Where Does India Stand? Can Legalization of Induced Abortion Really Save the Lives of Indian Women: A Study Based on Evidence from Five Major Indian States

Paromita Dutta, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

In India induced abortion became legal only after 1971, under five socio medical grounds. The main purpose of formulation of this Maternal termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, was to save the lives of millions of women from unsafe mistimed termination of pregnancy. In this context this paper aims to understand whether the legalization of termination of pregnancy is really able to control the widespread occurrence of mistimed termination of pregnancy as well as able to save the lives of women from unsafe abortion. To capture the time trend of the performance of termination of pregnancy over the years data from “Family Welfare Programme in India - Year Book” has been collected. Here data ranges between the period of 1979 to 1996.To understand the abortion related morbidity and mortality information from “Causes of Death Statistics-Rural India” and publish report of “Reproductive and Child Health- Rapid Household Survey” has been incorporated here. Data also has been supplemented from published report of National family Health Survey, and Sample Registration System-India. For fulfilling the study purpose experience of five major Indian states (namely, Punjab, West-Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh) has been taken into consideration on the basis of their geographical location in India. This paper has been considered contraceptive failure, couple protection rate, MTP cases without sterilization/IUD and MTP among the adolescents as correlates of late termination of pregnancy. To find out the association between dependent variable, i.e., late termination of pregnancy and independent variables partial correlation and multiple regression analysis has been computed for each of the states separately. The most striking finding of this paper has been revealed that in spite of legalization of induced abortion the termination of pregnancy during the second trimester has been increasing for majority of these states. The states of Punjab and Maharashtra, has exhibited higher chances of having sex selective abortion. The state of Uttar Pradesh has been shown lower exposure to pre natal sex selection test accompanied by lowest performance of MTP during the second trimester of pregnancy. Lastly, in the state of West-Bengal, higher rate of performance of MTP during the second trimester and higher rate of termination of pregnancy among the adolescents here indicates lower access to family planning services and the chances of termination of pregnancy among the unmarried women. Another important finding of this paper is that contraceptive failure is the main reason for termination of pregnancy for the states of Punjab, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, whereas, data of acceptance of sterilization/IUD has been indicated that in these three states acceptance of these type of terminal or spacing method after conducting MTP is very poor, indicating the risk of repeat abortion here. Considering the abortion related morbidity and mortality during the last sixteen years it can be concluded that the percentage of women died due to abortion is on rise in India and those who alive among them 27.9 percent are suffering from at least one symptom of post abortion complications and among them at least 75.9 per cent sought proper treatment. Lastly, the paper concludes that legalization of termination of pregnancy is not ultimate solution for saving the women from unsafe mistimed termination of pregnancy. In spite of increasing the available safe arrangement of termination of pregnancy, promotion of proper health awareness as well as the sense of gender equity may only solve this emerging problem.