WOMEN: What If Not Enough Are Around

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Nov 8 2005 (IPS) - A recommendation by a British parliamentary committee to allow a couple to select the sex of their child under certain circumstances is leading to new fears in Asian and African communities.

The practice of sex determination of a foetus leading to abortion if female is widespread in several parts of Asia and Africa already. The new fears arise over new technology that would allow a couple simply to select the sex of their child instead of waiting for the foetus to form.

In many communities in Asia and Africa parents are inclined to prefer sons to daughters.

The move is controversial enough even to have divided the parliamentary committee itself. “We’ve recommended many things, but one is that sex selection is now possible technologically, and it should be made available under certain circumstances,” Labour Party MP Ian Gibson who headed the committee told IPS in an interview. “That perhaps is an issue that tended to split the committee.”

Gibson said “there are all sorts of questions associated with that in particular communities who’ve come from other parts of the world, but the choice will be there, the availability will be there to make that choice.” But he said he supported availability of the new technology with due safeguards.

“There will have to be some sort of regulation,” he said. “I don’t think you can just say I fancy a boy, I fancy a girl and that’s it. I don’t think that will ever become a part and parcel of what happens in this country.”

Gibson added that “I don’t see any great desire to prefer one sex or another in our society, but I do know in India and China it is very different, for cultural reasons.”

But is there a danger that the technology could spill out of control of the medical establishment into private practice that anyone could access?

“Unless we made it illegal, of course that’s possible,” Gibson said. “Who knows what goes on now in Harley Street (with several medical practices) and other places as well. People have a chance to do that.”

The new technology could be misused even if the British government were to make uncontrolled use of it illegal, Gibson acknowledged. “Who knows what will happen in other parts of the world as the technology spins out into Europe and other parts of India, China, Korea and so on. There are some strange things going on in genetics across the world. So I would never rule anything out.”

Dr Shiv Pandey, former member of the General Medical Council which regulates medical practice in Britain, said the facility could present particular problems for Asian communities.

“It is a big advance in the medical field, but knowing our society, some people who take undue advantage of that facility,” he told IPS. “It has got a lot of implications.”

Gender selection, he said, would amount to “something like baby by order.” It could be useful in a case where a family “might have three or four girls and they want to have a boy û that is a social custom which we can’t change overnight.” And if “within a legal framework somebody is taking any action and the medical profession helps him out I think there should be no harm in accepting this.”

The General Medical Council, he said, “is going to take a serious view of any doctor who gets involved in activities where there is no indication he or she should,” Dr Pandey said. “And I think the embryo society will also be taking a very dim view of the whole situation in such a case, so I think there will be a lot of protection put in.”

But he acknowledged that “there are always people who will find ways and means of abusing the system. When something is available, there are people who will do underhand work. It may not be in this country because I’m quite confident that the medical fraternity of this country is very ethical and very above board. But it may be that in other places this system is being used.”

Darshan Grewal, mayor of Hounslow borough in London said such a provision could be devastating for families.

“A law like this is totally unacceptable – this is a natural thing, it is god’s gift, and if we go against that it would be totally unfair and inhuman,” he told IPS. “We are playing against nature, and that is dangerous. This law should not be passed; they should rethink what they are talking about.”

In countries like India and Pakistan, he said, everyone wants boys. “Then where will we get the girls from, how will the generation move further? This would be a disaster.”