Coming down heavily on a recent study conducted by a Nagpur-based institute that indicated sex-selection practices were prevalent among physicians too, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has said that it had no role to play in it. The child sex ratio in families that doctors surveyed in the Vidarbha region stood at 907 girls per 1,000 boys, which was lower than the national average of 914, the study had stated.
Speaking to The Asian Age, president of IMA, Nagpur branch, Dr Warsha Dhawale said, “I disagree with the report, as it fails to mention what type of couples were surveyed. These cases need not be of sex selection, but natural correction. One can’t blame doctors for not being able to conceive a girl child.”
Dr Dhawale, a gynaecologist, said that the report was scrutinised and severely criticised by the doctors’ body. She said that the sex ratio in Nagpur had shown a positive trend in recent times and currently stood healthily at 951 girls per 1,000 boys. “More than 100 doctor couples in Nagpur itself have two girl children and I strongly believe that 99 per cent of the total doctors in the region are not for sex-selection,” she said.
She, however, didn’t rule out the possibility of a few doctors carrying out such practices.
Principal investigator Dr Archana Patel said, “We carried out the survey in 946 nuclear families with 1,624 children where either one or both parents were physicians. They were ex-students of the Governm-ent Medical College, Nagp-ur from the 1980-85 batch.”
The skewed ratio in the doctors’ families was strongly indicative of underlying sex-selection practices even though the ratios offer only circumstantial evidence, rather than proof of such practices, the study had stated.
The researchers observed that the conditional sex ratios decreased with increasing numbers of previous female births, and a previous birth of a daughter in the family was associated with a 38 per cent reduced likelihood of a subsequent female birth.