The Recent Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton in one of her speeches said, “You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.”
The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, in India, recognizes ‘Failure of Contraceptive’ or ‘Unplanned Pregnancy’ reasons for abortion only in the case married women. But thankfully the Indian Government has taken a positive step ahead in regard to this issue and the Union Health Ministry has recommended these two as valid reasons for all women, married or single. This came as part of a series of recommendations made by the Health Ministry for making changes in the MTP Act. This issue will be addressed in the cabinet as soon as the ongoing parliament session ends.
Every year in India, according to statistics provided by the government, seven million abortions take place. In these seven million, only 50% of the abortions follow a safe procedure which accounts to 3.5 million. All over the world 22 million unsafe abortions are reported per year. In the unsafe procedure in India, as many as 8% of the women die due to the complications that arise during abortion.
Women, in general, have the moral right to decide what to do with their bodies. The right to abortion is vital as it is a matter of gender equality. By banning abortions for single women, they are put at risk of exposing themselves to illegal methods for abortions, which is unsafe and in some cases cause death.
There are many changes made to the Indian law every year. With progressing times the need for revising the existing abortion laws become imperative. Medico-legal experts also say that there should be a limit for abortion that any woman has. This is mainly because any abnormalities in the fetus show up only after 18 weeks, which would leave two weeks for parents to decide the next action plan. And also repetitive abortions affect the fertility of the mother.
The next pressing problem that India faces is the gender of the child. Even though the government has passed a strict rule against gender test that is done in the fifth month of pregnancy, many doctors still do it illegally. Aborting the child because of gender after the fifth month not only affects the ratio of men to women but also causes complications to the mother, which might reduce her chances of conceiving in the future.
