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Debate on Abortion in India

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Debate over Abortion in India
Abortion was illegal in India until the Central Family Planning Board of the Government of India formed a committee to examine the subject from the medical, legal, social and moral standpoint. The committee was formed due to the fact that several Indian women were dying while attempting illegal abortions. An article from Time magazine states that in 2012 over 620,472 abortions were reported, not all of these were from women out of wedlock and it is said that every 2 hours a woman dies from malfunctioning abortion attempts. Many of these married women died in attempt to abort due to lack of finance, a means of transportation or because of stuff going on at home, also from not having access to sanitary facilities or the certified staff to conduct such procedures. The department of Public Health campaigns safe sex and contraception in order to prevent these unwanted pregnancies, but not everyone has access to these methods or because of age are embarrassed or don’t have the proper knowledge on the subject to even know exactly what to ask for.
As of April 1st, 1972 India’s abortion laws were changed, it became legal to have them only by qualified doctors under stipulated conditions. India’s abortion laws fall under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act which was enacted in 1971. The act states that a pregnancy can be ended, or aborted, with the following qualifications; the women’s physical and/or mental health are endangered by the pregnancy, the woman is facing the birth of a potentially handicapped or malformed child; rape; pregnancies in unmarried girls under the age of eighteen years of with the consent of a guardian; Pregnancy in “lunatics” with the consent of guardian and pregnancies that are a result of failure in sterilization. It is also required that the length of the pregnancy cannot exceed twenty weeks of gestation in

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