Relevance : GS Paper II
Theme of the Article
Women’s health and reproductive rights.
Why has this issue been Raised?
In the 2019 general election, sexual and reproductive rights of women has just not been an important electoral issue.
Party Manifestos on women Reproductive Rights
Political parties have addressed reproductive rights in narrow ways:
- Congress has promised to make a law to prohibit child marriages.
- BJP focusses on women’s menstruation and the Suvidha scheme.
- The CPI(M) has promised to make marital rape an offence.
Limited Understanding of Women’s Reproductive Rights
- The above points show the limitation of understanding of reproductive rights.
- Understanding of sexual and reproductive rights in India must include maternal deaths, maternal care, contraceptives, adolescent sexuality, forced sterilisations, etc.
Unsafe Abortions
- India has 45,000 maternal deaths every year.
- Unsafe abortions are the third leading cause of maternal deaths in India.
- Factors responsible for unsafe abortions are:
- Lack of access to safe abortion clinics, and stigma.
- Doctors refuse to perform abortions on young women leading to clandestine and unsafe abortions.
- The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 provides for termination only up to 20 weeks.
Efforts by the Supreme Court
- The court decriminalised adultery.
- It included marriage and sexual orientation within right to privacy.
Way forward
- Political parties should be concerned with women’s reproductive rights.
- The responsibility also lies with civil society.
- The silence around unsafe abortions needs to be broken.
Conclusion
Women’s productive rights must be seen as a crucial element in the contemporary debates on democracy.
