Last November, we
witnessed the death of a 31 year old Indian woman, Savita Hallapanavar, in Ireland, after doctors
refused to give her an abortion 17 weeks into pregnancy, which created quite a
huge furore in the Indian and Irish media. The reason for such a hue and cry
was the reason that the doctors cited for their inability to perform an
abortion – that Ireland, being a Catholic country, they are obligated not to
take the life of a foetus. It is the growing perception that Ireland is
being governed by a legal regime that encourages doctors to consider the
repercussions of taking the life of a foetus even if it at the cost of the life
of the mother, thereby keeping in tune with the ideals of the largely Catholic
constitution of the country. It is pervaded by a religious
dogma that is disrespectful to non believers and demonstrates
utter disregard for the life of a mother as opposed to the ‘life’ of a
yet-to-be-born baby.
The debate in
this issue basically boils down to pro-choice and pro-life support. The
pro-choice and pro-life antagonists argue over whether a woman should have the
right to abort a pregnancy when she decides that she is either unable or
unwilling to invest a lifetime of resources in the foetus that she is carrying.
The pro-life proponents claim that such an act is equivalent to murder because
the foetus must be considered a viable human being from the time of conception.
The pro-choice proponents, on the other hand, advocate a woman’s rights to
control her own body, her right to an induced abortion, especially when her own
life is in danger. They argue that when the foetus is detrimental to the
survival of the pregnant woman, she should be allowed to choose whether she
wants to save her own life herself by exercising her natural rights over her
own life and body or she wants to try saving her baby.
In this perspective, it
is interesting to examine the position and awareness of the issue of abortion
laws in India. In other societies, activists talk about the abortion as
something that also involves the ending of a potential human life. However,
here, we do not discuss the issue of women’s reproductive rights and abortion
on terms of pro-life and pro-choice. We don’t talk and argue about the rights
of the mother vis-à-vis those of the unborn baby. In our society, abortion is
more of a visceral and possibly sentimental issue, and the causes leading to
abortion are looked down upon as things that are extremely shameful for a
woman, by the so-called moral guardians of the society. Here, the topic of a
case of abortion and the factors leading to it are discussed in a hushed
whisper, a disapproving tone and cluck of the tongue.
The Medical Termination of
Pregnancy Act was enacted in 1971 and was suitably amended in 1975. The
Indian law empowers women with a choice of abortion in the event of
contraceptive abortion, all pregnancies- not just those that
endanger the health of mother or foetus, or resulting from rape –- can be
terminated legally. Technically, any woman above the age of 18 can have an
abortion with nobody’s consent but her own and her doctor’s. However,
like several of our laws designed to directly impact the lives of women in
ostensibly positive ways, what is real on paper is not nearly as effective in
practice. Just like other major women centric laws in India, that prohibit
pre-natal sex determination, dowry, women’s education; legislative protection
in the field of reproductive and abortion rights also does
not translate to reality.
Abortion exists in India.
Indian society also strongly encourages it, but hardly when the life of the
mother is in danger. Many conservative families in patriarchal Indian families
urge the mother to go for abortion, when they get the information through
illegal scans that the ensuing baby is a girl child; or when, some woman from
the family has got pregnant before marriage. That is when abortion ceases to be
an issue which champions a feministic point of view, but rather turns
detrimental from a perspective of women’s rights.
As mentioned earlier, the
issue of abortion in India is not based on the pro-life and pro-choice divide
which debates, elsewhere in the world are based on. From a strictly legal point
of view, abortion in India is pro-choice. The fact that India has been plagued
by the disturbing facets of overpopulation demands, legality of abortion is
a practical
solution. The primary reason why abortion is legal in India has only
little coherence with it being a basic, personal right and has more to do
resources and development. Moreover, in the Indian society, where unwanted
pregnancy is a social taboo, had abortion not been legal, it would have led to
problems galore. Many a woman would have been forced to go for abortions in
clandestine and unsafe medical conditions, to avoid ‘social
shame’. That in turn, would have led to gross violations of the law
coupled with dangerous medical consequences, possibly even death. However, one
of the primary objectives of such a law is to remove the tag of taboo attached
with the topic of abortion in the Indian society, something which hasn’t been
achieved yet.
Keeping the legality of the issue aside, we need to ponder over
as to why, incidents related to abortion and unwanted pregnancy are rarely
regarded as anything other than shameful events, slips of judgement or
symptoms of malaises in the society. In India, only few sections of the society
think on the lines of unwanted pregnancies being a simple biological
occurrence, which can be dealt with, safely and quickly, thanks to the
bludgeoning medical technology. Rather, they seem to imagine abortion as an
undesirable yet inevitable consequence, resulting from lack of moral standards
of a woman.
Ultimately, legislation
is not the only and moreover, effective tool to ensure that women are aware of
and have easy access to their reproductive rights. We have to move beyond the
black letter of the law to address such an issue, which is so central to women’s
rights. The law is worth its salt when women can go for abortions without being
branded sluts, without any sort of social repercussions. Of course, there
should be room enough for debateon whether a mother’s life should be given
primary importance as opposed to that of the foetus or an unborn baby. The
medical safety aspect of abortion cases should also be taken into
consideration, while discussing the issue. Furthermore, the logistical problems
of abortions being legalized and its potential subsequent misuse should also be
open to debate, especially in a society like that of India’s, where the
frequency of cases in which female foetuses are surgically killed even when
there is no iota of danger to the mother’s life, is far too high. But seeing
the topic of abortion and reproductive rights of women as a social taboo
doesn’t really make much sense.
by Samyak Sibasish
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