The Right To Safe Abortions And Women's Bodily Autonomy In A Man's World

Suhani, 25, (name changed) from West Bengal was working at a multinational firm in Delhi and living with her boyfriend in a posh locality in 2017 when a sudden unannounced pregnancy made her realise the gamut of problems a woman faces in India when she wants to get an abortion. She and her partner always used contraception and followed a relatively active lifestyle and it was not until she was 13 weeks into her pregnancy that she realised she was expecting. “I panicked and went to a gynaecologist at a public clinic to consider my options. We were not ready to have a baby but the doctor immediately urged me to reconsider and counselled us to inform our families and get married. She eventually refused to give me any constructive advice on how to abort the child,” Suhani recalls.

After toiling for another week and not finding any luck with public clinics, Suhani managed to get an appointment at a private clinic. “It cost me around Rs 22,000 for the procedure and nearly Rs 10,000 more on medication,” Suhani said, adding that in most of the public hospitals she visited, the attitude of doctors and service providers was hostile. “One gynaecologist tried to scare me saying I won’t be able to conceive again and in another abortion centre, the technicians refused to perform the procedure without consent from my family. That’s not even legal I think,” she adds.

In another case, Kajri Jain* (name changed) from Rajasthan's Alwar district reveals that she lost the abit (seems incomplete)

Despite the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 2021 allowing all women in India to abort a foetus up to 20 weeks of pregnancy and 24 weeks for women under special conditions, thousands like Suhani have their reproductive rights denied and physical autonomy curtailed, mainly by the patriarchal attitude of doctors and service providers, and improper implementation of abortion and anti-foeticide laws that often end up becoming albatrosses around their necks instead of helping women.

A 2021 research paper by the Centre for Reproductive Rights titled ‘Legal Barriers to Accessing Safe Abortion Services in India: A Fact Finding Study’, found skewed patriarchal morality, lack of women’s agency and fear of anti-foeticide laws among one of the top reasons for women to be denied an abortion, leading to nearly 8 lakh unsafe abortions a year and as many as 2.3 million abortions (78% of all abortions) are illegal as per the terms of the MTP Act simply because they occur outside of authorised facilities (even though they may otherwise be safe).

The CRR survey found that in case of married women, first pregnancy, repeated abortions or fear that the woman is using abortion as a substitute for contraception are often used as reasons to deny abortion services. For unmarried women, a Victorian morality in the medical community towards unmarried sex and fear of POCSO laws in case of underage women also leads to fear among service providers, who often come up with complicated and unnecessary requirements that make it difficult for women to seek reproductive health services. 

In rural areas, the lack of contraception options, lack of medical or legal awareness and the lack of agency or autonomy over their own bodies (which is equally pervasive in urban spaces) often lead to unequal access among women when it comes to contraception. “In patriarchal Indian households, childbearing is the woman’s duty and women are made to believe that delivering a male child is their foremost goal,” says Ranjana Kumari, Director of Centre for Social Research. 

“Such attitudes are prevalent not just in villages but also in cities and across India, where abortion remains a loaded socio-religious issue with various connotations, not just for women’s health, legal rights and autonomy but also as a pointed reminder of the socio-economic inequality that impacts women’s health and development in India," she further says.

Kumari points out that women of all ages from financially weak and illiterate households, especially in rural areas are at a higher risk of going through unsafe abortions, and the risks were compounded in case of women from minority communities or oppressed castes.

Another category of women who often fail to abortions despite suffering sexual violence and rape are victims of marital rape, a form of sexual violence that is not yet a punishable offence in the country.  

A study conducted by CEHAT on domestic abuse survivors found that out of the 142 women who disclosed being in abusive marriages and agreed to receiving, 31 reported that their current pregnancy was the result of rape by their husbands. All 31 sought abortions. Of these, 24 women were less than 20-week gestation but only five of them were able to have an abortion. Of the rest, the 19 women who were less than 20 weeks and the seven who beyond 20 weeks were all forced to continue their pregnancies.

The study also cited reports of women who were denied abortion pills by providers on grounds that the pill will cause health issues, despite the mifepristone-misoprostol combination being approved by the Drug Controller General of India for use up to 63 days of gestation.

Kumari, who has been working with women’s reproductive health, sexual violence and female foeticide for over two decades, also notes that fighting for abortion rights becomes all the more difficult in India, which already suffers from the scourge of female foeticide. She narrated how the CSR’s movement for saving the girl child in Haryana was co-opted by certain religious and community leaders as a call against abortion.

“It’s a double-edged sword. On one hand, reproductive and abortion rights are fundamental to a woman’s independence and autonomy. But laxation in abortion laws invariably leads to increase in sex-selective abortions when a majority of women’s pregnancies are dictated by the husband or family’s greed for a male child”.