abortion

The first time i was sensitized to the problems involved in abortion was while watching an old Malayalam movie. The abortion was an illegal one which lead to complications. The whole scene of abortion was scary. This movie was post 1971, when abortion was legal in India, so i will have to think it was still not widely available then. India has one of the most liberal abortion laws, which was adopted in 1971. One of the clause which makes it liberal allows the termination of pregnancy which results from failure of contraceptive irrespective of the method used (natural methods/ barrier methods/ hormonal methods). Its a great thing but some studies (read this manushi report and there is a part where a volunteer tries to access the free abortion service in a delhi government hospital) say that despite the legal acceptance, benefits of free and legal abortion has not permeated very well to all levels of the society in India due to lack of awareness, social stigma about unwed pregnancies, and some political reasons of the 70's where abortion was packaged with irreversible contraceptive methods.

Recently i was reminded of the abortion issues when i was watching the movie Dirty Dancing. More than the hot dancing and romance showcased, what i took back with me was the plight of a girl with unwanted pregnancy showed in the movie. Set in 1963, when abortion was illegal in USA, the girl had no choice other than to go to a quack who charged exorbitant rates and did a messy job of abortion leading to complications. The girl in the movie was saved by the heroine's father, a doctor but what it shows is that in such a situation she or her friends wouldn't have approached a regular doctor to save her life, fearing the legal consequences. More reason that i was shocked was the thought that such things used to happen in the US of A. So what will be situation in lots of other countries where knowledge about contraceptives are much less and abortion is still banned under law.

And these are the days when religious fundamentalism is making a comeback in a lot of countries. And we get to see news like this, of Nicaragua banning abortions of all types including cases when mothers life is considered to be in danger. The "pro-life" guys there i guess are only interested in the life of the fetus and not that of the mother. Off course i can see their thoughts(from a distance of a thousands of miles, with no knowledge about them), how they were seething with anger when they saw some poor woman carrying a pregnancy which could put her life into danger got an abortion after certification by three doctors and lived a happy life. And how they can be happy now putting any other woman in such situation either to 8 years in jail if she went for abortion or to painful death(a death row situation to an innocent woman). Illegal abortions are rampant in these countries and they are a big threat to the life of women(read this news article, which reports illegal abortions are at the rate of one per woman in Latin America) and since the "pro life" guys find it hard to do anything against them, they are trying to put the life of mothers with medical complications who can only be saved by doctors, in clear danger and get some mental peace from that. Holy, but why am i surprised.

The only thing that we can do is to increase the awareness about abortion in our own country, talk about it and help out. Its quite important, last day i was talking to my friend about legality of abortion in India and he was surprised, so was he when i told adults can have consensual sex without marriage in India:).