At a time of distressing furore on social media and the streets against the near-total bans on abortion in the West, India’s generous stance on the termination of pregnancy is a comforting sanctum. Coupled with the moratorium on commercial surrogacy and the proposal to equalise men’s and women’s ages at marriage, India is positioned securely in the highest echelons of countries that safeguard reproductive autonomy.
India’s constitutional ethos commits to the protection of personal liberty through Article 21. Abortion or termination of pregnancy is a woman’s prerogative. While women are exclusively fated to withstand child-bearing – purely on account of their biological predisposition — sociocultural constructs also subject them to a disproportionate share of child-rearing.
The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021, is a step in the right direction. It ensures that expectant mothers exercise self-determination in welcoming new life to their homes. Under the aegis of the Act, abortions may be performed up to 24 gestational weeks on grounds of risk to the mother’s life, mental anguish, rape, incest, contraception failure or the diagnosis of foetal abnormalities. The Act navigates the 20 weeks challenge posed by the MTP Act, 1971 and is a nod to advances in the field of health and reproductive science. It is a liberal achievement over countries where abortions are disallowed since conception, even in the most traumatising of circumstances of sexual abuse or incest.
The MTP Act, 2021, attests to the intuition and farsightedness of its crafters. Readiness for and desirability of children decisively shape the life trajectories of mothers, families and children alike. Unwanted pregnancies unexpectedly curtail the life choices of parents, especially mothers, and may limit their mental well-being and personal growth. Further, children born unwanted may suffer reduced opportunities. Illustratively, the WHO links the likelihood of children being born “wanted” to greater parental investments in their education.
Incumbent law and policy-makers have skilfully given reproductive choice a life-cycle twist. Since fertility, child-bearing and child-rearing are unmistakably associated with marriage, by proposing to raise the legal marriageable age for women, policymakers are heralding welcome changes that delay pregnancy. The Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021 seeks to push the marriage age for women from 18 years to 21 years. The Bill is well-founded in the face of scholarship and evidence cited by the WHO, which holds that adolescent mothers aged 10 to 19 years are prone to higher risks of eclampsia, puerperal endometritis, and systemic infections in comparison to women aged 20 to 24 years. Children born to such mothers additionally face higher risks of low birth weight, preterm delivery and severe neonatal conditions.
Read More at https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/on-womens-rights-west-takes-a-backward-step-and-india-shows-the-way-7992598/
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