IN a statement issued on February 2, the All India Democratic Women’s Association has strongly condemned the proposal made by the women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi to make sex determination compulsory with a view to curb sex selection. As she has clearly stated herself it has been made in order to absolve doctors and the “fraternity involved in medical processes”, and shift the onus of responsibility to the pregnant woman. It is shocking that the minister herself is endorsing the use of prenatal and preconception diagnostic techniques that are intended to be used for finding congenital abnormalities and check foetal well-being, and promoting their use for the abhorrent practice of sex determination. In a patriarchal society like ours, where son preference and daughter aversion are strong and rampant, women face violence, discrimination, desertion and divorce as a result of the pressure to bear a male child. The 2003 amendments to the 1994 PcPNDT Act recognised the lack of autonomy faced by women and had specifically kept the pregnant woman out of the ambit of the Act. This new proposal will only result in a twenty-four hour surveillance of pregnant women both within the family and by the State authorities. It will fuel a proliferation of illegal facilities for getting rid of unwanted female foetuses. But most importantly it will allow unscrupulous medical professionals to go scot free, when it is crystal clear that they alone can utilise the technology to determine the sex of the foetus. The proposal is clearly motivated by a section of doctors, corporate hospitals and their professional bodies who are facing criminal proceedings for having contravened the PcPNDT Act. AIDWA opposes this and any other proposals to amend the Act at this juncture, when sex ratios continue to decline across the country. What is required is a continued and stringent implementation of the present Act, which has clearly acted as a deterrent wherever it has been used effectively. The Modi government must not pander to the interests of commercial interests at the expense of the girl child.