The paper investigates the role of NGO'S in India and looking forwards for the policies to be
executed effectively, commitment in terms of adequate resource allocation, training and
infrastructure support, accompanied by social inputs based on women's needs. The
paramount objective is to provide all women with quality abortion care, easy accessibility and
affordability to safe abortion services. The place of living as rural-urban differences
modulates the women's thinking.
Despite the legislation of abortion in India, mortality
continues to remain a predicament problem for a majority of women undergoing abortions.
This paper represents poor awareness of laws, higher fees unnecessary consent of spouse.
There is a need of simplify registration procedures, and also linking policy with up-to-date
technology, One quite plausible scenario is that the considerably lower rate would diffuse the
intensity of abortion which guaranteed by law.
It shows the difference in number of abortions
and number of deaths because of abortion in rural areas and urban areas annually, which
ultimately shows the need of awareness related to abortion laws in our country, in which we
are lacking so much due to which females of our country have to suffer from it for their
whole life.
Introduction
It is estimated that 15.6 million abortions take place in India every year. A significant
proportion of these are expected to be unsafe. Unsafe abortion is the third largest cause of
maternal mortality leading to death of 10 women each day and thousands more facing
morbidities.
There is a need to strengthen women's access to CAC services and preventing
deaths and disabilities faced by them. WHO says:
“unsafe abortion is a procedure for
termination of a pregnancy done by an individual who does not have the necessary training or
an environment not conforms to minimal medical standards."
According to the medical
termination of pregnancy act, 1971- abortion can be done only when the medical practitioner
is registered and when the length of pregnancy does not exceeds twelve weeks, the consult of
a registered practitioner needed in case where the length is exceeds twelve weeks but not
exceeds twenty weeks then, also pregnancy can be terminated but only with consult of two
registered practitioner, when the opinion formed in good faith, to save the life of woman.
Research Hypothesis:
The tentative speculation here explains the need of NGO's working for the safe abortion care
in India.
Research Methodology:
The present study is based on primary & secondary research which includes e-sources,
newspaper, articles, journal etc.
The research analyse to increase the number of Non-governmental organizations in Madhya
Pradesh. The qualitative research method been adopted to bring the better insight possibilities
for the improvement of ranges. The survey belong to the selected participants such as
Doctors, NGO's, affected women and general public.
The data observed from the survey is authentic from the selected participants. Unsafe
abortion is a serious problem in India, the data interpreted 96.2% has agreed with this issue,
which can be overcome by creating more awareness among the women and organizing
seminars. Non-governmental organisations plays significant role in a warring people
throughout India, the 76% of the selected participants assent to the question . As per the study
of other states like Bihar, Haryana, Odisha, Maharashtra has a virtuous approaches for the
safe abortion care in lieu of Madhya Pradesh should initiate more programmes for the welfare
of women.
Research Objective:
To have an in-depth study about abortion cases.
· To analysis the awareness of people about safe abortion.
· Critically analyse the role of NGO's in providing safe abortion care.
Safe Abortion: A Modern Day Pandemic
Today, safe and effective methods for preventing and terminating Pregnancy exist. Despite
these modern medical technologies, unsafe abortion remains a pandemic. Nearly all unsafe
abortions take place in the rural areas where people aren't aware about the procedure, rules,
and methods to avoid unintended pregnancy.
Unsafe abortion is an issue in the urban areas too. In many cities the legal right to abortion
continues to be infringed upon, services are not affordable and abortion stigma is pervasive.
The direct burden of unsafe abortion on women is sobering.
In 2018:
- An estimated 12.6 million unsafe abortions took place,
- 47,000 women died, • At least five million women suffered physical
disabilities.
Women who are socially ostracized after an abortion may also suffer emotionally. Adolescent
girls aged 15–19 are disproportionately affected by unsafe abortion among the estimated 3.2
million abortions in adolescents.
The Cost Of Unsafe Abortion For Society Is Also Substantial
- When women are not able or allowed to contribute to their community &
economic productivity decreases.
- Children who lose their mothers to unsafe abortion-related deaths often
receive less health and social care, and are more likely to die than
children who have two living parents.
- Treatment of unsafe abortion-related complications places a significant
burden on public health systems in the developing world.
Ensuring women's access to safe abortion in the first
place lowers costs for health systems. PAC offered by physicians in tertiary hospitals is
estimated to cost health systems ten times more than elective abortion services offered by mid
level practitioners in a primary care setting.
In India, though abortion is legally permissible under a wide range of situations, the doctor
has the final say. A woman has to justify that her pregnancy occurred despite her having tried
to prevent it or that it had been intended but circumstances changed or made it unwanted
later.
A woman has to justify that her pregnancy occurred despite her having tried to prevent
it or that it had been intended but circumstances changed or made it unwanted later. The
reality may be that the pregnancy was unwanted from the start, but to justify abortion within
the legal framework, the woman may feel she has to say it was contraceptive failure, creating
an environment of falsehood.
Abortion Laws And Policies In India
Recent law and policy reforms, though not radical, still represent a step forward towards
ensuring a woman's right to safe abortion care. It is only in recent years that several national-
level consultative efforts involving policymakers, professionals bodies like the Federation of
Obstetrics and Gynaecology Societies of India (FOGSI) and the Indian Medical Association
(IMA), NGOs (notably Parivar Seva Sanstha, CEHAT, Health Watch and the Family
Planning Association of India) and health activists, have championed the improvement of
access to safe and legal abortion services in India.
Many of their recommendations are in line
with the objectives and the strategies outlined in the Action Plan of India's National
Population Policy, 2000. They include:
- Increasing availability and access to safe abortion services,
- Creating more qualified providers (including mid-level providers) and
facilities, especially in rural areas • Simplifying the certification
process Government of India. Report of the Shah Committee to study the
question of legalization of abortion.
