Fact-Finding on Family Planning in Tamil Nadu

Post Date: Wednesday, May 25, 2016

India’s southern states are often lauded for their relatively low Maternal Mortality Rates (MMR), even sex ratios, and reducing fertility rate. Tamil Nadu, with a population of 62.1 million people, has an MMR of 97, a sex ratio of 995 to 1,000, and fertility rate of 1.7 children per family. When compared to India’s average MMR of 210, sex ratio of 940, and fertility rate of 2.6, Tamil Nadu appears to have made immense progress. Unfortunately, these positive advancements shield the state from criticism and pushes for improvements in reproductive rights, maternal mortality, and improved health care.

In fact, a 2009 report by the Rural Women’s Social Education Centre (RUWSEC) found, “the single-minded focus that has helped the state achieve miracles in maternal health care may inadvertently have contributed to failure to adequately address other sexual and reproductive health needs of women…” Civil society organizations echoed these criticisms of Tamil Nadu’s reproductive health provisions at the June 2012 Family Planning Association of India’s national consultation on Family Planning.  Activists at the meeting reported that service providers and policy makers in Tamil Nadu regard “family planning” as a population control measure and not as a strategy for ensuring women’s fundamental right to freely choose the number and spacing of their children.

This discrepancy is clear in the state’s approach to family planning. Although Tamil Nadu uses a “target-free” approach to family planning, public health officials employ “intensified interventions” in areas where they are unsatisfied with the fertility rate and the state has ensured NRHM funding for increased access to sterilization services. Women disproportionately bear the burden of these interventions aimed at reducing the fertility rate.  From April 2011 to March 2012, 339,845 people underwent surgery for a permanent method of birth control (conventional vasectomy, no scalpel vasectomy, tubectomy, or laparoscopy) in Tamil Nadu.  Glaringly, 99.5 % of sterilization acceptors were women; 303,087 women underwent tubectomies and 34,857 women had laparoscopies, whereas 1,878 men had non-scalpel vasectomies and 23 men had conventional vasectomies.