A critical review on Abortion in
Periphery Nations
(Under Dependency Theory)
Abstract
Rising threat to the health issue of
women due to illegal abortion, which is creating huge number of morality and
morbidity after the process of abortion by the unskilled and hazardous
environment, is a concern in the periphery nations. Though there is a restricted abortion Laws in
the periphery nations due to its cultural affiliation, but why there is a
rising statistics of illegal abortion in these regions.
Advocacy towards abortion and
homosexuality as foreign policies of the European Nations is an indicator of
invasion of their understanding of abortion under reproductive health and
pro-choice in the sovereign nations and it’s cultural domain through huge
funding to NGOs and illegal clinics network under the shield of United Nations.
Abortion relating to the Population
control in the name of Environment in the periphery nations and coercive
measure for sterilization process along with female feticides through NGOs and
Government sponsored camps is neo-colonisation and medico terrorism towards the
women’s population of the periphery nations.
Gender disparity through women’s empowerment and preferential laws is to
slow down the procreation process by creating social unrest and chaos through
broken families and crimes against women is a serious concern to evaluate and
give critical review on Abortion in the Periphery Nations.
“The child by reason
of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care,
including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth” UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child
The above statement is a crucial
resolution by the UN Convention which protects the human species and
authenticates its continuity in civilized environment. The killing of children or atrocities against
them whether after birth or in the womb is a cruelty against humanity. It is more cruelty that when a child is born,
confronts the inhuman environment that is built with negligence and atrocities,
whether in domestic, social or political sphere.
But unwanted children have born
out of social atrocities, i.e. rape, deception, sex trade and social
exploitation or unwanted motherhood due to its physiological reason. How crucial is for women to bring a child who
will be socially abused / neglected due to its birth? Does women have right to abort the child?
Growing numbers of thrown away children in the street that becomes a social /
political problem and became human resources towards periphery crimes in the
street theft, shop lifters, begging mafia along with a huge economy based on
child abuse towards forced labour in hazardous industries and sexual slavery is
a crucial reason to review abortion and child right to be born and it’s social
and political responsibility to its community and population within the Dependency
theory.
Abortion or infanticide has
historical legacy and abortion was induced due to political or social
compulsion even in those era. Every
tribal community has its ways and means to abort the child in womb which was
even dangerous to the health of women that caused morbidity or mortality. Such traditional knowledge is still practices
beyond accountability. Another platform
of abortion is illegal clinic, which is run by unskilled/unqualified medical
practice and unsafe environment. Such
clinics are also responsible for female feticide towards gender genocide.
Ending the silent pandemic of
unsafe abortion is an urgent public-health and human-rights imperative. As with
other more visible global-health issues, this scourge threatens women throughout
the developing world. Every year about 19–20 million abortions are done by
individuals without the requisite skills, or in environments below minimum
medical standards or both. Nearly all unsafe abortions (97%) are in developing
countries. An estimated 68 000 women die as a result, and millions more have
complications, many permanent. Direct costs of treating abortion complications
burden impoverished health care systems, and indirect costs also drain
struggling economies.[1]
Morbidity
is a much more common consequence of unsafe abortion than mortality, but is
determined by the same risk factors. Complications include haemorrhage, sepsis,
peritonitis, and trauma to the cervix, vagina, uterus, and abdominal organs
(figure 4). High proportions of women (20–50%) who have unsafe abortions are
hospitalised for complications.[2]
Treatment
of abortion complications burdens public health systems in the developing
world. Conversely, ensuring women’s access to safe abortion services lowers
medical costs for health systems. In some low-income and middle-income
countries, up to 50% of hospital budgets for obstetrics and gynecology are
spent treating complications of unsafe abortion.[3]
Reasons for seeking abortion are
varied: socioeconomic concerns (including poverty, no support from the partner,
and disruption of education or employment); family-building preferences
(including the need to postpone childbearing or achieve a healthy spacing
between births); relationship problems with the husband or partner; risks to maternal
or fetal health; and pregnancy resulting from rape or incest[4]
Prior to the evaluation of the
causes of miseries of women’s condition due to illegal abortion it is important
to understand the reason behind the growing illegality beyond the ambit of Laws,
where women are being victimized due to the invasion of Western understanding
towards Abortion and imposing into the rest of the World. This is a major concern of the present debate
and a critical review on the Abortion policy will be explored under the
Dependency Theory. This study is
segmented as a theoretical view of Pro-life and Pro-choice debate. Further it will be explored how the National
Policies under the Global intervention is creating a chaos in the spectrum of
pro-life and pro-choice debate on Abortion.
Pro-life versus Pro-choice
The debate between pro-life and pro-choice is
basically a cultural difference between community and individualism. Those who are communities bond advocate from
pro-life and those who are individualistic advocate for pro-choice. But the matter of concern is why the
Periphery nations who are culturally rich and a community bond have a high-rise
of Abortion (illegal) in comparative with the nation’s liberal society under
individualism.
