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Pre-natal tests: Convicted in the womb Report: Manushri Bahukhandi
Pre-natal diagonistic tests came to India in the 1970s. However, in no time sex determination clinics started mushrooming throughout the country resulting in female foetuses being indiscriminately and mercilessly aborted. Manushri Bahukhandi does an expose.
Ultrasonography is a diagnostic imaging technique in which high-frequency sound waves are bounced off internal organs and the echo pattern is converted into a 2-dimensional pictures to construct an image of a body organ.
It can be used between the 16 and 24 weeks of pregnancy to examine the foetal anatomy and thus determine its sex.
However, doctors in India, use ultrasonography in the first 12 weeks since if the foetus is a female and needs to be aborted, it is only safe to do it within the first three months.
To determine the sex of a foetus within 12 weeks doctors use amniocentesis. Amniocentesis
Amniocentesis is a procedure whereby the obstetrician withdraws a little fluid from the pregnant mother`s amniotic sac. The amount of fluid withdrawn will depend on the tests performed but in general the usual amount is 10 to 20 millilitres or about 10 to 20 tablespoons of fluid. The procedure has should be done with the assistance of the ultrasound scanner so that the needle can be seen at all times so as to avoid damaging the body or placenta. This fluid is then be sent to the lab for analysis and results may take up to 3 weeks to be ready.
In the West this technique is used more to determine whether the baby suffers from Down syndrome, however in India the whole concept of amniocentesis is used to answer the question of life and death for the unborn child.
Silent killers
According to the Registrar General of India 3.6 lakh female foetuses were aborted in 1993-94. The estimate, based on hospital births alone, is believed to have followed sex determination.
The sad states of affairs are not limited to rural areas alone. Indian metros, the supposed repository of the educated elite, are as discriminatory against the girl child as their lesser-educated rural cousins.
In the Mumbai alone the number of clinics for sex determination increased from less than 10 to 300 between 1982-92. In Delhi, nearly 13,000 sex-determination tests were estimated to have been done in seven clinics.
“There is nothing known as educated middle class, though the family may not express joy verbally when they come to know that they are going to have a son, but the satisfaction is so evident from their face that it is more than enough to convey the feelings of the family,” says a doctor, practicing in a reputed Delhi hospital.
In suburban areas, quacks also jump on to the sex determination bandwagon. For a fee ranging from Rs 750-Rs 1,200, these quacks dupe gullible victims into taking medication to ensure the birth of a male. Even though sex determination tests are illegal, the existing laws do not have enough teeth to bring the guilty to book. However, legislation is not a foolproof method of stopping this inhuman practice of female foetecide. What is needed is creation of awareness about the rights of an unborn child and the dangers that may arise from a altered sex ratio.