Female feticide is the act of aborting a fetus because she is a female. This is a major social problem in India and has cultural connections with the dowry system that is ingrained in Indian culture, despite the fact that it has been prohibited by law since 1961. In India a strong preference for sons over daughters exists, unlike in Western cultures. People realize smaller family sizes with relatively greater number of sons through the use of medical technologies. Pregnancies are planned by resorting to 'differential contraception' - contraception is used based on the number of surviving sons irrespective of family size. Following conception, fetal sex is determined by prenatal diagnostic techniques after which female fetuses are aborted. Fetal sex determination and sex-selective abortion by medical professionals has grown into a 1,000 crore industry (US$244 million). Social discrimination against women and a preference for sons have been promoted. Since 1991, 80% of districts in India have recorded an increasingly masculine sex ratio with the state of Punjab having the most masculine sex ratio. According to the decennial Indian census, the sex ratio in the 0-6 age group in India went from 104.0 males per 100 females in 1981, to 105.8 in 1991, to 107.8 in 2001, to 109.4 in 2011. The ratio is significantly higher in certain states such as Punjab and Haryana (126.1 and 122.0, as of 2001)

It is estimated that more than 10 million female fetuses have been illegally aborted in India. Researchers for the Lancet journal based in Canada and India stated that 500,000 girls were being lost annually through sex-selective abortions.Pre-natal sex-determination was banned in India in 1994, under the Pre-conception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act. The act aims to prevent sex-selective abortion, which, according to the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, "has its roots in India’s long history of strong patriarchal influence in all spheres of life."

It is most prominent in Gujarat and the North Indian states, which according to census data have an alarmingly low ratio of female children. Certain castes regularly practiced female infanticide and later female feticide. The castes with a much lower proportion of female children to male children included lewa patidars and the rajputs in Gujarat, Jats, Rajputs, Khutris and Royal Brahmins in undivided Punjab, Rajputs and Gujars in the Uttar Pradesh.

This process began in the early 1990s when ultrasound techniques gained widespread use in India. There was a tendency for families to continuously produce children until a male child was born. This was primarily due to the large sexist culture that exists in India against women. This is reflected by literacy rates among women as well as economic participation, which are both particularly low in states where female feticide is prominent and an unequal population ratio exists alongside. The government initially supported the practice to control. The Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act was passed in 1994, making sex-selective abortion illegal. It was then modified in 2003 holding medical professionals legally responsible. However, the PCPNDT Act has been poorly enforced by authorities.

Female feticide has led to an increase in human trafficking. In 2011, 15,000 Indian women were bought and sold as brides in areas where feticide has led to a lack of women.

Government response to the problem has been known to not have stopped female feticide from occurring. Although several acts have been passed to combat the situation, many of them is not enforced strongly enough. This and the existence of several loopholes in the system means the practice of sex-selective abortion continues. An example of one of these loopholes would be on the pretext of checking for genetic disorders in the fetus, who can stop a doctor from examining the sex of the unborn child and informing the parents in secret. In 2001, the Supreme Court in India gave orders to five multi-national companies — Philips, Symonds, Toshiba, Larsen and Toubro and Wipro — to give them the names and addresses of all the clinics and persons in India to whom they have sold ultrasound machines in the last five years to enable the state government to find out if these machines were registered. Unfortunately, not much happened after this directive, although the companies were reported to have supplied all the information that was required. The Statesman, a leading newspaper reported on February 3, 2002 that not a single illegal ultrasound machine has been impounded in Delhi. Banning pre-conception sex-determination tests calls for new legislation. But the fact is that even the present PNDT Act is full of loopholes and cannot be effectively implemented. Law certainly empowers the government to act but the fundamental question is whether the government or Supreme Court can alone usher in social transformation in Indian society.