Modern technology, combined with a cultural preference for sons rather than daughters, has led to the mushrooming of neo-natal clinics across India where parents can check the sex of their unborn child, despite this practice having been illegalized. Originally an urban phenomenon, it is worrying to see the practice of sex-selection emerging in rural areas as the technology spreads. Diagnostic centers and clinics with ultrasound scanners advertise “spend 600 rupees now and save 50,000 rupees later,” - in other words, save your dowry money today.

The right to health is an unquestionable right, whether it’s health care for a girl child or services for a mother during her pregnancy. The young mother in the photograph did not receive proper medical care during her pregnancy. However, had she received medical care, she would probably have removed her unborn girl child. When I asked her why she doesn’t bring her very ill daughter to the doctors, she simply replies, “I would have had it been a boy.” I am not judging this young mother, but only trying to see how the right to health and the attitudes towards it easily become inherited by a daughter from her mother.

One of the biggest challenges for today’s decision-makers in the health sector is to break this system of silence, this inheritance of silence. Unfortunately, there is no medical cure for silence, but a very strong and clear global voice declaring that the girl child is equal and worthy will help change this norm. We must do what we can – she, too, will be someone’s mother tomorrow.

- Photograph by Parul Sharma

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In response to the Community Chat, "American Foreign Policy and Women's Global Health" hosted by The WIP and Americans for the UNFPA, Parul Sharma offers her concerns in this essay and will participate in the conversation.

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