Women are guinea pigs in fertility experiments

Deccan Chronicle; Thursday October 28, 2010

With infertility rate on the rise, women are being used as guinea pigs by medical companies and doctors who capitalise on the lackadaisical approach of the government which has failed to implement the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994. This was stated by health workers at a consultation held by the Campaign Against Sex Selective Abortion (CASSA) here on Wednesday.

The members of the state-level campaign body comprising social action groups, women’s organisations, doctors and researchers urged both the Centre and the state government to address the issue. CASSA core committee member A. Gandhimathi said as the government had failed to focus on the issue and implement the PCPNDT Act in letter and spirit, women were being used as guinea pigs for companies that are churning out huge profits.Stating that artificial insemination and number of test tube babies had gone up tremendously in the country, she said doctors, instead of finding out the reason and addressing the real problem, were continuing to provide solutions through technologies available in the market.

Another member, M. Jeeva, said the sex ratio at birth (SRB) and child sex ratio (CSR) in Tamil Nadu have been declining for the past five decades. Female foeticide has replaced female infanticide and the practice of sex selective abortion has contributed to the declining sex ratio.

The campaign body, on the basis of information received from health officials through RTI applications, has identified several lacunae in the implementation of the Act resulting in the decreasing CSR and SRB rates, he said, pointing out that many fertility clinics were functioning as assisted reproductive clinics in Chennai. Though the registration of gynaecological clinics under the Act is a must, they have not been registered.