Abortion has been legal in India since 1971 under the Medical Termination Pregnancy Act. It was amended in 2021 to give all women the right to abort till 24 weeks of gestation. However, single women were only given the right to abort only till 20 weeks of gestation. Why were single women not allowed the same right as married women? Why was the court discriminating on the basis of marital status?
Whether married or not, any woman has to go through the same process of giving birth to a baby but why were single women not given the equal right? The Indian Constitution says that every citizen is equal but why this discrimination?
This shows how even the judicial system had a bit of conservative mindset all this time. Are only married women dignified to get pregnant? Why so? India for sure is a country where a big percent of the population have a conservative mindset. People feel that getting a woman pregnant before marriage is a big sin. It is a taboo. A woman should be ‘pure’ when she is marrying. A woman shouldn’t have sex before getting married. But for a man, it's alright. Why? Because he is a ‘man’.
We have a change in the Indian Abortion Law now. The ruling came after an unmarried woman in a consensual relationship was denied an abortion by a lower court in because she was past 20 weeks in her pregnancy. Later the Supreme Court allowed her to get an abortion up to her 24th week of pregnancy and then extended that right to all women. Small changes like this can help a lot to develop the Indian society.
We can take the example of the abortion ban in the US.The woman can only abort the baby in case of an emergency situation. Was it right to ban the right or was it not right?
There are many viewpoints on this. A woman should have the right to keep or not keep her baby because at the end of the day she is the one who has to give birth and go through the painful process. She has to be mentally and physically prepared and needs someone to support her. Yes, men should also have a say in keeping the baby, but in the end the decision should depend on the woman not the man.
The other view on this ban is that killing a living life is murder. There is a baby growing in the womb of the woman. When a child is growing inside the woman, it starts getting attached to her and starts having feelings. By aborting, the feelings of the child are hurt and it also has to suffer death.
We have seen that there are cases where the parents gave birth to a baby although they didn’t want to. Raising a child is a big responsibility and this responsibility landed on them when they didn’t even want to, start creating some negative thoughts towards the child. They neglect the child and do not show much affection towards the child. Child abuse starts and this starts traumatizing the child and ruins his or her childhood. The parents become bad parents.
I do not support with the ban of abortion in the US. It is clearly restricting the fundamental rights of women. And looking at the other viewpoint, I’d say that “Rather not be a parent than be a bad parent”.
Every child deserves a parent but the parent has to be ready to take all the responsibilities. Abortion should be made legal in order to protect the women and also avoid cases of child abuses or related cases in the future.