On August 10, 1971, India decriminalized abortion by passing The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (MTP), just two years prior to America’s Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. Now, the upper house of the Indian parliament (Rajya Sabha) has proposed MTP amendment bill 2017, which calls for extending the legal abortion limit from 20 to 24 weeks.
Yet a recent study — a partnership between Guttmacher (the pro-abortion, former research arm of Planned Parenthood) along with the International Institute of Population Sciences in Mumbai — has shown that every two seconds, a child is already killed by abortion in India. The summary of the study published in Lancet Medical Journal reported that almost 16 million abortions were committed in India in 2015 alone.
Twenty times more abortions than officially reported
For the past 15 years, the Government of India has reported that approximately 700,000 abortions were committed in the country every year. These figures were long disputed by the activists working against gendercide, since the figures did not take into account abortions done outside the registered facilities or chemical abortions obtained by buying pills on the black market.
The Guttmacher study was the first attempt to find out a more accurate national incidence of abortion, and the shocking results showed that the actual figures were 20 times higher than reported by the government. Almost 16 million abortions were committed in the year 2015, with 22 percent being listed as surgical and 80 percent as chemical. Yet organizations like International Planned Parenthood Federation, Marie Stopes International, IPAS, PSI, and the Population Council are pushing for the draft bill to be passed. In fact, the proposed MTP amendment to include non-allopathic medical practitioners (Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Unani, and Siddha) to be approved to commit abortions was the recommendation of the Population Council.
Several researchers, activists and even pro-life advocates tend to shrug off that the numbers seem huge because of the country’s huge population. Consider the United States, which has a population of 300 million and among the most progressive abortion laws in the world. The U.S. is said to commit one million abortions every year. A simple comparison of the U.S. and India clearly shows that abortions done in India under less restrictive laws are four times higher than the U.S. The skyrocketing number of abortions in India is not simply the result of a larger population — it truly is a massive killing taking place.
The current license to kill
The MTP Act allows abortion of babies up to 20 weeks under conditions of rape, contraceptive failure, disability of the child, to preserve the health and life of the mother. The law requires the consent of guardians in case of minors under the age of 18 and those labeled ‘mentally ill.’ In the case of a pregnancy within 12 weeks, the opinion of one medical doctor is necessary. For a pregnancy between 12 and 20 weeks, an abortion requires the opinion of two medical practitioners.
Below, former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino explains the brutal and commonly used D&E abortion method, typically committed between 13 and 24 weeks gestation:
Proposed changes
There have been several attempts and an organized effort to liberalize the present MTP act. The MTP Amendment Draft Bill 2014 was defended by Union Minister Jagat Nadda of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in Lok Sabha, the lower house of the parliament, earlier in 2017. It proposed the following changes:
- Extend legal abortion limit from 20 to 24 weeks
- Allow abortion up to birth in case of fetal abnormalities
- Lift restrictions on reporting to authorities in case of abortion for minor thereby protecting pedophiles and sexual offenses against children
- Allow Nurses, village level healthcare workers and traditional practitioners AYUSH (Ayurvedic, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) to provide non-surgical abortion
- Opinion from just one medical officer in case of second-trimester abortion.
The 2014 draft bill was sent back for review by the Prime Minister’s office. The PM’s office returned the bill after the Sangili incident in Maharashtra and a direct letter from the Indian Medical Association which pointed out the fraudulence of the study conducted by Population Council, on which proposed bill was based. However, another draft bill was proposed by Dr. Kanwar Deep Singh, the member of the upper house of the Parliament (Rajya Sabha) in August 2017, asking for just the extension of the legal abortion limit up to 24 weeks.
What happens next
According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, only seven countries among 198 nations and regions allow abortion on demand past 20 weeks. India’s abortion laws are much more liberal than those of Belgium, France, Germany and several other countries. Abortion drugs like mifepristone and misoprostol, which are banned in France, can be easily obtained over the counter in India. With the pressure from the Indian Supreme Court to study the bill in the wake of mounting abortion pleas, the MTP bill 2017 will be debated again in the upcoming parliament session this year.
If the proposed amendment is passed, it will amount to even greater slaughter of the innocent, making India another China.
