Mumbai: A city doctor is spearheading a campaign to curb female foeticide by encouraging other doctors to report on patients who visit clinics for a sonography to determine the sex of their unborn child.
With a strong belief that this evil should be fought on all fronts, Dr Hitesh Bhatt, a gynaecologist who runs his own hospital, says that it is not just enough to haul up or punish only doctors who conduct sex selection tests on pregnant women. “This is a social problem that requires awareness to be created among both men and women who should be made to realise that female foeticide is not just wrong but also a crime against the law,” Bhatt told Gulf News.
The preference for a son among would-be parents is so strong in India that they go to the extent of finding the gender of their unborn babies only to go through an abortion if the sex of the child happens to be a girl. “It is not just the doctors who should be held responsible for conducting sex selection tests but the patient who seeks such a test should also be punished,” he says.
“It is true that we have black sheep amongst our medical fraternity who want to make money by doing these tests,” he says. But adds that not many are aware that Section 23, sub-section 3 of the Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act which states that even those who seek the aid of a ultrasound clinic or medical practitioner “for sex selection or for conducting pre-natal diagnostic techniques on any pregnant women shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with a fine.”
Bhatt, who moved from Gujarat to Mumbai about five years back says this campaign is gaining ground among doctors and his page on social networking site Facebook already has 399 members. “We are in the throes of forming a group called PCPNDT-registered Doctors’ Association to alert authorities if any couple comes for sex selection tests. We would like to spread our campaign across Maharashtra where sex selection is rampant.” Maharashtra’s child sex ratio stands at 883 girls to 1000 boys in the 0-6 age group, according to Census 2011 and the general population at 925 females to 1000 males.
He hopes authorities are more forthcoming in curtailing this menace since his experience in Gujarat was not very positive. “I met Chief Minister Narendra Modi twice to raise this concern but he told me that awareness has to be created among the people. Health Minister Ashok Bhatt assured me that those who break the law will be punished. But out of the 59 complaints about couples to the authorities, an inquiry was done in 10 cases but no action was taken.”