To carry forward the discussion, let us give a
glance on abortion rates after Cold War against Structural Adjustment Programme
in the Periphery nations.
The observation from the above data is that the
numbers of induced abortion rates have increased in the periphery nations
whereas there is almost a fall of 40% rate in the Core nations. The drop of rate of induced abortion in the
World statistics is mainly due to the dropping of rate of abortion in the Core
nations and not an overall correction in the induced abortion process through
other contraception methods.
The proportion of abortions worldwide that take
place in the developing world increased between 1995 and 2008 from 78% to 86%,
in part because the proportion of all women who live in the developing world
increased during this period. Since
2003, the number of abortions fell by 600,000 in the developed world but
increased by 2.8 million in the developing world. In 2008, six million
abortions were performed in developed countries and 38 million in developing
countries, a disparity that largely reflects population distribution[5].
This is an indicator that a drive of abortion is
not a naturally grown, but policies that is creating a random abortion. To have this study in the spectrum of
Political Science, it is important to understand, whether Abortion comes within
the right to privacy or it is a matter to Right to choose to Procreate or it is
the National Policies towards Population Control under the initiative,
facilitation or coercion of the Core nations.
The debate between pro-choice and pro-life comes
under the purview of Right to Privacy.
This is an individualistic right versus community rights, i.e.
family.
“Roe v. Wade prompted a national debate
that continues today, about issues including whether and to what extent
abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, what
methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication, and what
the role should be of religious and moral views in the political sphere. Roe
v. Wade reshaped national politics, dividing much of the United States into pro-choice and pro-life
camps, while activating grassroots movements on both sides.”[6]
To explore further on the debate of pro-life and
pro-choice, it is very important to understand the instinct of sex and its
impact on society building. The
evolution of mankind was based on nomadic tendencies, which is grabbing beyond
accountability, this included hunger and sex.
During the evolution process, i.e. from nomad to the settlement through
cultivation process, the social process also began to form.
The instinct of sex became an act of
accountability and responsibility through parenthood. Further the inheritance was also a key note
to regularize the accountability of sex and its procreation process. The strict norms on women to protect her
chastity are mainly to make them accountable to the procreation process that
further defines the inheritance and family legacy. So, the family building and its successor was
main reason to procreation accountability.
Hence, the pro-life advocacy is towards the building of society and
continuity, i.e. legacy of heritage and culture.
Whereas, those communities which were beyond the
settlement, i.e. nomad were treated family system and procreation is
obstruction to their lifestyle and hence, pro-choice became their priority than
the continuity of their community since such community had no heritage or
culture to preserve and protect.
This can be further evaluated through the
religious claim on abortion.
Christianity and Islam are the community based religion, i.e. religion
for the settled communities, whereas, Judaism is religion for the migratory
community, i.e. nomad, hence their approach towards abortion varies.
Much of the pro-life movement in the United
States and around the world finds support in the Roman Catholic Church, Christian
right, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical
Lutheran Synod, the Church of England, the Anglican Church in North America,
the Eastern Orthodox Church, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints (LDS). However, the pro-life teachings of these denominations vary
considerably. The Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church consider
abortion to be immoral in all cases, but permit acts which indirectly result in
the death of the fetus in the case where the mother's life is threatened.[7]
Attitudes to abortion vary greatly in the Muslim
world. Although there are different opinions among Muslim scholars on abortion,
most agree that the termination of a pregnancy after four months—the point at
which, in Islam, a fetus is thought to become a living soul—is not permissible.
Many Islamic thinkers contend that in cases prior to four months of gestation,
abortion should be permissible only in instances in which a mother's life is in
danger or in cases of rape, with Hanafi being an exception. However, even the more
restrictive paradigms allow some flexibility, due to the roles played by
socioeconomic conditions and health.[8]
In the modern period, Jewish thinking on abortion
has responded both to liberal understandings of personal autonomy as well as
Christian opposition to abortion. Polls
of Jews in America
report that 88% of American Jews are pro-choice.[9]
Where as in Hinduism, it is more a civilisation
of diversified culture; India
has abortion issue more as socio-political crisis than a religious bonding.
Although traditional Hindu texts and teachings have opposed elective abortions,
a vocal pro-life movement is limited in India, the nation with the largest Hindu
population. Most abortions in
India
are done for sex selection, with boys being favored. Some Hindu institutions oppose abortion and
teach that abortion prevents a soul in its karmic progress toward God.
Other Hindu theologians believe personhood begins at 3 months and develops
through to 5 months of gestation, possibly implying permitting abortion in
extenuating circumstances up to the third month and considering any abortion
past the third month to be destruction of the soul's current incarnate body.[10]
Hence, the civility believes in perseverance of
life whereas, nomads believe in escapism as a choice of life. So, the pro-life and pro-choice is actually a
conflict between civilities against nomad.
The restrictive abortion laws and rise of illegal
abortion are mainly applicable with nation with tribal and rural communities as
Africa and Asia have restricted abortion laws except in China.