- De-linking clinic and provider certification,
- Linking policy with technology and research and good clinical practice,
- Applying uniform standards for both the private and public sectors, and
- Ensuring quality of abortion care
Increasing awareness and dispelling misconceptions about the abortion law amongst
providers and policymakers is just one step towards this. There is a need to enhance
awareness of both contraceptive and abortion services, especially amongst adolescents,
within the larger context of sexual and reproductive health, integrating strategies and
interventions within value systems and family and gender relation for these policies to be
implemented effectively.
Rural And Urban Differences
The culture factors such as materialized and non-materialized aspects of the society, norms it
is governed by, values and cultures one follows are some of the distinctive feature which
differentiates rural and urban societies.
On one hand there are strong beliefs in the culture and
language in rural societies and on the other hand there are electronically operated and faster
urban cities. In urban living environment generates opportunities for networking, resulting in
personal networks with a higher average status as compared to the rural one. These
opportunities are, however, socially differentiated with those who are well off benefit more
compared to the less privileged.
The women should be informed with the policies and
planning service delivery. The mortality and morbidity related to unsafe abortion is likely to
be higher due to restricted access to the service. The limitation of this analysis is that we do
not have complete data for some of the variables for the entire period.
This occurred because
this was a service intervention that kept evolving with time. It draws attention to the high
number of unsafe abortions in the country where women's health and life are at stake. After analysing the rural & urban areas we come to know that there is a need of consistent
awareness generation activities involving influential community leaders and couple
counselling sessions which are supposed to be organised by NGO's .
Critical Review Of Abortion In Madhya Pradesh
The women are aware about the legal status of abortion but lack behind when it comes to
awareness regarding awareness about conditions of abortions. In study of Madhya Pradesh
while 18% of women are aware about the legal of abortion but the 9% knew the correct
timing of the abortion was legally permitted. Within each state the approved facilities are
concentrated in urban areas while limited access for the vast majority in rural areas. Only 2-
6% of primary health centres are trained in providing services in Madhya Pradesh.
A study in
Madhya Pradesh reports that only one in ten abortions in public sector MTP centres were
provided free of cost. For example, in a community-based study in Madhya Pradesh,
husbands, unilaterally or jointly, played the major decision-making role in 20% of abortion
attempts. Studies have also shown that some women who wish to terminate a pregnancy may
face opposition from the family. The ministry of health and family welfare, government of
Madhya Pradesh in collaboration with IPAS initiated, to analyze and understand the
pathways.
Role Of Ngo's In Awaring People
As per our primary research we analysis that 73.2% people believes that NGO'S can play a
vital role in awarding and educating people more and more about abortion, as we have a
national NGO named IPAS (Individual personal assistance service development foundation)
whose headquarter is situated in New Delhi and is spread across 12 states.
It works to
increase women's ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights, especially the right
to safe abortion and contraceptive services. We also believes that NGO's can play a vital role
for societies welfare, as per reports we come to know that we have approx. 10 NGOs
working for safe abortion care in India.
After studying the aims & objectives of IPAS, we
think that there is a need of increasing the number of NGOs in India because the number of
abortion which takes place in India are approx. 15.6 millions & we have only around 10
NGOs who are working for abortion care, there is a huge difference in the number of abortion
happening and organizations taking care about its whole aspect including spreading
awareness or helping people with related problems.
We have so many examples of NGO that
were working for welfare of societies as a whole but taking in mind the sensitivity of the
subject matter in hand we need specific NGOs who will focus only on this aspect.
Conclusion
Abortion is a civil as well as human right and safe abortions play an even bigger role in
delivering the same. In a country like ours, these basics rights are hard to get hands on due to
a number of reasons ranging from huge population, illiteracy, unawareness, ignorant attitude
of individual towards their own body etc.
What is the need of the ours is to understand the gravity of the issues, to evaluate each and
every aspect which governs the topic of abortion and then come up with a certain changes
which will help in developing a healthy abortion culture in the country.
What we need to
keep in mind is that a woman only seek abortion in case of unintended pregnancy because
may be she isn't financially capable enough to give the child what he actually deserves as a
child or it may be due to any other reason but since in India females aren't aware enough
about from where can they get is done safely or what should they do if they face any
negligence on the part of the doctor or what are the formalities they need to follow for a legal
abortion to not attract any criminal liability.
In this paper we have discussed about the role NGOs can play in spreading awareness among
the masses about this topic. We have also seen the number of registered cases that the courts
deal related to abortion and the number of cases which have actually been settled for good
and needless to say the difference between the two is alarming enough to make us that we
should take some major steps in this field.
Since government authorities can't be omnipresent and most of the time they aren't ground
level attached with the people of that particular area thus NGOs can play a vital role because
first they are low maintenance groups, second they have a huge network among other NGOs
which will act as a helping hand in the same, they are also generally the people from the same
locality which understand the population of their area better than any outsider thus they know
the ground level reality of their area and the people too.
Also since NGOs are doing well in
other fields we can increase the number of NGOs working in Abortion related issues from 10
to any number according to the cases we witness and also keeping in mind its growth rate.
The research analogy states the denial of abortion leads to affecting the social and mental
health of the individual and her family too at the same time. Unsafe abortions can even lead
to deaths what can be worse than that? The NGO will create awareness activities and would
even be able to inform people one on one if required.
Increasing the no. of NGOs will surely create an impact in the society resulting in minimizing
the illegal abortion cases, abortion death cases, unsafe abortion cases etc. Along with that we
also need to make changes in the policies regarding abortions and amending the provisions to
such that they contribute in ease of having an abortion done with minimum formalities.
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