abortion should not be referred to as ‘foeticide’, which has anti-abortion implications that we reject, for we believe that all women have the right to decide when and whether to bear and give birth to children. Making s*x selective abortions (wrongly referred to as ‘female foeticide’), a murder charge will only increase illegal abortions and also make access to safe abortion difficult for women, who already do not have many choices regarding their own reproductive rights. Safe and legal abortion is a woman’s right. Abortion is legal in India. The MTP Act, 1971 spells out the conditions under which it can be carried out.
Sex selective abortion however, amounts to discrimination against a particular s*x, in most cases, the female s*x. Sex selection in favour of the boy child is a symptom of devaluation of female lives.
It is important to remember that those who want to use abortion for elimination of the female foetus have to first determine the s*x of the child. Rightly, it is this process of pre-natal selection which is a crime, and it is being regulated and monitored through the PCPNDT Act.
Unless we are able to deal with all those social and economic factors that are going into the culture of son-preference and daughter-aversion, the child s*x ratio will go on plummeting. But the solution is not to curb the legal right to abortion. Rather the PCPNDT Act should be enforced, and clinics that offer prenatal s*x testing weeded out…
Checking pre-natal s*x selection requires the proper implementation of the PCPNDT act and monitoring of s*x-selective procedures by the government, and cannot be achieved by introducing such draconian measures that curb women’s right to safe and legal abortion.’
