Should sex determination be made mandatory for all pregnant women? Maneka Gandhi says yes!

Union Woman and Child Development Minister opened up a can of worms this week by suggesting at a All India Regional Editors Conference in Jaipur that the government should make child sex determination compulsory for all pregnant women. The gender of the child must then be registered and tracked after the scan to reduce female foeticide.

This raked up a storm as sex determination or finding out the gender of the baby using radiology/ ultrasonography has been banned for over 2 decades now in India in a bid to check the falling sex ratio. The latest census in fact shows that the ban has not worked because the ratio has dipped from 945 in 1991 to 914 in 2011. So even though the tests are banned women are still able to get illegal scans done and then abort their babies even if there are not in their first trimester. This makes the radiologists and sonographers also liable to prosecution as they are aiding and abetting female foeticide by revealing the gender of the unborn child.

Maneka Gandhi’s suggestion takes the onus off the labs that conduct scans and puts it back on the parents. By registering and tracking the scanned foetus she believes it will be easier to check the rate of abortions to end the life of a girl child.

However tracking registered foetus or couples that have done this test and registered themselves will not be an easy task.

Secondly this is simply an opinion Ms. Gandhi expressed about how  the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT) can be implemented more forcefully. Let alone make it mandatory, the Government is not yet mulling a cabinet proposal on this. Even if it were, this comes under the purview of the Health Ministry and is not under Maneka Gandhi’s portfolio.

As things stand, lab technicians say a potential lifting of the ban would be welcome, making it safer to conduct regular check-ups for pregnant women. Secondly if women want to get a legal abortion i.e. before the 20^th week of pregnancy then these tests can be mandatory before it is conducted.

Prosecuting lab technicians is not going to lower the rate but making these tests legal and tracking the pregnancies could make it harder to abort a female foetus. Doctors say tests can reveal the sex of the foetus by the first 11-12 weeks. Almost 9 out of 10 abortions done in India are conducted in the second trimester but recorded as being done before i.e. in the first 12 weeks. Making a test or scan mandatory before abortions could make it easier to track female foeticide according to them.

However, if the labs are let off, the onus of the foetus will fall squarely on the mother. Women’s groups say having a legal and necessary abortion may also become hard for women if the tests are made mandatory. Women are also most likely to be the ones prosecuted for female foeticide in such a case.

What does the law say:

The Pre-conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act in 1994

The Act prohibits sex selection before or after conception and regulates the use of pre-natal diagnostic techniques like ultrasound and amniocentesis to be used only to detect genetic abnormalities or metabolic disorders or malformations but not the gender of the child. All labs are banned from conducting ultrasonography tests to determine the sex of the foetus or communicating the sex of the foetus to the pregnant woman or her family. They are not allowed to advertise via any medium that such sex determination tests or facilities are available. The law also mandates the registration of each and every diagnostic clinic and its equipment. All ultrasound machines must be registered and every ultra sound done on a pregnant woman requires the lab to fill out online disclaimers (Form F).

Punishment for breaking this law ranges from 3 to 5 years along with a fine.

What is India’s stand on abortion:

The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (1972)

The law says abortion in India is legal up to twenty weeks of pregnancy in special cases such as harm to the life of the pregnant women or a valid risk that the child if it were born would suffer from serious abnormalities that would give it a poor quality of life. It is also allowed in the cases of rape, leading to pregnancy or pre-marital pregnancy or pregnancy that was a result of failed sterilization.