Abortion Laws Worldwide[11]
Prior to the beginning of the 19th century, there
were no abortion laws in existence. In 1869 Pope Pius IX declared that
ensoulement occurs at conception. As a result the laws in the 19th century did
not allow any termination of pregnancy. These laws form the basis of the restrictive legislation on abortion that
still exist in many developing countries. Between 1950 and 1985 almost all
developed countries liberalized their abortion laws for reasons of human rights
and safety. Where abortion is still illegal this is often due to old colonial
laws and not always an expression of the opinion of the local population.[12] This indicates those have restricted or
strict abortion Laws are the region with enormous tribal and rural population
and has the legacy of Colonial rule.
The
post-Cold War and liberal economy has influence a lot into the abortion issues
and there have been huge advocacy for abortion and anti-abortion as social
activism in the name of Human Right and Women’s health safety. But ironically it says that there is a
proliferation of illegal abortion and forced sterilization through Government
sponsorship programme under population control, which is against the aspiration
of right to choice.
About 47,000 women died from
unsafe abortions in 2008, and another 8.5 million women had serious medical
complications. Almost all unsafe abortions were in developing countries, where
family planning and contraceptive programs have mostly levelled off.[13]
Abortion rates were lowest in Western Europe – 12
per 1,000 – and highest in Eastern Europe – 43
per 1,000. The rate in North America was 19
per 1,000. Sedgh said she and colleagues found a link between higher abortion
rates and regions with more restrictive legislation, such as in Latin America
and Africa. They also found that 95 to 97
percent of abortions in those regions were unsafe.[14]
The advocacy of pro-choice,
whether legal or illegal abortion, it is the women of the periphery nations are
being victimized by the higher rate of morbidity and mortality. It is really a matter of study why there is a
proliferation of illegal clinic and its operation mechanism even though there
are restricted laws of abortion due to its cultural affiliation. It the pro-choice advocacy is coercive and
strategic towards periphery nations towards population control is also a matter
of investigative study.
Adolescent pregnancy is a major
health and socioeconomic problem with unique medical and psychosocial
consequences for the patient and society. Survey data have documented that a
majority of adolescents are sexually active, and that currently, almost 1 in 10
adolescents become pregnant each year. Over the last 2 decades, comprehensive
adolescent pregnancy programs have shown that the high frequency of adverse
obstetric and neonatal outcomes are closely associated with low socioeconomic
status, poor prenatal nutrition and general health, and chemical use, but not
maternal age.[15]
The rise of sexual instinct in
the adolescent age girls have multiple reason, i.e. an ungoverned instinct and
induced instinct towards sexual slavery.
The girls from underprivileged society who are involved in sexual
facilitation either through rapes at home or forced sex towards sexual slavery
in the suburbs and unorganized sex trade market. When the girls are abused due to its poverty
by the Organized Crime, how it is expected that their health will be taken care
of by the legal abortion mechanism.
“the International Labour
Organization estimates that there are as many as 1.8 million children sexually
trafficked worldwide, while UNICEF's 2006 State of the World's Children Report
reports this number to be 2 million. The International Labor Organization has
found that girls involved in other forms of child labour - such as domestic
service or street vending - are at the highest risk of being pulled into
commercial child sex trafficking”[16]
These trafficked populations are
mainly from the periphery nations to the urban migrants where there is an acute
poverty and life of dignity is absolutely abused. Unless there is a correction in the loss of
Human Rights, how it could be justified pro-choice abortion. When people are bonded slave in the hand of
trafficker and face the atrocities, their choice of abortion is an occupational
compulsion.
Illegal clinics that causes for
morbidity and mortality is a serious concern for the Nation, since it further
destroy the family system and bring a huge uncalled burden on the State. These
need to a justification that Sexual Slavery as Forced Labour, which is
destroying the innocence of girls by exploiting their poverty and helplessness
and expect to provide legal assistance to the illegal activities.
“Legalization of abortion can
prevent the unnecessary suffering and death of women. Restrictive abortion laws
violate women's human rights based on agreements made at the UN International
Conference on Population and Development in Cairo,
the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 1 & 3 &12
&19 & 27.1).”
Women’s health is very important
and it is their Human Right, but how it is to be justified that there is a
strategically approach by the Wealthy Nations that are capturing the resources
of the periphery nations through manipulation and deception under the Global
Political Economy and making their tribal and rural population impoverished and
compel them to get into the trafficking where there is absolutely an abuse of
Human Rights. The stage of illegal
abortion only comes from the illegal means of conception, i.e. activities
beyond the ambit of social norms.
Social norms do allow a healthy
development of the society within the framework of marriage that authenticates
procreation. Any unplanned children
within the marriage should be within the consent of partners since the baby in
the womb is participatory activities and should have consent of both the
partner. The advocacy to pro-choice
might defend on woman’s claim on her body, but marriage is a partnership
relationship. When father is responsible
as legal obligation for the bearing all the expenses on the child’s right from
the birth to education and marriage and provide social, financial security,
then why he should not have a say when the baby is in the Womb. Seizing father’s right of the child in the
Womb is unjustified.
