By Anwar Elshamy
A LEADING Qatari professor has called for amending the law regulating the compulsory premarital medical examination, saying that there should be legal provision to ban marriages where one of the prospective partners has deadly diseases like Aids or genetic disorders that could be transmitted to their children.
Speaking to Gulf Times, Abdul Hamid al-Ansari, a former dean of the Shariah College at Qatar University, said that Islam prohibits marriages which are expected to produce children with incurable diseases.
“From the Islamic viewpoint, people with HIV should not be allowed to marry because it will cause harm to their offspring. I think that there is a fault with the family law which endorsed the premarital medical examination but left it to the diseased individuals to decide to tie the knot or not. The law should be amended to prevent marriage in case the result of the medical test was negative. It is a loophole and should be filled,” al-Ansari said.
According to the law, premarital medical check-up would be mandatory from September for all who want to marry in Qatar. However, the decision of marriage, irrespective of the result of the medical examination, is left to the prospective couples.
The medical examination would check three types of diseases, including infectious ones like HIV, genetic diseases and chronic disease like blood pressure and diabetes.
Dr Moza al-Malki, psychotherapist and writer, saw that the law making the premarital medical examination mandatory as a positive step, but said the state must have power to stop unions which are expected to produce children “with deformities”.
“I wish the law has given more protection to the coming generations. We are suffering more than other countries in the world from genetic diseases and the high number of diabetics and children born with disabilities, especially because of the traditional consanguineous marriages,” al-Malki said.
However, Noura al-Saad, a social activist, hailed the law saying that it would be useful especially to women. “I think women will be able to know about the health status of their would-be husbands.
“I think also that making the procedure compulsory would reduce the rate of marriages between close relatives, and hence address the tribal-oriented attitudes by consolidating the relations among different tribes when people marry outside their tribes,” al-Saad maintained.
About the expected response of the people toward enforcing the premarital medical examination, Hassan al-Jifairi, a social activist, said the result of the examination should be taken seriously by the people.
“Qataris have become more aware now about the risk of marriage without premarital screening. Every Qatari family who has a child with special needs is suffering and would welcome any step protecting them from having disabled children. I remember that families having children with special needs used to hide them thinking that it is a stigma,” he said, while observing that as long as confidentiality of the results is ensured, the people would welcome the idea.
Dr Ahmed Naji, director of the Medical Commission, said that premarital medical tests would be free for both citizens and expatriates.
“The cost of such examinations would be borne by the National Health Authority. I have friends who were going abroad to do the genetic tests before marriage and some of them went by the result though they were cousins,” he said.
Asked about the reasons behind making the procedure compulsory, Dr Naji, who is also the head of the Premarital Medical Examination, said that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended that Arab countries take such steps in light of the prevalence of genetic diseases and deformities resulting from marriage between close relatives.
“Qatar has welcomed the WHO recommendation and started working on it because it felt there is a need for implementing it,” he said.
Dr Amin Hassan Abu Salah, an official at the section for Qataris at the Medical Commis-sion, said that only some 6% of those undergoing the premarital medical examination would ignore the test results.
“We have surveyed the people visiting some health centres about the issue. Most of them were supporting the procedure,” he said.
Asked about the confidentiality of the results, he said they would be kept confidential. “Even the marriage registrar who will need the test certificate will not be able to know the results as the certificate would only say that the couple have undergone the premarital tests,” he added.
About divulging the test results by the couples, Tareq Salah al-Din, a legal expert at the National health authority, said that both partners would sign an undertaking to maintain the confidentially of the medical information concerning the other party.
“There would be a legal liability for any such disclosure. They would be requested to sign an undertaking before they knew the result of the tests and in case of any breach of the trust, the Qatari penal code would apply,” he added. |
