IMA demands a comprehensive review of PCPNDT act
The country’s largest doctor’s body, Indian Medical Association(IMA) has demanded a comprehensive review, repeal and reconception of the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of
Sex Selection) Act, (PCPNDT), twenty-four years after its implementation.
PCPNDT act was enacted to ban the misuse of sex-selective abortions and female foeticide. According to IMA, the act has miserably failed in achieving the objective.
IMA president and TMC MP Shantanu Sen described it as a “black law” that has “miserably failed in achieving its objectives in the 24 years of its dubious existence” and as an instrument leading to endless “harassment” to obstetricians and radiologists.
“Time has come to review the effectiveness of the law in addressing the issue. To repeal the current law and re-conceive one with equal responsibility and participation of everyone concerned will be the right way to go. The medical profession reserves the right to withdraw appropriate services and resist all the harassments and injustice inflicted on it,” Sen added.
Dr R V Asokan, Honorary Secretary General of IMA said that the law suffered from serious conceptual flaws and layman’s approach. “Even clerical errors or an accident in paperwork can cost a medical practitioner their license”. “Adding that hundreds of obstetricians and technicians have been unduly harassed because of the Act. He also said that at least six doctors had been jailed for a year in Maharashtra after they were arrested for undue errors.
“Female foeticide is a social problem, not a medical one. Isolating doctors and putting the entire onus of preventing sex-selective abortion on medical professionals and ultrasound machines is simply unfair” Dr Asokan added.
In 2015, the IMA protested the Act and filed a petition demanding its repeal. This time, the demand came after the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of Sections 23(1) and 23(2) of the act.
Source: Economic Times Health, News18, http://www.ncpcr.gov.in/view_file.php?fid=434
Image: DNA India