Remarks on sex determination tests personal: Maneka

Facing criticism over her remarks favouring legality to sex determination tests, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi told Rajya Sabha on Thursday that it was her “personal view” and “not a policy statement”.

“You have said that I have made a statement. No, actually I didn’t make a statement, but it was a remark that I have made. It is not a Government of India’s policy nor is it a statement,” Gandhi said in the Rajya Sabha while responding to questions over gender.

She was responding to a question by Kanimozhi (DMK) who asked whether the government is planning to make sex determination legal and how does it plan to track millions of pregnant women and children when it has failed to track 50,000 registered ultrasound machines in the country.

Soon some other members in the House also objected to the minister’s remarks made earlier.

When asked by CPI-M’s Sitaram Yechury whether she was allowing it to be legal, the Minister vehemently denied it. “No, no. At the moment, it is illegal to predict. I don’t have the authority and I don’t have the ability to make it legal. What I had suggested was this. Every woman, who becomes pregnant, will go to register in her district that she is pregnant so that when she has a baby, we can look at the statistics and say that this was born, that was born, what was born or what was not born. That is what I have suggested rather than locking up 750 people operating ultrasound machines, which is being done now. That is all. Mine was not a policy statement. Accept it as my personal view,” she said.

She said 50,000 ultrasound machines that are in the country are required for many things other than just determining whether someone is going to have a baby boy or a baby girl.