Abortion Laws: Role of NGO’s in Strengthening Communities and Providing Related Services

I. Introduction

Approximate 15.6 million abortions take place in India every year. A significant ratio of these results to be unsafe. Unsafe abortion is the third largest cause of maternal mortality leading to the death of 10 women each day and thousands more facing distress. There is a need to strengthen women's access to CAC services and preventing the deaths and disabilities faced by them. WHO says “unsafe abortion is a procedure for termination of a pregnancy done by an individual who does not have the necessary training or an environment not conforms to minimal medical quality." According to the medical termination of pregnancy act, 1971- abortion can be done only when the medical practitioner is registered and when the length of pregnancy does not exceed twelve weeks, the consult of a registered practitioner needed in the case where the length is exceeding twelve weeks but not exceeds twenty weeks then, also pregnancy can be terminated but only with consult of two registered practitioners when the opinion formed in genuinely, to save the life of the woman.

Research Hypothesis

The tentative postulation here explains the need for NGO's working for safe abortion care in India.

Research Methodology

The present study is based on primary & secondary research which includes e-sources, newspapers, articles, journals, etc.

The research analyses to increase the number of Non-governmental organizations in Madhya Pradesh. The qualitative research method has been adopted to bring better insight possibilities for the improvement of ranges. The survey belongs to the selected participants such as Doctors, NGOs, affected women, and the general public.

The graphical presentation of the min survey questions.

1. UNSAFE ABORTION IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM IN INDIA?

2. Does NGO plays a vital role in awarding people?

II. Observation

The data observed from the survey is authentic from the selected participants. Unsafe abortion is a serious problem in India, the data interpreted 96.2% has agreed with this issue, which can be overcome by creating more awareness among the women and organizing seminars. Non-governmental organizations play a significant role in awarding people throughout India, 76% of the selected participant's assent to the question. As per the study of other states like Bihar, Haryana, Odisha, Maharashtra has a virtuous approach for safe abortion care instead of Madhya Pradesh should initiate more programs for the welfare of women.

III. Safe abortion: a modern-day pandemic

Today, safe and fruitful methods for preventing and terminating Pregnancy exist. despite these modern medical technologies, unsafe abortion remains a pandemic. Nearly all unsafe abortions take place in rural areas where people aren't aware of the procedure, rules, and methods to avoid unintended pregnancy.

Unsafe abortion is an issue in urban areas too. In many cities the legal right to abortion continues to be violated upon, services are not affordable and abortion stigma is pervasive.

The direct burden of unsafe abortion on women is sobering.

In 2018:

• An approx. 11.99 million unsafe abortions took place,
• 47,500 women died,
• five million women suffered from physical disabilities due to this unsafe abortion.

Women who are socially boycotted after an abortion may also suffer emotionally. Adolescent girls aged 15–19 are disproportionately affected by unsafe abortion among the estimated 3.1 million abortions in adolescents.

IV. The cost of unsafe abortion for community is also considerable

• When women are not able or allowed to do something for the society their community & economic productivity decrease.
• Children who lose their mothers to unsafe abortion-related deaths, receive less health and social care and are more likely to die than children who have two living parents.
• Treatment of unsafe abortion-related complications places a significant burden on public health systems in the developing world. Ensuring women’s access to safe abortion in the first place lowers costs for health systems. PAC offered by physicians in tertiary hospitals is estimated to cost health systems ten times more than elective abortion services offered by mid-level practitioners in a primary care setting.

In India, though abortion is legally allowed under a wide range of situations, the doctor has the final say. A woman has to justify that her pregnancy occurred despite her having tried to prevent it or that it had been intended but circumstances changed or made it unwanted later. A woman has to justify that her pregnancy occurred despite her having tried to prevent it or that it had been intended but circumstances changed or made it unwanted later. The reality may be that the pregnancy was unwanted from the start, but to justify abortion within the legal framework, the woman may feel she has to say it was a contraceptive failure, creating an environment of falsehood.