Women’s right to body and right
to choice for abortion are applicable, when she is raped or in commercial sex
and into a casual sex or living-in relationships since she is no way committed
to any relationship. Since, the children
born from unauthenticated relationships and become liability to the Nation due
to absence of parenthood or they are thrown away children. These children either become the National
liability through orphanage or become the human resources for the criminal
syndicates.
Thus, it is important to
differentiate the pro-life and pro-choice in the purview of licit and illicit
relations, i.e. civility against nomadic.
Hence, uniform Laws cannot be imposed universally both to civility and
nomadic communities since the pro-life of the civility brings prosperity to the
nation, whereas pro-life to the illicit proliferates criminals in the society,
hence Pro-choice is applicable to nomadic communities and pro-life is towards
civility.
Unsafe Abortion and Population Control
“WHO defines unsafe abortion as a procedure for
terminating an unintended pregnancy carried out either by persons lacking the
necessary skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimal medical
standards, or both. While the definition seems to be linked to the process,
characteristics of an unsafe abortion touch on inappropriate circumstances before,
during or after an abortion.[17]
The concern of WHO on the unsafe abortion, are based on
three aspects that relates to negligence in the community of women towards the
authentic pattern of Induced abortion.
1. Absence
of appropriate infrastructure that can reach to the community of women towards
a healthy and authentic pattern of family planning
2. Proliferation
of Illegal Clinics that fill the gaps of State inadequacies
3. Traditional
methods due to escapism from social accountability and pressures.
Nearly half of all abortions worldwide are unsafe, and nearly all unsafe
abortions (98%) occur in developing countries. In the developing world, 56% of
all abortions are unsafe, compared with just 6% in the developed world.[18]
The developing nations are the mixture of the
three pattern communities, i.e. Tribal communities, rural communities and urban
communities. Being the indigenous,
agricultural and industrial culture, it is important to understand the
socio-economic system of these regions while having a comparative study with the
developed nation on the Abortion process and its influence of the Global
policies under Dependency theory.
The bio-diversities and growing populations are the
tenants of the periphery nation’s environment richness and natural
resources. Having colonial legacies of
the First world to these periphery nations, it is important to have control of
their natural resources through dependency theory without the accountability to
the population. The great concern of
growing population along with poverty by the destruction of the indigenous
economy through Corporatism and Intellectual Property Rights, it becomes
important for the Core nations to reduce the population so that the balance
between exploitation of the resources and the populations that are fed remain
in decent equation according to the MDG[19].
The commission last adopted a
resolution on migration 2006. That resolution did not mention sexual and
reproductive health and rights, widely considered peripheral issues in
migration talks. But wealthy countries that spend billions of dollars each year
to reduce fertility in developing countries ensured that oversight was not
repeated this year.[20]
The reduction of the fertility of the developing
countries, i.e. periphery nations is a strategic move of the wealthier nations
that are funding through NGOs towards the advocacy, activism and proliferation
towards the fertility reduction.
Most countries are not willing to recognize abortion and
homosexual conduct as “human rights.” They repeated as much a month ago during
the UN Commission on the Status of Women. But the United States and some European
nations have made these issues high priorities in their foreign policy, which
means delegates from developing countries must repeat themselves multiple
times.[21]
Recognition of abortion and homosexual as foreign policy
is an indicator that the choice has been converted into coercive and hence
exposes the deception under the shield of Rights through Strategies of
Reproductive health. Further Foreign
Policy towards homosexuality and abortion is a serious concern since it is not
only an invasion to the sovereign nation, but also to the cultural rights and
the privacy of the individual choice.
Homosexuality conduct is more a strategic issue than a
preference of sexual choice. The
straights are converted into homosexuality by giving them an opening into the
market of glamour and entertainment industries along with honor and
recognition. The promotional of
homosexuality is towards Population Reduction programme. The disparity created between gender through
liberalization and empowering women through preferential laws brought a huge
disparity and broken relationships. The
gender disparity is making the population turning into gays. The proliferation of gay communities and
their rights are the created fabric to promote space between men and women that
will check procreation.
The proliferation of sexual trade is more a strategy of
Political Control than an economy.
Destroying women’s feminism and turning them to a commercial sex worker
will make a huge reduction in the family system. The sexual urge of the male communities will
be fulfilled by the commercial sex worker.
This will be further destroying the fabric of family system, but do not
guarantee to slow in population growth.
The advocacy for population through empowering
women everywhere is stated by Anne Ehrlich, senior research scientist, and Paul
Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies and senior fellow at the Woods
Institute for the Environment, giving women more power means lower population
growth, which means less stress on resources.[22]
Liberalization of economy and advocacy for the
Women’s empowerment policies worldwide are not towards the benefit of women,
but to control the population against the Gender conflicts. Women moving away towards its financial
independence against the family system, promotion of living-in relations and
unregistered sex are to determine blocking of procreation through gender
disparity.
