Abortion Rights In India.

Human Rights are those which are or rather should be available to every human being without any discrimination of any kind. The very foundation of freedom is recognizing the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of every member of the human family. The most important among all the other human rights granted to us by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is the right to life. But there are some controversial and/or debatable issues related to this supreme right. One such issue is the Right to abortion. Among other rights of women, it is rather prevalent that every mother has a right to abortion and that it is a universal right that every women on this planet possesses or at least should possess. Now the argumentative or the deliberative aspect is the degree of importance. This degree of importance or the precedence of legality is between the will of the mother and the right of the unborn to see the light of this world.

Before we delve deep, it is perhaps imperative for us to comprehend the very word ‘abortion’ in its entirety.According to the World Health Organization, abortion is defined as; ‘removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in, or caused by, is death. This can occur spontaneously as a miscarriage, or be induced artificially through chemical, surgical or other means’.Normally, “abortion” is understood as a procedure which is induced at any point during the pregnancy; medically, it is defined as a miscarriage or induced termination before twenty weeks gestation, which is considered nonviable.

There are certain cases or instances wherein a woman can exercise her right to abortion. Those are as follows:

• The continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman greater than if the pregnancy was terminated;

• The termination is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman;

• The continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman;

• The continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, or injury to the physical or mental health of any existing child of the family of the pregnant woman;

• There is substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped;

• To save the life of the pregnant woman or to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman.

The Indian legal structure is formulated in such a way that it entitles a woman to exercise her right to abortion only if the continuance of pregnancy would pose a grave risk to the life of the pregnant woman or by any means jeopardize her physical or mental health.

Abortion however was or rather is practiced by many in a clandestine manner as in many instances the Indian legal structure doesn’t permit woman to exercise their right of abortion as it is severely condemned in ancient literary materials and sources from which the modern legal structure emanated. Moreover, paragraph 3 of the Code of Ethics of The Medical Council of India says, “I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of its inception”.

The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Bill which was passed and became an act on 10th August 1971, guarantees The Right of Women in India to terminate an unintended pregnancy by a registered medical practitioner in a proper government or government subsidized hospital. Section 3 of the said Act, says that pregnancy can be terminated:

 As a health measure when there is danger to the life or risk to physical or mental health of the women;

 On humanitarian grounds - such as when pregnancy arises from a sex crime like rape or intercourse with a lunatic woman, etc.

 Eugenic grounds - where there is a substantial risk that the child, if born, would suffer from deformities and diseases.

Now, there are multifaceted arguments that can be put forward both in the favor of the mother and the unborn but what needs to be realized in this context is that whichever way we drift there will always prevail a certain contention regarding the preference which is being imparted to one specified group and the arena of this particular topic is such that both the parties are right from their personal contexts and whichever party we prefer, the other has to essentially pay the price.

If we consider the case of the mother, it is imperative to note the bodily sovereignty that she possesses. In dire circumstances there is a choice wherein either the mother or the fetus could be saved. In these dicey cases rationale and the personal preference of the mother necessarily has to overpower legality and moral or ethical ‘right’. Moreover, if a mother doesn’t want to deliver a baby, after the birth she would abandon the child, This will amount to be more dangerous to the existence of the new born. Thus, it is better and advisable to terminate the pregnancy at an earlier stage.

To conclude; the law has to take care of the liberty of the mother as well as that of the unborn. As a hospitable community, we should seek ways of providing support for lonely and frightened mothers, and for lonely and abandoned babies. We need to offer women with unplanned pregnancies as much love and support as they require and to assist them in finding compassionate alternatives to abortion only if they want so

Thank you,
Rajdeep Bhattacharjee.