Senate bodies for preparing draft pre-marital blood screening bill with consensus

ISLAMABAD: A joint meeting of Senate committees Wednesday asked four ministries to prepare the draft Pre-marital Blood Screening (Family Laws Amendment) Bill, 2016 with consensus.

The Senate's standing committees on Law & Justice and, Religious Affairs & Interfaith Harmony, which met here at the Parliament House, asked the ministries of Law, Health Services, Human Rights and Religious Affairs to jointly prepare the premarital blood screening bill with reference to blood screening only for Thalassemia.

The meeting co-chaired by Senators Javed Abbasi and Hafiz Hamdullah observed that with the scope of the bill moved by Senator Chaudhary Tanvir Khan limited to Thalassemia the practicality of the blood screening was made easy.

However, the mover and committee members agreed that other diseases could be included in the ambit of the bill at later stages.

The intention of the bill is to spread awareness about and stop chances of Thalassemia; a disease which has no permanent treatment and requires blood transfusion every month.

It is pertinent to mention here that there is high probability of Thalassemia major in children in case both parents have Thalassemia minor. The bill asks for mandatory pre-marital blood screening to help prevention of Thalassemia major in children.

The committee heard its members and representatives of ministries, National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR) and National Commission on Status of Women (NCSW) on whether the blood screening should be made mandatory or option of marriage should be allowed in case of positive results.

Senator Hafiz Hamdullah read out a recommendation made by the Council of Islamic Ideology in 2010 which asked for including a column in the marriage certificate to mention about the disease.

Chaudhry Tanvir agreed on this recommendation while Senators Hamza, Sajid Mir, and Saleem Zia opposed the provision of choice saying that the couples should be stopped to get married in case of positive results otherwise the aim of the bill of prevention of the disease might not be achieved.

NCHR Chairman Justice (R) Nawaz Chauhan and NCSW Chairperson Khawar Mumtaz mentioned that similar laws were in place in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

It was also stated that the existing capacity of government hospitals in Islamabad should be taken in view before passage of the bill as to whether the same had authorized testing labs, subsidized service and technical expertise for accurate interpretation.

The Human Rights Ministry recommended focus on awareness in the initial stages of the bill's implementation while keeping the screening voluntary and making it binding afterwards.

The Health Services Ministry told the meeting that similar bills had been passed by three provinces.

The committee was also told that blood screening was not mandatory for both partners as the disease was transmittable only in case of Thalassemia minor in both partners.

It was agreed that ministries in their joint draft would also touch upon the mechanism for making the law applicable on minorities.