Further, gender conflicts have raised huge social
crisis for both men and women and along with families, i.e. old parents and
children. Shattered societies in the
wake of empowerment have alienated women from the families which led to the
broken marriages. Preferential laws for
women against men through Domestic Violence has generated hatred towards women
those wishes to overpower men and invade their domain. The wave of hatred against women has
generated huge street crime from gang rapes to acid throw and murders bringing
further destitution to women along with killings of senior citizens.
Is it possible for people who sharply disagree
about important questions of morality, including those pertaining to abortion
and homosexuality, to constitute a stable political society whose basic
constitutional principles can be affirmed as just by all reasonable
parties? This question is not about the
possibility of political compromise; rather, it concerns the possibility of a
certain type of moral agreement. This
type of moral agreement is not agreement about whether abortion or homosexual
conduct, for example are right or wrong.
Instead, it is agreement about basic principles of justice for a society
composed of people who disagree about such issues.[23]
Only possibility is for people who disagree about
the morality of particular acts or practices to agree upon fair procedures for
the political resolution of moral disagreements. For example, people who disagree about the
morality of abortion might, as a constitutional matter, agree upon democratic
procedures for setting public policy on abortion. However, people of strong and settled
conviction on either side of the debate over abortion cannot reasonably be
satisfied of the justice of the fundamental law of their country simply because
the procedures used to arrive at a resolution were democratic. From the pro-life point of view, any regime of
law (including one whose pedigree is impeccably democratic) that deprives
unborn human beings of their right to legal protection against homicide is
gravely unjust. Similarly, from the
pro-choice viewpoint, restrictions on a woman’s right to abortion are seriously
unjust even if they were put in place by democratic procedures. From either perspective, the question of
abortion is viewed as a matter of fundamental justice whose proper resolution
is essential to the full moral legitimacy of the constitutional order. In this respect, the social conflict over
abortion closely resembles the conflict over slavery.[24]
When it comes to morality and social conscious or the
right to choice or pro-life, things should be within the spectrum of one’s own
decision and there should be an ambit of Law rose from the culture and
universally endorsed in the sovereign nation in the democratic process. But
what happens when there is coercion on people’s choice through deception, lure
or state-policy in the name of Global Policy and Global Population?
Restricted abortion Laws and non-acceptability to
homosexuality is the norms of the civilized society since civilized society
endorse family system based on gender system.
But rise of human trafficking for sexual slavery, the risk of unwanted
pregnancy get proliferated, so it becomes legal protection to the illegal act
is also a matter of debate.
A secret network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
including foreign ones, are helping women to obtain abortions in Bolivia, according to Natalie Kimball, a
doctoral candidate at the University
of Pittsburgh.[25]
"We have known for some time that some NGOs not only
promote abortion in nations where it is illegal, but some actually facilitate
illegal abortions, so the revelation in Ms. Kimball's dissertation is not so
much a surprise as it is a confirmation of what many have believed,” Boquet
told LifeSiteNews.com.” Bolivia’s
people have repeatedly indicated their strong pro-life views through their
elected representatives, who continue to oppose the legalization of the killing
of the unborn.[28]
A UN-accredited NGO since 1998, Ipas works “to
enhance women’s reproductive choices and to eliminate unsafe abortions” and “to
expand the availability and accessibility of medical equipment and supplies
that health professionals need to deliver high-quality reproductive health
services.” To this end, Ipas sells and distributes the manual vacuum aspirator
(MVA), a portable abortion device.[29]
A pro-life expert from Latin
America told the Friday Fax, “Ipas is doing a lot of damage in our
countries. Their aim is to legalize abortion in El
Salvador, in Nicaragua
and all of Latin America because they want to
sell their abortion vacuum machines in huge quantities. They shouldn't have the
status of an NGO since they are really dealers, they distribute and profit from
selling these machines.”[30]
Ipas works to improve women's access and right to safe abortion care and reproductive
health services by:[31]- Training doctors, nurses, and midwives in clinical and counseling skills for abortion, post-abortion care and family planning;
- Improving health-service delivery to make abortion safer and more accessible for women and less costly for the health system;
- Researching the impact of unsafe abortion and documenting best abortion care practices and policies;
- Working with advocates and policymakers around the world to support women’s reproductive rights and increase access to safe and legal abortion services;
- Engaging with women and men in their communities to expand their knowledge of reproductive health and reproductive rights;
- Increasing access to reproductive health technologies, including manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) and medical abortion.
Medical activities through UN’s accreditation do not
qualify to abort women in the name of reproductive health. It needs verification whether such activities
are authorized by the State Medical Services.
Medical services should have the accreditation from the National Medical
Institution and not United Nations where there is a restricted Law on abortion.
The new paper, published by London’s Royal Society on January 9, warns of
imminent mass death from calamities such as “sea-level rise, crop failures and
violent storms”—yet the author says reducing the population is the key to
preventing this population reduction.[32]
The strategies on Population Control to protect environment
is mainly concentrated on the periphery nations. The populations of periphery nations are
targeted due to its availability of the Natural Resources and bio-diversities. Artificial killings towards population mean
misbalancing the eco system. It is the
tribal populations who are the part of bio-diversities are the true protector
of the local eco-system. Destroying
tribal population by seizing the traditional / indigenous economy and knowledge
is the real cause natural calamities.
