Also, Dr. Subramanian and Dr. Corsi noted, the findings show that India’s Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, the 1996 law making it illegal to use ultrasound for the purposes of sex-selective abortion, is not working. "The pervasive nature of the low sex ratio at birth suggests that this is not a consequence of a minority of errant physicians in a few states," they wrote.
Though Dr. Subramanian and Dr. Corsi argued that the medical community should take actions against errant physicians, they did not condemn the practice of sex-selective abortion altogether. Instead, they concluded with a provocative question to policy makers. If no male biases are noticeable for the first born, as is the case in India, "Should medical technology and services be allowed to play a part in letting a family plan their desired composition, especially when there is an active public policy effort to voluntarily limit family size to replacement level?"
Dr. Jha and his colleagues study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Canadian Institute of Health Research, the International Development Research Center, and the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute. Dr. Jha and his colleagues declared no conflicts of interest. Dr. Subramanian and Dr. Corsi also declared that they had no conflicts of interest.