A woman’s body is not her own in much of today’s world
PremiumFar too many countries deny women their bodily rights and thus their right to live with dignity
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The United Nations Population Fund’s State of World Population report, 2021, for the first time, focused on the issue of women’s bodily autonomy. The findings in this year’s UNPFA report, specially titled My Body Is My Own, are “alarming", as nearly half the women and girls in developing countries do not have the right to make decisions about their own bodies (such as whether to use contraception), or even on their sexuality, and seek healthcare.
In this backdrop, let’s look at the US, where women are now facing an “all out assault" on their reproductive rights, as a number of states in the country are on a spree of enacting restrictive abortion laws. At the end of 2021, the country’s Supreme Court (SC) is set to hear arguments on the legality of a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Mississippi’s petition for appeal of a circuit-court decision that threw out its law was admitted only after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a proponent of abortion rights. At this juncture, many pro-choice activists are apprehensive about the possibility of the SC’s present conservative majority endorsing the legality of the Mississippi law, or perhaps even going further by overturning its 1973 landmark ruling in the Roe vs. Wade case, which legalized abortion nationwide and proclaimed that the “decision whether to continue a pregnancy or have an abortion, that impacts a person’s body, health, family and future, belongs to the individual, not the government". In its brief to the SC, Mississippi’s attorney general argued for revoking the Roe vs Wade ruling and a subsequent 1992 decision that affirmed it, calling both “egregiously wrong… unprincipled decisions… that have poisoned the national discourse, and plagued the law", and asked for state legislatures to be given greater power to “restrict abortions". In this context, Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group that is among those challenging the Mississippi law, expressed deep concern that “if Roe falls, the impact will be immediate and far-reaching, well beyond Mississippi, since half the States in the country are ready to ban abortion entirely… endangering the lives of women of child-bearing age, who have never known a world in which they don’t have this basic right". “Such a situation will be terrible for many women... [especially those] who are young, single, abused, can’t afford a child... [and have] no place to go," rued a doctor at the Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization, the only functioning abortion clinic in Mississippi (as on 30 June 2021), as cited by a media story. Nearly three-quarters of the women seeking abortions in that state are African-American, who make up about 38% of its population, according to late-2020 federal data.
The issue of abortion is one of the most divisive in the US, and 12 of its states, including Mississippi, have passed “trigger" laws with stringent abortion restrictions which would go into effect immediately, or soon after, should the 1973 Roe verdict be rescinded. Meanwhile, from September, Texas has brought into effect a law that bans abortions at six weeks, called a “heartbeat abortion ban" that is already in place in many states. The Texas law has been challenged by the US Justice Department in a federal court. The US House of Representatives has also introduced a bill, named Women’s Health Protection Act, to establish a statutory right to receive abortion care and codify the Roe vs Wade decisions. But very few expect it to pass muster in the Senate.
Globally, there are divergent views on the issue of abortion. Some people subscribe to the view that it is the absolute choice of a pregnant woman, while many others contend that the state has an obligation to protect life, and hence it should protect every foetus.
In at least 26 countries, abortions are not permitted under any circumstances, and the laws of 39 countries allow abortion only if the woman’s life is at risk. In 56 countries, abortion is allowed on health or therapeutic grounds, while in 67, it is permitted on request with varying gestational periods, the most common being 12 weeks. Apart from health, some countries, including India, take into consideration a woman’s socio-economic conditions and sanction abortion under a broad range of circumstances.
In case of India, the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act of 2021 has already come into force. The World Health Organization hailed the amended law and said that it has expanded popular access to safe and legal abortion services, which will help the country curb preventable maternal mortality. Many women’s-rights groups also lauded it for de-stigmatizing pregnancy outside marriage, and for raising the time limit under specified circumstances.
Nevertheless, some observers also expressed disappointment that India’s Act reaffirmed the dominant stereotype that motherhood is the norm and abortion is an exception, and thus failed to ensure that the option is one of free choice. India has had several path-breaking Supreme Court rulings that upheld the right to abortion as a part of one’s personal liberty (Mrs. X vs. Union of India, 2017) and the right to privacy (K.S. Puttaswamy vs. Union of India, 2017).
“The denial of bodily autonomy amounts to violation of fundamental human rights, is nothing less than an annihilation of the spirit, and it must stop," said a UNPFA executive director while releasing this year’s population report. Should countries across the world continue to deny half of humanity the assertion of their bodily rights and the right to live with dignity?
Archana Datta is former director-general, Doordarshan and All India Radio
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