V. Abortion laws and policies in india³

Recent law and policy reforms, though not radical, still represent a step forward towards ensuring a woman’s right to safe abortion care. It is only in recent years that several national-level consultative efforts involving policymakers, professional’s bodies like the Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Societies of India (FOGSI) and the Indian Medical Association (IMA), NGOs (notably Parrikar Sava Sancta, CEHAT, Health Watch and the Family Planning Association of India) and health activists, have championed the improvement of access to safe and legal abortion services in India. Many of their recommendations are in line with the objectives and the strategies outlined in the Action Plan of India’s National Population Policy, 2000. They include:

• Increasing availability and access to safe abortion services,
• Creating more qualified providers (including mid-level providers) and facilities, especially in rural areas
• Simplifying the certification process
• De-linking clinic and provider certification,
• Linking policy with technology and research and good clinical practice,
• Applying uniform standards for both the private and public sectors, and
• Ensuring quality of abortion care

Increasing awareness and dispelling misconceptions about the abortion law amongst providers and policymakers is just one step towards this. There is a need to enhance awareness of both contraceptive and abortion services, especially amongst adolescents, within the larger context of sexual and reproductive health, integrating strategies and interventions within value systems and family and gender relations for these policies to be implemented effectively.

VI. Rural and urban differences⁴

The cultural factors such as materialized and non-materialized aspects of the society, norms it is governed by, values and cultures one follows are some of the distinctive features which differentiate rural and urban societies. On one hand, there are strong beliefs in the culture and language in rural societies, and on the other hand, there are electronically operated and faster urban cities. In urban living the individual networking wider scope rather than rural living. The women should be informed of the policies and planning service delivery. The unsafe abortion likely happens due to the morbidity and mortality rates because there is inadequacy for the sources available and fluctuates with the time. It draws attention to the high number of unsafe abortions in the country where women's health and life are at stake. After analyzing the rural & urban areas we come to know that there is a need for consistent awareness generation activities involving influential community leaders and a couple of counseling sessions which are supposed to be organized by NGOs.

VII. Critical review of abortion in madhya pradesh

The women are aware of the legal status of abortion but lack behind when it comes to awareness regarding awareness about conditions of abortions. In the study of Madhya Pradesh while 18% of women are aware of the legality of abortion but the awareness was legally permitted by 9% of the urban populations whereas in rural population lags behind it. Only 2- 6% of primary health centers are trained in providing services in Madhya Pradesh. A study in Madhya Pradesh reports that only one in ten abortions in public sector MTP centers were provided free of cost. For example, the incidents of abortions due to the ruling power of the man in the house which family supports the termination of pregnancy of the women. The ministry of health and family welfare, the government of Madhya Pradesh in collaboration with IPAS initiated, to analyze and understand the pathways.

VIII. Role of ngo's in awarding people

As per our primary research we analysis that 73.2% people believes that NGO’S can play a vital role in awarding and educating people more and more about abortion, as we have a national NGO named IPAS (Individual personal assistance service development foundation) whose headquarter is situated in New Delhi and is spread across 12 states. Its purpose is to ensure every woman in the society for their reproductive rights and focuses on safe abortions, we also believe that NGOs can play a vital role in society's welfare, as per reports we come to know that we have approx. 10 NGOs working for safe abortion care in India. After studying the aims & objectives of IPAS, we think that there is a need for increasing the number of NGOs in India because the number of abortion which takes place in India is approx. 15.6 million & we have only around 10 NGOs who are working for abortion care, there is a huge difference in the number of abortions happening and organizations taking care about its whole aspect including spreading awareness or helping people with related problems. We have so many examples of NGOs that were working for the welfare of societies as a whole but taking in mind the sensitivity of the subject matter in hand we need specific NGOs who will focus only on this aspect.

IX. Conclusion

Abortion is a civil as well as a human right. Safe abortions play a major role in delivering the same. In a country like India, these basics rights are hard to get hands-on due to several reasons ranging from huge population, illiteracy, unawareness, ignorant attitude of individual towards their own body, etc.

