Sex of unborn babies cannot be revealed: HC

In a brave move, the High Court on Sunday declared that the sex of unborn babies cannot be revealed.

Delivering the ruling on a writ petition, the court also instructed the government to take the necessary steps to ensure that hospitals, clinics, and diagnostic centers closely adhere to the guidelines that discourage the detection of sex during pregnancy.

At the same time, the High Court ordered the health ministry to keep the database of unborn children‍‍`s test results, writ petitioner Ishrat Hasan informed the media.

Following the ruling, the lawyer stated that the HC has forbidden the revelation of the sex of unborn newborns in Bangladesh.

The ruling was delivered by the High Court panel of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Kazi Zinat Hoque in response to a four-year-old writ suit seeking to restrict prenatal sex identification in order to protect babies and pregnant women. 

On January 26, 2020, Ishrat Hasan, a Supreme Court lawyer, filed a petition with the HC as a public interest litigation, requesting that the authorities concerned prohibit the sex detection of unborn babies and stop selling, transferring, or handling any machine used for prenatal sex detection.

Following the petition, another HC court issued a rule on February 3, 2020, asking authorities to explain why they should not be directed to develop a guideline to prevent sex detection in unborn kids.

During the hearing of the rule, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) filed a guidance to the HC on January 29 this year, stating that detection of sex during pregnancy has been discouraged. 

The document is known as the "National Guideline for the Prevention of Son Preference and the Risk of Gender-Biased Sex Selection, 2022". 

Ishrat filed the case, and during the hearing, Deputy Attorney General Amit Das Gupta and Advocate Tirtha Salil Pal represented the state and DGHS, respectively.