‘Plug holes before making foetus tests mandatory’

Recently, a Maharashtra Assembly committee has recommended compulsory sex determination, to track them, ensuring that the female foetuses are not aborted. The recommendation comes almost a year after Union Minister Maneka Gandhi suggesting divulging of the foetus’ sex and tracking of the pregnancy till the full term of female foetuses.

Dr R Udaya Kumar of Genesis Scans and vice president of Indian Society of Clinical Sonologists says the move when adopted across the country will bring about a huge result. He also says, “Such a system will bring abortions of female foetuses under the scanner. Now, the PC-PNDT Act has made sonologists look like potential criminals due to stringent rules laying more onus on the paperwork. Many of us don’t want to do pre-natal scans for the same reason.” 

However, Dr NS Kanimozhi, senior gynaecologist and obstetrician, points out that for such a system to be effective, many other loopholes in the process needs fixing. “We don’t have a clear modality for who can run the scanning centres and where they should undergo training — these have to be streamlined before setting up the registry for the foetuses. Moreover, what about the quacks who also play a huge role?” she asks. 

The PC-PNDT Act has been effective in curbing sex selective abortions in some districts in Tamil Nadu, says Jeeva Nantham, state convenor, Campaign against Sex Selective Abortion (CASSA). 

Jeeva says, “The implementation is important; in places like Theni and Salem, the Act has been extremely effective so far. Just divulging without streamlining the system will not be a well thought out move.”