With no let-up in female foeticide in the country, the Union Health Ministry has decided to set up a panel to examine new methods being used for selective abortion to get around the existing regulation of ultrasound machines.
“While misuse of ultrasound machines is still prevalent because it is cheap, newer medical technologies are increasingly being used in the name of ‘genetic testing’,” said Health Minister Harsh Vardhan at the meeting of the reconstituted Central Supervisory Board.
It is the highest body overseeing the implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 (PC&PNDTAct). “For instance, the use of simple blood tests that give away the sex of the foetus represents a new dimension to gender-specific foeticide.
“At IVF-ART clinics, couples are given the option of accepting or rejecting a foetus depending on the sex. While rules are in place to prevent misuse of ultrasound machines, very little is known about recent innovations brought to bear on sex selection,” he said.
Unless these practices are nipped in the bud, they will become impossible to curb later, he said adding that the panel will identify the approaches and formulate responses in the form of an Amendment to the Act.
The need to set up panel was felt after it was noted that despite having the PC&PNDT Act in existence for last 20 years, the sex ratio has now closed in favour of the girl child. The male to female child ratio was 964 to 1,000 in 1971, but Census 2011 has shown it to have fallen to 918.
The Ministry also plans to write to the Chief Ministers of the States on the need for ensuring better functioning of State and district appropriate committees empowered under the PC&PNDT Act to supervise and book offenders. “There is also need to involve Members of Parliament to keep a check on the implementation of the committees in their constituencies.”
Maneka Sanjay Gandhi, Union Minister for Women and Child Development, pointed out that it was mainly the upper middle and rich classes who avail sex selection methods. They have a preference for fewer children and that too children who are male. She said several amendments are necessary in the PS&PNDT Act.