Highlighting Contradictions around Right to Life and Right to Choice related to Abortions in India

Registration ID: IJNRD_215689

Published ID: IJNRD2403285

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Skylab Sahu , Pradeep K. Mehta , Smrutirekha Sahoo

Gender,Rights, Sex Selective Abortion

Indian society is a patriarchal society where women are considered as the second sex in comparison to men. Women’s rights are often violated in different stages of their life in different ways. Women exercise less reproductive rights or have less decision making power related to the issues of reproduction. They also remain subject to different forms of violence in their life that could also put their reproductive health in jeopardy. In our society, women’s life is perceived as highly undesirable to the extent that a baby girl is killed within the womb. The 2001 Census had reported the child sex ratio in India as 927 that has further reduced to 919 in 2011. The prevalence of the sex selective abortion has not stopped even with spread of education and it is prevalent across the different economic classes. In most of the north Indian states and Maharashtra, the child sex ratio has reduced abysmally even below the national average. The practice of the sex selective abortion not only annihilates the right to life to the girl children but also puts the health of the women at risk. The sex selective abortion is a grim form of violence against female gender which negates the very framework of human rights itself. Furthermore, such a social practice might give rise to the gender imbalance by putting the equilibrium of the society in halt, capable of creating several social maladies. In order to control the sex selective abortions, the Indian state has formulated the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Acts in 1994 which was further amended in 2002 and is known as Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Acts (PC-PNDT) that helps preventing sex selective abortions. The Indian women have less control over their own body and exercise less rights related to reproductive issues and choices. However, the Indian state under the Medical Termination Prevention Act has legalised abortion (with a few restriction), under which a female has a right to abort a foetus. This law also in essence ensures that abortions of the foetus are not selective of a particular sex. The sex selection abortion deals with two contradictory rights of women i.e., right to life and health and the women’s right over their own body. Under the law, although women have right to abortion, they have no right to abort a foetus on the basis of the selection of the sex of the foetus. The paper argues that though there is a seemingly contradiction of these two rights, in fact they are complementary to each other to ensure better protection of rights of female gender. It further argues that though the state has been successful in introducing the law, it has largely failed in implementing the law.

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Skylab Sahu, Pradeep K. Mehta, & Smrutirekha Sahoo (March-2024). Highlighting Contradictions around Right to Life and Right to Choice related to Abortions in India. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NOVEL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, 9(3), c674-c687. https://ijnrd.org/papers/IJNRD2403285.pdf

Volume 9 Issue 3, March-2024

Pages : c674-c687

Paper Reg. ID: IJNRD_215689

Published Paper Id: IJNRD2403285

Downloads: 000121995

Research Area: Social Science and Humanities 

Country: New Delhi, Delhi, India

Published Paper PDF: https://ijnrd.org/papers/IJNRD2403285.pdf

Published Paper URL: https://ijnrd.org/viewpaperforall?paper=IJNRD2403285

Journal Name: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NOVEL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT(IJNRD)

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