He added that every woman should have “reproductive autonomy” to request an abortion without consulting a third party. The realities of public health in India vary greatly from state to state. What is normal in Kerala (reaction to Nipah) and coronavirus cannot be said for most Indian states where data is uneven. The first large-scale study of abortions and unwanted pregnancies, conducted by The Lancet in 2017, indicates that one in three in 48.1 million pregnancies in India ends in abortion, up from 15.6 million in 2015. Tags: MTP Amendment Act, India Abortion Act, India, MTP Act Even after 50 years of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act[1], abortion has not been decriminalized. The Indian Penal Code of 1860 (IPC) makes abortion (“induced miscarriage”) an offence under Section 312. [7] The MTP Act is the exception to this law. The law protects general practitioners by setting certain conditions under which they can terminate the pregnancy. In addition, the MTP specifically mentions pregnant “women,” making abortion services inaccessible to transgender, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming people, as well as other gender-identified people who do not identify as women. Worldwide, 56 million abortions take place each year. [20] In South and Central Asia, about 16 million abortions took place between 2010 and 2014, while 13 million abortions took place in East Asia alone. [21] Unwritten and unwritten and unwritten biases follow women from menstruation to menopause to pregnancy, in most cases without legal or family support.
The amendment removed a number of uncertainties. There are significant differences in estimates of the number of reported abortions and the total number of estimated abortions in India. According to HMIS reports, the total number of spontaneous/induced abortions that took place in India in 2016-17 was 970,436, in 2015-16 was 901781, in 2014-15 was 901,839 and in 2013-14 was 790,587. [22] According to reports, ten women die every day from unsafe abortions in India. [23] Dynamic data are available here on the Health Management Information System (HIS) portal. In 2021, the MTP Amendment Act 2021 was passed with some amendments to the MTP Act, including all women allowed to use safe abortion services due to contraceptive failure, increasing the pregnancy limit to 24 weeks for special categories of women and requiring provider advice up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. Abortions can now be performed until 24 September. pregnancy, because the 2021 law amending the MTP law entered into force by notification to Gazzette from 24 September 2021. Abortion is 100% covered by the government`s National Public Health Insurance Fund, Ayushman Bharat and Public Employee Insurance, with the overall price of surgical abortion set at ₹15,500 ($190), which includes counseling, therapy, hospitalization, medication, USG, and all follow-up treatments.
For medical abortion, the package price is set at ₹1,500 ($19), including counseling and USG. [2] Millions of women around the world rely on a range of abortion options, from expensive private clinics to charlatans. Unwritten and unwritten and unspoken biases follow them from menstruation to pregnancy to menopause, in most cases without legal or family support. The amendment removed a number of uncertainties. There is no turning back, and this is a big step for women. Sex selection and safe abortion are mutually exclusive under Indian law. While the MTP Act provides a framework for the provision of abortion services, the PC&PNDT Act regulates the misuse of diagnostic techniques to determine the sex of the fetus. The two acts have a very clearly defined objective, but there is still a merger in the implementation of the two acts. Due to the strict enforcement of the PC&PNDT law, many doctors are afraid or reluctant to offer MTP services due to the possibility of being inspected and legal issues, which severely impede access to safe abortion services.
[38] To address this issue, a group of organizations and individuals working on this issue came together to launch the Pratigya Campaign for Gender Equality and Safe Abortion in 2013. The campaign provides a platform to address the issue of sex selection while protecting women`s right to safe and legal abortion services in India. As part of the campaign, an information kit for the media on this topic was also produced. [39] Manual vacuum aspiration (VA) is a “safe and effective method of abortion in which the contents of the uterus are evacuated through the use of a portable plastic vacuum cleaner,”[26] which is “associated with less blood loss, shorter hospital stays, and less need for anesthetics.” This method of abortion is recommended by WHO for premature abortion. The Indian amendment states that there is no limit to the gestational age in case of fetal abnormalities.
