Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi pointed out some loopholes in the bill passed by Parliament that now allows abortion up to 24 weeks in some cases.
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00:00Sir, terminating a pregnancy for a woman to make that decision is mentally, emotionally
00:07and a very physically impacting decision that she takes in her life.
00:12Everybody is going on talking about it being a rights-based approach.
00:15I'm sorry, this bill is not a rights-based approach, it's a needs-based approach and
00:19that is where we are faltering, where we are not allowing a woman to make that choice.
00:30It hasn't been minutely thought through and it becomes our bounden duty to express
00:46the loopholes that exist and I'm hoping the Health Minister would consider them.
00:51Sir, terminating a pregnancy for a woman to make that decision is mentally, emotionally
00:58and a very physically impacting decision that she takes in her life.
01:04And for her who is in advanced stage of pregnancy and a stage where she knows there is life
01:10inside her womb, for her to take that decision is a difficult one indeed.
01:16For her to run across to various medical boards that we are talking about constituting which
01:21has three doctors and some state representatives, I think is extremely demeaning to her, is
01:27an invasion of her privacy, invasion of her choice and also creating more bureaucratic
01:33hurdles than needed at a time when she needs to take that decision.
01:37I would have appreciated it, everybody is going on talking about it being a rights-based
01:42approach.
01:43I'm sorry, this bill is not a rights-based approach, it's a needs-based approach and
01:46that is where we are faltering, where we are not allowing a woman to make that choice.
01:50My colleague in the Parliament, she said something like,
01:52that women should think that those women who have misdeeds, they keep those children in their wombs.
01:59That is where I want to tell them, that why can't that woman take that decision and why
02:03does she have to go to the medical board and first take permission, that yes, first give
02:07me permission and then I will finish the child that is growing in my womb.
02:11It is a very unfortunate decision, it is a painful decision.
02:16I would also like to say, sir, that constituting a medical board, the facility of specialist
02:21doctors, you have mentioned three specialists in these three, are not found in every state,
02:26in every rural area.
02:28Those problems are also going to come up.
02:3178% of abortions in our country are outside of hospital facilities, health facilities,
02:37which are sometimes illegal but are also unsafe and that shows the maternal mortality rate.
02:44Under the COVID lockdown, there must have been many cases in which there was no facility
02:48to go to hospitals.
02:50Sir, poor public health infrastructure and absence of specialists across the country
02:54have also meant that most of these abortions do not happen in public hospitals but in private
03:00hospitals, which adds to the expense burden of the women.
03:04So, my only request through your chair, sir, would be to either amend this bill and make
03:11it like we have created some progressive laws.
03:13When we created this law in 1971 and we seek an amendment now, it should become a model
03:17for the world to follow rather than pushing a bill through in a hurry and regretting at leisure.