A societal ill does not need a bureaucratic pill

Once upon a time there was a King. His son was going to the school available in the kingdom along with other students. The teacher used to cane students who would not obey but had a problem with the prince whom he could not cane despite his misconduct. He approached the King and a solution was arrived at. Another boy was sent along with the prince to school so that when the prince did something wrong this boy would be caned. He came to be known as the “Whipping Boy”. Doctors of modern scientific medicine in India are the new Whipping Boys. Problem lies else where but we prosecute the radiologists and gynaecologists because the “Prince” (voter) can do no wrong. No patient relative is ever prosecuted for demanding sex selective abortion.

The news reports that sex ratio has fallen in Punjab, Haryana as well as Delhi may be alarming to society but are not surprising to us. Of the approximately 3800 cases filed under PCPNDT Act there have been approximately 730 convictions with jail terms awarded liberally to radiologists. The honourable Supreme Court rejected the plea to remove clerical errors from the ambit of prosecution similar to that for sex determination. Different Government officials, civil surgeons, administrators, and NGOs have been in a race to trap doctors doing sex determination and in this race results in Doctors being falsely accused of sex determination even when their only fault may be that their records are not exactly as the authorities want. The best part is authorities in different states and in different districts of same state have different interpretations of the same Act.

There are authorities who insist that no ultrasound should be done on a pregnant woman coming from outside the district. With increasing number of cases of infertility and a social taboo on infertility, patients do not get treatment of infertility in the city where they reside. However many districts deny them the facility of ultrasound which is essential to provide infertility treatment look for ovulation, decide on pick up and fetal well being. The insistence of getting an affidavit from patients residing outside the district may not be a major problem to some of the patients but to others like a patient of threatened abortion denial of ultrasound may result in catastrophic consequences.

So what has gone wrong. We are treating a societal ill with a bureaucratic pill. That the society differentiates between sexes is not ever going to be corrected by arresting radiologists. Those desirous of sex selection either resort to infanticide or go abroad to get designer babies carefully sex selected. Our reactions to Nirbhaya and RG Kar incidents and steps taken by our law and order machinery plays a major role in this bias. After the news of declining sex ratio we expect the authorities to make a show of activity, raids and sealing of ultrasound centres. There will be some fudging statistics so that state awards may be claimed next year but the question is that if the direction we are going has not lead us to our goal of improved sex ratio, is it not time to rethink. Those who should have been partners in the fight against this male preference have been targeted as adversaries and this has alienated the radiologists and gynaecologists.

A concrete desire to reverse this sex ratio is very easy to achieve. Amend the Hindu succession Act to remove all male heirs from inheriting ancestral property. Everyone should have the right to will his self made property to anyone including the son. However it is the ancestral property which should not be transferred to sons. If this change is brought about, the society will want cherish and need its girls and the entire problem will get sorted within a short span of time.

Dr Neeraj Nagpal
Managing Trustee,Medicos Legal Action Group (MLAG)
Ex President IMA Chandigarh
Director Hope Gastrointestinal Diagnostic Clinic,
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