Hence killing population in the name of Environment
protection is a deception towards periphery nations towards the control of
Resources without accountability to the population and hence it should be
treated as strategic medico massacre.
Abortion and Population Control in India
India is the second largest
populated country with the diversified culture and the biggest democratic
system along with huge bio-diversity, natural resources and human resources of
tribal, rural and urban population.
As per India’s abortion laws only
qualified doctors under stipulated conditions can perform abortion on a woman
in an approved clinic or hospital. The Indian abortion laws fall under the
Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, which was enacted by the Indian
Parliament in the year 1971. The MTP Act came into effect from April 1, 1972
and was once amended in 1975.[33]
According to the Consortium on
National Consensus for Medical Abortion in India, every year an average of
about 11 million abortions take place annually and around 20,000 women die
every year due to abortion related complications.
Most abortion-related maternal deaths are attributable to illegal abortions.[34]
In recent years India’s government has publicly
renounced the brutal measures it previously tolerated to limit population; it
now merely encourages sterilization, abortion and contraception to promote
women's health. For this it receives direct and indirect funding from agencies
such as USAID, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Fund for
Population, the Gates Foundation, and the United Kingdom’s Department for
International Development, all of which are militantly anti-population. A 2008
USAID document, for example, discusses implementation of the “population
policy” in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the goal of which is to reduce
the state’s fertility rate from 4.3 children per woman to 2.1 by 2016. As a
result 450,000 women undergo sterilizations in the state each year, most of
them at government-sponsored camps.[35]
An article last month in the Times
of India reported that in haste to meet March 31st
end-of–financial year quotas for sterilizations, health officials were offering
prizes to health workers called “motivators,” who arranged high numbers of
sterilizations: a Nano car for 500 patients; a fridge for 50 and a
10-gram gold coin for 25. So how surprising can it be that sterilizations were
reportedly performed on people who were in their 70s, mentally disabled or
unmarried. One 22-year-old said he went to the local pub with an acquaintance
and woke up the next morning in a government hospital with a certificate in his
pocket saying he’d been vasectomized.[36]
In February, the Indian
television network NDTV aired footage of Indian women being laid unconscious in
their saris in a field outside a hospital where 103 women had been sterilized
in a single afternoon by two doctors working a “mega” sterilization camp at a
government run 60-bed hospital in West Bengal. The video shows one woman being
loaded unconscious onto a bicycle rickshaw. One report on the sterilization
camp said a woman had to be hospitalized when she fell from a rickshaw being
transported from the hospital.[37]
Shocking as the scenes were, even
to many Indians, they were not broadcast by mainstream media outside the
country. Nor was this locally televised travesty unusual, according to
documents filed in the Indian Supreme Court last April by the Delhi-based Human
Rights Law Network. It alleges that such “unsafe sterilization procedures [are]
the norm throughout India,”
and are fuelled by government targets to reduce population growth, whatever the
human cost.[38]
In one instance, documented in
the HRLN petition, 53 lower caste women underwent tubal ligations by a single
doctor in two hours one evening at a high school in Bihar
in January 2012. They were anaesthetized in their saris and sterilized on
school desks shoved together to form a makeshift operating table. They did not
undergo pre-op evaluations and many did not understand what they were
undertaking (most gave consent by thumbprint). Because the facility lacked
running water and had only a single generator light bulb, the doctor did not
wash his hands between surgeries and worked by flashlight. When he was done he
left the women, including one who was still pregnant, bleeding on grass mats
outside the building[39].
Back in 2005, the Supreme Court ordered state
governments to immediately regulate sterilization, to ensure informed consent,
absence of coercion, staff competency and compensation for women who
suffer complications as a result of sub-standard practices, as well as to
relatives of victims who die from sterilizations.[40]
But eight years on, all of those abuses remain
rampant. A study published by the Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of the
pro-sterilization International Planned Parenthood Federation) in December 2012
looked at nearly 31,000 sterilizations of Indian women aged 15 to 49 and found
that one third were not informed about the irreversibility of the procedure.[41]
Female feticide is another strategy to reduce population
control programme. There is a
strategically approach to destroy one gender that is responsible for
procreation. Giving or taking prenatal
tests, including ultrasound scanning, solely to determine the sex of the fetus
was criminalized by Indian law in 1994. In 2002, the penalties were stiffened:
up to three years in jail and a 
10,000 fine for the first offence and
five years imprisonment and 50,000 for the second.[42]
10,000 fine for the first offence and
five years imprisonment and 50,000 for the second.[42]
Sex-selective abortion has been seen as worsening
the sex ratio in India,
affecting gender issues related to sex compositions of Indian households.
