Balancing Rights: The Pro-Choice Vs. Pro-Life Debate In India’s Evolving Legal Landscape
- IJLLR Journal
- May 11
- 2 min read
Km Manisha Gour (Research Scholar), Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University Lucknow, School of legal studies, Department of law
Prof. Dr. Sudarshan Verma, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University Lucknow, School of legal studies, Department of law
Introduction
Contextualizing the Debate
Abortion is one of the most burning and violent problems, which exists in the modern world, and has two prominent movements: for and against it. Globally, it has evolved in doing so in definable and memorable legal cases and legislation. For instance, Yet, the most recent decision released in 2022 in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organisation making Roe. v. Wade. and the right to abortion null and void reintroduced volatility to abortion laws in the U S All across the globe abortion laws are unstable and contested refer to Ireland’s abortion referendum of 2018 in order to repeal the eighth amendment which banned abortion almost in all cases and the recent decision of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal These global happenings have raised discourses in other nations and so is the case with India and the debate in India is still colouring with the international influence and at the same time the Indian cultural, religious and legal provisions.
India got its legal provision regarding abortion in 1971 through the enactment of MTP Act the provisions of which were liberal at that time but restricted the abortion only to save the life of the mother. It was a major shift in the colonial Indian Penal Code law which banned abortion with an exception of if the woman’s life was at risk. The MTP Act was amended in 2002 and more extensively in 2021: liberalising the grounds for the abortion law and extending the gestational limit for some categories of women. For example, the 2021 amendment described abortions up to 24 weeks for special groups of women: rape survivors, minors, and women with fetal abnormalities proved a more liberal attitude toward reproductive rights.
Amendments are late for India's CEDAW and international organizations on human rights so that the rights of both men and women can be obtained and if such laws are not followed properly then it does not protect us and create human security so that all the problems that arise can be resolved.