In India, a minister is proposing to make fetal sex detection tests compulsory. She wants to fight against selective abortions, but her proposal is controversial.
Make prenatal sex detection mandatory. This is the proposal of the Indian Minister of Children, Maneka Gandhi. In a country known to have one of the most unbalanced male-to-female ratios in the world, it had the effect of a thunderclap.
Today, these tests are illegal in the country, and punishable by up to five years in prison, because they encourage selective abortions. Many families, especially in rural areas, do not want to have a daughter.
The imbalances have become more pronounced in recent years: in 1961, the sex ratio was 976 girls per 1,000 boys, today it stands at 914 girls per 1,000 boys. The use of sex detection tests has in fact become widespread despite the ban, which explains these figures.
By proposing to legalize these tests, the minister is proposing a radically different approach. According to her, precisely, this measure has the ability to reduce the number of selective abortions. She considers that if the sex of the baby is known by the entire medical team, women who are expecting a baby girl can be followed more closely, and supervised, in order to prevent them from having to have an abortion.
Unachievable measures
The minister’s arguments fail to convince activists who fight for women’s rights. “It is counterproductive, it will encourage the development of illegal centers for the abortion of female fetuses”, regrets a spokesperson for ADIWA, a group of activists.
The latter believe that legalizing these tests may work for some educated women, but not for those who live in precarious situations, and who are under real social pressure to have an abortion, if they are expecting a girl. Many fear that the only effect of the measure is to divert his women from official health centers, to escape the vigilance of doctors.
As for carefully monitoring all the women who will continue to go there, the measure may be impractical in some hospitals, where the teams are already overwhelmed.
Faced with the controversy sparked by his announcement, Maneka Gandhi retracted, specifying that no law was being studied, and that it was simply a question of opening the debate in order to better protect women.
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