Re: Bengal to make blood tests mandatory for marriage

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

Ref: Bengal to make blood tests mandatory for marriage, a few points of concern,

1. If the test determine that both the to be spouses are thallassemic or that

either one or both has HIV, would the law prevent them from marrying? If yes,

then would such a law be a valid law, given the national and international

fundamental/human rights regimen in place.?

2. What are the consequences of marrying without a test. Is that an invalid

marriage? would the children born iout of such marriage be illegitimate, or

would the wife have no claim to the property of the husband or to maintainence?

Mr. Adhikary has his facts about marriage cerificate wrong.

It is not mandatory and a marriage that has been solemnised by hindu rituals

[for eg] is valid even if a licence/certificate is not procured. Has this been

factored into the intended legislation.

3. What is after test the people involved still decide to marry and or co-habit

[if they test positive]? would the state then put them behind bars?

All these legislative measures are knee jerk reactions by half assed politicians

who have no clue as to the intricacies of what they are talking

about. It seems they just feel good making idiotic but grandoise statements.

They also feel that they have a right to intrude with a tong and hammer with

impunity into the bedroom of the citizenry. When actually they should understand

that in such cases as these what works is not mandatory testing but counselling

and information dissemination that change attitudes and educate the public about

risks. Otherwise we shall have the pota of the personal laws on our hands, used

less and abused much, while serving no purpose whatsoever.

regards

Aditya Bondyopadhyay

E-mail: <adit@...>

[Guest guest]

Dear forum,

I think some apprehensions have been triggered of in this forum which

need to be allayed. As i incidentally look after the program which is

one of the first in the country.

Thallassemia and hiv cannot be compared together. Thallassemia is a

gene borne disease like haemophilia unlike hiv which is behavioural.

the screening strategy has been tried out in the mediterranean

countries and it has yielded a significant reduction in fresh cases

of thallassemic major cases. the approach is actually eugenic in that

some form of genetic selection is encouraged through knowledge as to

the thallassemia carrier status.

A couple i.e. both having carrier status can avoid marriage or still

marry and can selectively abort a baby(one out of four)which is

thallassemic. hence it helps in avoiding the birth of a thallassemic

baby who would be a major economic liability on the family as well as

on the public health system due to repeated blood transfusions and

associated morbidity. This is a form of harm reduction in a very

roundabout way.

Firstly, no mandatory testing has been contemplated in Bengal.

Neither will mandatory testing help as has been proved in so many

public health diseases.

Secondly, v need to delink HIV from Thallassemia when v think about

the latter. No law/legislation as such has been contemplated as such

for thallassemia. But legislating cannot be a means to ensure people

go in for testing. For that one has to use the civil society and

interestingly there are a number of ngos working in this field backed

with a good media campaign to ensure that people who are at the age

of marriage voluntarily go in for their Thallassemia test. it is just

that v plan to rope in the marriage registrars in the awarenes

campaigns.

S Suresh Kumar

PD WBSACS

E-mail: s_suresh_k@...