THE BATTLE CONTINUES: ABORTION LAWS V. HUMAN RIGHTS LAWS
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Abstract
India spearheaded in legalizing abortion (Medicinal Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act of 1971) under which a lady can lawfully profit from abortion if the pregnancy conveys the danger of grave physical damage, jeopardizes her psychological well-being, when pregnancy comes about because of a preventative failure in a married lady or from rape or is probably going to bring about the birth of a child with physical or mental irregularities. Abortion is allowed up to 20 weeks of pregnancy duration and no spousal assent is required. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in 2013-2014 about 6.6 lakh MTPs were performed in the country (MOHFW, 2014). Against that, an estimated 16.7 million abortions per year are performed in other than registered and government recognised institutions, often by untrained persons in unhygienic conditions (Leela Visaria, 2014)
Despite an intensive national campaign for safe motherhood and after the initial attention on unsafe abortion in the 1960s and early 1970s that led to legalization of abortion, morbidity and mortality from unsafe abortion have remained is a serious problem for Indian women 28 years after abortion was legalised in India (Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2002)
In the last decade, women health advocates have tried to draw the attention of policy makers and administrators to a range of issues and concerns related to abortion in order to improve the availability, safety and use of services. In the post Cairo period, the comprehensive Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) programme initiated in India, has included abortion in the RCH package and work towards making it safe (Pati, 2004). While the climate seems to be favourable to initiate debate on safe abortion among key stakeholders, lack of reliable information, wide regional and rural-urban differences, inability to bring various constituencies on a common platform and a thin research base, make it difficult for policy makers, administrators and women health advocates to develop strategic interventions.
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