Women's Womb, Not To Be Law Bound

How ironic is it that the world fights for the rights of a women and the government makes the laws accordingly to make women feel more empowered and less controlled but at the same time denies her basic right to make a decision for her own body and ends up criminalizing it if she does so.

States like Alabama have recently passed new laws which is a all men based decision because none of the four women serving in the state Senate voted for the bill. This law states that a women can now only abort if the continuation of the pregnancy poses threat to the women’s body. No exception to rape or sexual assault will be taken into consideration even if it is a minor or a person with mental disabilities. This isn’t even the part where it gets all harsh, the state also gives authority to rapist to fight for the child’s custody. Not only the woman is forced to live with a choice she never made, she now also has to go through the trauma of facing her rapist repeatedly. Worst of all is that the rapist out of all has the rights to sue the women if she seeks an abortion, so much for a fair justice, isn’t it? The decision of abortion should be that of a woman, the doctor and her family and not of the government and such men who would never go through the struggles of pregnancy.

The law in India isn’t so cruel to the women. The law allows permission to terminate pregnancies caused due to rape and sexual assaults but thanks to our justice system which at times fails to deliver justice on time leading women to a stage where abortion can be a risk for the women’s life, one of such cases to prove the statement is that of a 14-year-old girl from Uttar Pradesh who was raped but denied abortion because the law proceedings took entire eight weeks, leading her to the stage of 'advanced pregnancy' (about 33 weeks). This led to her family forcing her to marry her rapist and soon followed by being excluded from her family and the society.

Implementing such laws and such limitations is not doing to decrease abortion but only increase riskier ones.In Philippine it is estimatedthat as many as 100,000 women are hospitalized annually due to abortion complications, and about 1,000 women die each year after getting abortions because they use folk medicines and go to unlicensed doctors or attempt the self-induced methods after the ban on abortion in the country.

A U.S Senate candidate quoted that, “Pregnancies resulting from rape are something that god intended to happen. I believe that none of the gods of any religion would intend to bring a new life in this world by any means but a deed which was barbarous and sinful and not a result of love".

When women or girls are raped, many want to bury their memories of the traumatic event. This is impossible if the government is forcing them to bear their rapists’ child which results to be a torture for the women. And such cases aren’t unheard of where the mother turns abusive towards the child because it is a constant reminder of her horrifying past and also the child is a result of it. Those who seek to deprive women of their reproductive rights cite adoption as a supposed alternative to abortion but by doing so aren’t the baby’s rights to have a family, be cared for and be loved taken away? Because not all foster babies are adopted and they are more vulnerable to abuse or mistreatment and also have higher risk of mental and physical problems. In a lot of cases they also end up in an abusive family or an unsafe environment and many such cases are not even reported till date because of the child’s fear. What is the point of bringing a life on this earth and risk it to suffer the rest of his or her life. Adoption is not an alternative to abortion.