According to the decennial Indian census, the sex ratio in the 0-6 age group in
India
went from 104.0 males per 100 females in 1981, to 105.8 in 1991, to 107.8 in
2001, to 109.4 in 2011. The ratio is significantly higher in certain states
such as Punjab and Haryana (126.1
and 122.0, as of 2001). The use of ultrasound
and abortion for sex selection has been banned since 1994 in India and 1995 in China, however, there is evidence
that such bans are rarely enforced, and numerous dedicated sex selection
clinics operate in many regions of those countries. The practice is most common
among educated and wealthy residents, who are most likely to afford the
procedure. An article published in The Lancet analyzed Indian census
data and concluded that selective abortion of female fetuses has increased in
India over the past few decades due to increased prenatal sex discernment and
has contributed to a widening imbalance in the child sex ratio, though the
basis of the finding has been questioned.[43]
A similar situation is going on in China,
too. Every year, about a million female fetuses are aborted and tens of
thousands of female babies go missing. In China, a historical preference for
a male child has been exacerbated by the one-child policy, which was enacted in
1979. The strong cultural preference for sons is heightened by the one-child
policy leading and cultural values results in serious consequences. Gender bias can broadly impact a society, and
it is estimated that by 2020 there could be more than 35 million young
"surplus males" in China
and 25 million in India. Policy makers in China are attempting to provide
financial incentives to parents who have a female to help balance the sex
ratio.[44]
Population-control advocacy
groups included Jhpiego (a group that has collaborated with India’s government while women
undergo mass sterilizations to meet government quotas), the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA) and Path, which has assisted the Chinese government in
implementing its coercive one-child policy.[45] This makes abortion coercive than pro-choice
and defeat the UN claim as Human Right towards the legalizing abortion.
China
being the communist government, its coercive policy towards one child is
implemented whereas in India,
the democratic process though blocked the coercive measure, but used the NGOs
to execute the Global Policy under Dependency theory towards population control
through illegal clinics and NGOs with the underhand dealing with the Hospital
officials to undertake female feticide and sterilizations.
“Chaudhary told TOI that the
investigation so far has revealed that Patel as the administrator of the
hospital used to get the cases where couples would approach him for sex
determination. "He had contacts with a number of doctors as many of them
would come as visiting consultants at the nursing home. Whenever a case comes
up, Patel would contact a doctor and fix an appointment. The doctors would have
to bring in their own portable sonography machine. This way, he would reduce
the risk of being caught," she said.”[46]
Though there are medical ways to
control the population whether it is in legal way or illegal way through
abortion, sterilization, female feticide, and vasectomies, but there are also
other strategies to control the population.
Gender Disparity in the name of Women’s empowerment is one of the ways
to create a gender gap through gender conflicts so that the procreation process
is restricted.
Domestic Violence Act, 498A are
the tools to oppress a masculine gender through coercive Laws to create gender
disparity and broken families. Street
Crimes such as Rapes and Sexual Compromise at workplace is mainly to make women
unsettled so that they can restrict themselves to procreation. Hate relations and Gender conflicts are the
tools to restrict the procreation process.
The recent Delhi
gang rape where there was huge national and global media coverage and a huge
national agitation in India
was a strategic move to be imposed a dictatorial rape law on the people of India
without discussing the rape issue. The
strategic moves that compelled the State honor to the victim funeral though
there are random rape, killing and acid throw incidence in India and none of agencies played
any role in combating them. Moreover,
Sonali Mukherjee[47] who was
a victim of Acid Throw struggling for 10 years neither got Media’s attention or
State support for Justice and Treatment along with any Law amendment since her
crisis was nothing to do with population control sponsored by Western
strategists, but to terrorize women and unsettled community.
The government set up a panel
headed by a retired judge, which recommended sweeping changes to India's
laws governing crimes against women. The Cabinet quickly passed an ordinance
incorporating some of those suggestions, but parliament had to pass a new law
by next month or the ordinance would have expired. Many lawmakers complained
that the law was being rushed through without the proper debate or opportunity
for amendment.[48]
But Ranjana Kumari, a women's
activist and director of the Center for Social Research think-tank, said
significant problems remain, especially the government's refusal to criminalize
marital rape.[49]
Marital rape, though not
recognized in the rape law remained a pressure tactics to invade rape law in
the matrimonial relations, which is based on the consent of sex.
There's something uncomfortably neocolonial about the way the Delhi gang-rape and subsequent death of the woman now
known as Damini is being handled in the UK and US media. While India's civil and political spheres
are alight with protest and demands for changes to the country's culture of
sexual violence, commentators here are using the event to simultaneously
demonise Indian society, lionise our own, and minimise the enormity of western
rape culture.[50]
India
is getting a bad – but deserved – reputation for savagery against women, for
such gruesome crimes as the disemboweling gang rape in December of a 23-year-old
student in Delhi.
However, western media remain curiously quiet about one of the worst gender
atrocities: the country’s abusive mass-sterilization program.[51]
Women’s empowerment through preferential Laws did not get
women the life of dignity. She is abused
in every walks of life due to gender conflicts.
Population Control through gender conflict has made the society in
chaos. Sexual relationship is a
biological need for both men and women.
