Niketa Mehta – case of Indian abortion law

In media there was lot of discussion about the case of Niketa Mehta in Bombay High court. Some so called elite people, hooked to internet and sitting in air conditioned offices, of India were aggressively supporting abortion. They were arguing that it is parental right to have abortion and there should not be time limit by the law at what time parent should go for abortion. Another argument was that this law is very old and is not applicable to present day when technologies have advanced a lot. All the arguments seem valid at surface. Lets delve into little bit more details

The argument Mehta families gave in the court was that they do not want a handicap child in their family. This was one of the weirdest arguments one can give for abortion. There are many questions linked to this argument. First of all, if a baby is handicapped then the child (unborn yet) should be killed? Medical expert may guess about the congenital heart issue but they cannot guess about other issues like blindness, dumb, deaf or cancer etc. what the parents should do in this case? Should they be allowed to kill the baby just after birth as soon as they come to know about the problem? If the question is of the competitive life in the developing countries then a child who fails in the board examinations or gets below 80% should also be allowed to kill by parents.

The Mehtas’ says they do not have money for the treatment of the child every four year. If the money is an issue then most of the parents should be allowed to kill the female foetus because they can argue they do not want to arrange for the dowry etc. (though dowry is not legal but it is acceptable practice in India and very few people will say it does not exist in any section of the Indian society).

Above all a seven month foetus is not a parents’ property at all. It is an unborn baby. It has all the organs. It is a human and has human right. There are some people who support mercy-killing and may argue on this as mercy-killing. I believe mercy killing should be reserved for rarest cases. Otherwise in a developing country where there is no social security system all the old men and women should be killed because they live life of dependent and treated like animals. Why not all the people living below poverty line be killed? Anyway they do not contribute anything to the national GDP because most of them unemployed. Eliminating human being because of their physical, mental or economical disability is not a solution to the problems. It is running away from the problem.

I appreciate the mehtas for coming to court and asking for court permission to allow them to abort the child. They could have done this silently in any of the maternity centre. It has opened a debate but the debate should be about how to support the disabled in the country and not about legalising the killing (abortion) of disabled. We need to create a social support system for them. This debate should not end in the air conditioned offices, common men should get involved in it then only it can do any good for the society.