THE national women’s organisations – AIDWA,   NFIW, JWP, CWDS, GOS, Bulbul Das, Binodini Moses and concerned individuals, Dr Mohan Rao     (Professor, JNU) and Dr Sabu George (social activist), in a joint statement issued on February 5 have expressed strong condemnation and shock at the suggestion made by the central minister for women and child development, Maneka Gandhi to subject all pregnant women to a sex determination test, record the sex of the foetus, track and monitor the pregnancy, and thereby prevent sex selection. Although the WCD ministry has issued a partial explanation about the minister’s comments, the fact is that she has actually reiterated a dangerous and regressive proposal that she had put forth as far back as May last year.

It is most unfortunate that a minister tasked with the responsibility of protecting and advancing the interests of women and especially the girl child has completely failed to recognise the context in which sex selection continues unabated and with impunity across the country. The PcPNDT Act was formulated precisely to address the manner in which unscrupulous health professionals and corporate profiteers have misused technology and made sex selection into a lucrative business venture. Now, a senior minister has expressed reluctance to institute criminal action against ultra sound equipment owners, doctors, and the “fraternity involved in medical processes” and is instead keen on shifting the onus of responsibility onto the pregnant woman. This will let off the actual wrong doers, and instead criminalise pregnant women who already bear the brunt of gender discrimination in our society today.

The well-recognised prevalence of son preference and daughter dis-preference within our patriarchal system has made women vulnerable to domestic violence, desertion, and discrimination within the marital household. The 2003 amendments to the 1994 PcPNDT Act recognised the lack of autonomy faced by Indian women and had therefore specifically kept the pregnant woman out of the ambit of the Act. Now, the new proposal mooted by the minister will lead to a twenty-four hour surveillance of pregnant women both within the family and by the State authorities. Instead of curtailing sex selection, it will only lead to a greater proliferation of illegal facilities for getting rid of the unwanted female foetuses.

The statement also pointed out that the proposal is an assault on women’s right to privacy and will also impinge on their right to abortion, particularly at a time when women’s access to safe and legal abortion services is being curtailed and many women continue to lose their lives due to unsafe abortions.

It is farcical to assume that a government that cannot properly monitor and implement the PcPNDT Act would be in a position to monitor the approximately 2.5 crore pregnancies, which is the average number of children born in the country every year.           

For the above reasons, the signatories to the press statement have strongly opposed this proposal. At this crucial 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. They have called on the minister, and the authorities to ensure that the PcPNDT Act does not get diluted, under whatever guise. They asserted that the Modi government must not pander to the interests of commercial ventures, at the expense of the girl child.