Awareness campaign on healthy and safe abortion and PCPNDT act
Village- pauta
Date- 13/01/2024
Participant number- 43
subject-
Why Abortion is Illegal
Abortion is the termination of pregnancy that occurs spontaneously or purposely. In the most developed world, abortion is legally allowed for women seeking safe termination of pregnancies. Particularly, when access to legal abortion is restricted, abortion is the resort to unsafe methods. The aim of this review is to necessitate safe abortion and to accentuate the consequences of illegal abortion in case of legal prohibition. We used Pubmed, MedLine and Scopus databases to review previous literatures of safe, unsafe, legal and illegal abortions. Research work and reports from organizations such as World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank (WB) and United Nations (UN) liberalized abortion law can save pregnant women from abortion related complications and death.
Illegal abortio
The aim of this study was to describe the typical profile, and to assess the motivations of women who underwent illegal abortion with misoprostol in Guadeloupe (French West Indies). We conducted a 1-year prospective study on women who consulted after failure or complication of an illegal abortion with misoprostol. Fifty-two cases of illegal abortion with misoprostol were recorded. The most common profile was an unemployed woman, who was unmarried, foreign-born, had no medical insurance, and a low level of education; the median age was 28 (range 17 to 40). The justifications given were that the legal procedure was considered to be too slow, the young age of the woman, the ease of the self-medication procedure, a history of illegal abortion by misoprostol in the woman’s country of origin, ignorance of the legal process, and financial and/or administrative problems. The problem of illegal abortion is probably underestimated in Guadeloupe and possibly France. This description of the profile of the population concerned and the justifications for choosing illegal abortion by misoprostol provides elements allowing better focus of education concerning abortion
It is common to find the term illegal abortion misused. Often times this misuse is perpetrated by antiabortion advocates who wish to reinforce negative stereotypes and thus apply pressure on doctors to refrain from performing abortions. Until a practitioner is prosecuted and convicted of performing an abortion contrary to the law, the procedure should not be referred to as illegal. Instead the legally neutral term, abortion, should be used instead. This would better serve the interests of women’s reproductive health. There is no legal system that makes abortion illegal in all circumstances. For example, abortion is often legal if the life of the mother in danger. This includes a perception on behalf of the practitioner that the women may be suicidal or attempt to terminate the pregnancy by herself. A practitioner performing an abortion in such circumstances is not doing so illegally. The use of the term illegal abortion ignores the fact that in criminal law one is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
MPLEMENTATION STRUCTURES, SYSTEMS AND PRACTICES
- In most states under study, implementation structures have been constituted as per the Act; the
identified gap however lies in their optimal functioning and effective delivery of operations as
mandated. This is made evident through several findings of the report, salient among them being:
Relevant bodies/authorities do not meet regularly as mandated; the level of rigour of
these meetings in terms of content and thoroughness with a focus on the task at hand is
also sub-optimal
The responsibility of handling the Act and all activities as required is invariably an
additional duty for individuals within implementing authorities, particularly AAs; it is
commonly perceived as difficult to handle against overlapping and conflicting priorities
There is a gap between the availability of funds and their effective utilization because of
lack of clarity/awareness about the exact procedure involved in utilization
It is mandatory to include NGO representatives in the committees constituted under the
Act. However, in some states, inappropriate NGO representatives, i.e. those who do not
have relevant knowledge, are sometimes included as members of the committees