Bangladesh’s High Court has ruled that revealing the sex of an unborn child in the womb constitutes professional misconduct — a decision aimed at curbing the targeted abortion of female fetuses across the country.
The bench, comprising Justice Naima Haider and Justice Kazi Zinat Hoque, announced the full verdict Monday in a case originally filed in 2020. A short order had been issued in February 2024.
Advocate Ishrat Hasan, among those who filed the writ petition, called the ruling “historic” after briefing reporters in Dhaka. The judgment cited India’s existing law prohibiting fetal sex disclosure as a precedent for the decision.
Syed Abdul Hamid, a health economics professor at Dhaka University, told Anadolu Agency the verdict was “significant” and could help stop the killing of female fetuses. “Such practice is often reported both in Bangladesh and India, particularly when there are two or more girl children born in a family,” he said.
Son preference remains deeply entrenched across South Asia, particularly in rural communities, driving selective abortion of female children at rates that have measurably skewed the population’s sex ratio in both countries.
The court also directed Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Health Services to establish a central digital database within six months to monitor diagnostic reports related to unborn children conducted in hospitals — a monitoring mechanism intended to enforce the ruling in practice.