It is worth noting that prenatal diagnostic technology became available in India at least a decade prior to the Forum Against Sex Determination and Sex Pre-Selection campaign. During its introduction (1974), the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, initiated a clinical trial on the efficacy and acceptability of the available procedure, amniocentesis. It was found that almost 90 per cent of those who were part of the trial aborted the foetus if the procedure revealed the sex of the child to be female. Women’s groups in Delhi were rightly concerned about this finding and immediately launched a protest to demand a ban on the use of these technologies for sex determination. The government of India responded by imposing a ban on sex determination tests in public hospitals (1975-76). The ban imposed by the GOI on the availability of SD in public facilities was no doubt a positive step in the early stages of the introduction of diagnostic technology in the country. However, some researchers see this ban as directly resulting in the rapid commercialization and growth of the private sector for sex determination tests (Balakrishnan, 1994).

The extent of availability of SD tests in private hospitals soon came to light as a result of an incident that took place in the New Bhandari Hospital in Amritsar, Punjab, during 1985. The incident was an error in accurately determining the sex of the foetus as a result of which a male foetus was mistakenly aborted. The “wronged” client was an important public figure and he soon made the incident public to be able to discredit the hospital. The accompanying media coverage served to stir up controversy on the issue in Punjab and the issue of SD spiralled into a national level discussion...

The FASDSP initiated its campaign in Mumbai to raise awareness on SD and sex selective abortion and secure an effective ban during 1986. The forum membership ranged from varied backgrounds and interests ranging from feminists, public health advocates to activists from the people’s science movement. The diversity of interest and opinion within the forum led to the creation of a broader ideological platform on the issue of SD and SSA. This proved to be a positive feature in broadening the scope of the debate, which proved beneficial in that it was able to reach out to a wider constituency…

In particular, the focus on women’s needs was a common rallying point for groups who otherwise had divergent ideologies. In this instance, a common ground was forged amongst groups ranging from the Young Women’s Christian Association, NSUI (student’s wing of the Congress, UNICEF, National Media Centre and the Humanist party. The main agenda of the campaign was the demand for a ban on SD. Although there was widespread support to the campaign amongst varied organizations as well as the media, it also had an equally large number of sceptics who considered the forum’s efforts as merely a magnification of what appeared to be a localized issue…

As a result of the sustained campaign, a new law was framed to ban SD and subsequently passed by the Maharashtra state legislature titled the Maharashtra Regulation of Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1988. This was later expanded into a national level legislation titled the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act (PNDT), 1994.