What is the need of ours is to understand the gravity of the issues, to evaluate every aspect which governs the topic of abortion, and then come up with a certain change which will help in developing a healthy abortion culture in the country? What we need to keep in mind is that a woman only seeks an abortion in case of unintended pregnancy because maybe she isn’t financially capable enough to give the child what he deserves as a child or it may be due to any other reason but since in India females aren't aware enough about from where can they get is done safely or what should they do if they face any negligence on the part of the doctor or what are the formalities they need to follow for legal abortion to not attract any criminal liability.

In this paper, we have discussed the role NGOs can play in spreading awareness among the masses about this topic. We have also seen the number of registered cases that the courts deal with related to abortion and the number of cases which have been settled for good and needless to say the difference between the two is alarming enough to make us that we should take some major steps in this field.

Since government authorities can't be omnipresent and most of the time they aren't ground level attached with the people of that particular area thus NGOs can play a vital role because first, they are low maintenance groups, second, they have a huge network among other NGOs which will act as a helping hand in the same, they are also generally the people from the same locality which understand the population of their area better than any outsider thus they know the ground-level reality of their area and the people too. Also since NGOs are doing well in other fields we can increase the number of NGOs working on Abortion related issues from 10 to any number according to the cases we witness and also keeping in mind its growth rate.

The research analogy states the repudiate of abortion leads to affecting the social and mental health of the individual and family too at the same time. Unsafe abortions can even lead to deaths, can be worse than that? The NGO will create awareness activities and would even be able to inform people on one if required.

Increasing the no. of NGOs will create an impact in society resulting in minimizing the illegal abortion cases, abortion death cases, unsafe abortion cases, etc. Along with this, we also need to make changes in the policies regarding abortions and amending the provisions so that they can contribute to the ease of having an abortion done with minimum formalities.

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X. References

1. 1.Phadke S. Pro-choice or population control: a study of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, Government of India, 1971. 1998. At: bwww.hsph.harvard.edu/ Organizations/health net/Saia/ repro/MTPact.Html

2. Berber M. Making abortions safe: a matter of good public health policy and practice. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2000;78:580–92.

3. Government of India, Parivar Seva Sanstha, Ipas. National Conference on making early abortion safe and accessible. Agra, 11–13 October 2000;

4. Hirve S. Abortion: policy and practice. Seminar 2003; 532(Dec):14–19.

5. http://mohua.gov.in/cms/notification-of-cac.php

6. https://mohfw.gov.in/acts-rules-and-standards-health-sector/acts/mtp-act-1971

7. https://www.ipas.org/

8. https://www.lawnn.com/abortion-laws-india-laws-punishments-cases/

9. World Health Organization. Safe Abortion: Technical and Policy Guidance for Health Systems. Geneva7 WHO, 2003.

10. Bandewar S. Quality of Abortion Care: A Reality from Medical, Legal, and Women's Perspective. Pune7 CEHAT, 2002

11. Government of India. Report of the Shah Committee to study the question of legalization of abortion. New Delhi7 Ministry of Health and Family Planning, 1966Conclusion.

12. Rural and Urban Settings,” in Sole E. (end) Communicating for Development Purposes pp 126-140. Ibadan: Kraft Books Limited.

13. Banerjee, S.K., 2007. Increasing access to safe abortion services in Uttara hand: identifying medical termination of pregnancy training centers. New Delhi: Ipas India

14. WHO, 2003. Safe abortion: technical and policy guidance for health systems. Geneva: World Health Organization (WHO).

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Footnotes

1. Author is a student at Amity University, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India.

2. Author is a student at Amity University, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India.

3. Government of India. Report of the Shah Committee to study the question of legalization of abortion. New Delhi Ministry of Health and Family Planning, 1966 Conclusion. Rural and Urban Settings,” in Soola E. (ed) Communicating for Development Purposes pp 126-140. Ibadan: Kraft Books Limited. ↩

4. Rural and Urban Settings,” in Soola E. (ed) Communicating for Development Purposes pp 126-140. Ibadan: Kraft Books Limited. ↩