As per India’s abortion laws only qualified doctors, under stipulated conditions, can perform abortion on a woman in an approved clinic or hospital. The Indian abortion laws fall under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, which was enacted by the Indian Parliament in the year 1971.
This law guarantees the Right of Women in India to terminate an unintended pregnancy by a registered medical practitioner in a hospital established or maintained by the Government or a place being approved for the purpose of this Act by the Government.
Not all pregnancies could be terminated.
Section 3 of the MTP Act said that pregnancy can be terminated if:
# Therapeutic indication: in order to prevent injury to the physical or mental health of the woman.
# Eugenic indication: in view of the substantial risk that if the child were born, it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to seriously handicap.
# Humanitarian indication: as the pregnancy is alleged by a pregnant woman to have been caused by rape.
# Social indication: as the pregnancy has occurred as result of failure of any contraceptive device or method used by married woman or her husband for the purpose of limiting the number of children.
# 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 termination of pregnancy is to be carried out in a government hospital or at a place approved by the government and two medical practitioners are necessary if the pregnancy is more than 12 weeks but less than 20 weeks duration; for less than 12 weeks one medical practitioner can terminate it.
# The consent of woman alone is required if she above 18 year of age, but if she is a minor or lunatic, consent of the guardian is necessary.
There are various facets to this argument on abortion.
There are religious views that are defended by various religious institutions, it takes into consideration the formation of new being and thus preservation of a new life
There are feminists who would debate over the right to abortion as it's the woman's body and as per right to life and health , they should have a right to terminate their own pregnancy.
There is the positive morality argument where it is contended that completely legalising abortion would keep a check on all the illegal operations that happen and it would help people to have better access to hospitals and medical facilities.
there are further various tangents to it, but the status is still very unclear and thus it's time people discuss over this.
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2 comments:
We should not look at abortion as a legal issue only. Much more than the legal, we have psychological and moral issues to confront. It is not a liberating right as the west would like to look at. The Indian Act is that way very practical. I wonder whether our students are serious enough to go into any debate over this issue.
i do agree with your point that one should not restrict it just on legal levels, but its the basis of getting sanction and thus legal aspects do become an important factor here.
but abortion is something that is heavily morality based act and the very aspect of talking about it openly, is one step towards liberating our thoughts!
so its better to debate over it....
and yes i do agree its not a liberating right, i would like to state that it should be taken as a responsibility, it affects more than just one person.
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