Priyanka Chaturvedi Objects To Amendments In Abortion Bill

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.

Transcript

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.