979. (Rural families are allowed a 2nd child if the 1st child is a girl.) Enforcement of this policy is strict and harsh; violators are subject to forced abortion (up to 9 months) or forced sterilization. Crazy enough, these enforcers of the policy are called the Family Planning Police. Illegal children who have escaped the eyes of the Family Planning Police do not have citizenship and no future in China.

China boasts about their 30 year policy. They say they have prevented over 400 million lives in China. Greater than the entire U.S. population. This number can be broken down to 13 million abortions a year and 1,500 abortions an hour.

This fear of overpopulation and boy preference has resulted in 37 million more men than women in China. With not enough women to marry in China, the prostitution market has exploded, sex trafficking has increased, and child bride kidnapping is a regular occurrence. Every year 70,000 children are stolen from their parents.

The Indian woman from the beginning of the documentary hadn’t thought through the repercussions of taking away life. It can lead to many other evils and injustices.

America’s Common Ground with China

America, like China, has their own number of prevented lives. We just prevent them for different reasons: money, wrong timing, an accident, inconvenience, pressure, and the right of a woman’s choice. There are cases of infanticide in some American abortion clinics, cases of sex selective abortions with moms of multiples, and disposal of children with health problems through abortive means.

In America, we are our own family planning police. We take the lives of our own children (girl or boy.) We have our own mounds of dirt with skeletons buried beneath. Yet — unlike the Indian woman — in America we can’t even call what we destroy life. Hearing about these situations in China and India should appal us, but so should what is happening in America. It’s not just women’s rights here, it is also the right to life.