No artificial strategy can restrict procreation even in the chaotic
conditions.
The beneficiary of the gender conflicts have been availed by the Cartel of Organized Crimes that use women for the Sex Trade and Men towards the Consumers of Sex services. The Economies generated from these activities are the third largest global economy besides Arms and Drugs.
The destitution of women by way of female feticide,
killing, dowry deaths, rapes and mass sterilization and illegal abortion become
a tool to promote the religious conversion[52]
as disgust towards condition of Indian women as culture, whereas the pathetic
condition of women in India
remained a Political and Criminal issue than a social condition.
In a concluding note abuses to women are being benefited to
Crime network, religious institutions and illegal clinics through foreign
funding and rest of the population are suffering due to either the morality of
women or morbidity expenses on family and state.
Conclusion
The above arguments state that the voice for the
pro-choice towards Reproductive Health and Pro-choice is a theory of deception
and mainly a tool towards Population control of the periphery nations.
The richness of the natural resources of the
periphery nations is the main focus for the Core nations to which they use all
the strategies and institutions to control the economy whether it is through
women’s empowerment, organized crimes, medico terrorism or intellectual
colonization or United Nations’ Organizations and its affiliation of INGOs and
NGOs.
The growing population of acute hunger and poverty
is the main concern of the core nations due to their economic policies that is
responsible for the destitution of the Periphery nations. They cannot feed the whole world, so they are
killing the population in the womb itself in the name of pro-choice and
reproductive health as Human Rights.
Control of population growth cannot be done
through killings in the womb, but to make the population responsible. This can only be done through indigenous
economy, i.e. self-reliant and self-decisive in the economic process. Dependency theory and the colonization of the
natural resources and State policies are the main reasons for the negligence in
the procreation process. If the Core nations decide the fate of the World, certainly
the dependency approaches of the world become irresponsible and unreasonable
thus unregistered sex and unwanted pregnancy is an outcome of such
irresponsible behaviour.
Promotion of Homosexuality and Abortion towards
population control as foreign policies of the Core nations is an indicator of
Intellectual and Moral inadequacies.
Killing in the Womb and Mass Sterilization is against Human Rights and
Sovereignty of nation. Every Nation is
responsible for its population along with its economy. Foreign intervention even through United Nations
should be treated as strategic intrusion towards mass killing and abusing the
Women’s reproductive choice since reproduction is a matter of privacy and
social responsibility based on Cultural values.
Population is a State responsibility and not a
Global Policy because nature has balanced the world according to the
Biodiversities and human population. So,
killing in the Womb to curtail population is against the Nature’s Law and
environment degradation is a cause this artificial crisis.
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Alan Guttmacher Institute. Sharing responsibilities: women,
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worldwide. New York: The Alan Guttmacher Institute,
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Bankole A, Singh S, Haas T. Reasons why women have induced
abortions: evidence
from 27 countries. Int Fam Plann Perspect
1998; 24: 117–27
David
A Grimes, Janie Benson, Susheela Singh, Mariana Romero, Bela Ganatra, Friday
E Okonofua, Iqbal H Shah, Unsafe
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Jesani Amar, Abortion : An Alternative
To Family Planning?
'Metropolis'
January 28, 1995
Liskin L. Complications of abortion in developing
countries. Popul Rep F 1980;
Lutz
Wolfgang, Population and Biodiversity: A Commentary, Why Biodiversity Matters
for the Human Population, International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
NARAL Pro-Choice America
, The Safety of Legal
Abortion and the Hazards of Illegal
Abortion
Saha Shelley, UNSAFE ABORTIONS,
Published in Newsletter, 'Frontier' Vol 33, No1,
PP 13-14
Saha Shelley Safe and Legal
Termination - A Distant Reality, CEHAT,
Humanscape,
March 2000
Singh Susheela, Hospital
admissions resulting from unsafe abortion : estimates from 13
developing countries, Lancet 2006 Safe
abortion, 368: 1887–92
[1] David A Grimes, Janie Benson, Susheela Singh,
Mariana Romero, Bela Ganatra, Friday E Okonofua, Iqbal H Shah, Unsafe
abortion: the preventable pandemic*, World Health Organisation.
[3] Alan Guttmacher Institute. Sharing responsibilities: women,
society and abortion worldwide. New
York: The Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1999.
[4] Bankole A, Singh S, Haas T. Reasons why women have induced
abortions: evidence from 27 countries. Int Fam Plann Perspect 1998; 24:
117–27
[5]Sedgh G et al., Induced abortion: incidence
and trends worldwide from 1995 to 2008, Lancet, 2012, (forthcoming)
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade
[8] Islamic ethics
of life: abortion, war, and euthanasia By Jonathan E. Brockopp
[10] Ibid
[11] http://www.womenonwaves.org/en/page/460/abortion-laws-worldwide
[12] Ibid
[13] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/abortion-rates-higher-countries-illegal-study_n_1215045.html
[14] Ibid
[15] Adolescent pregnancy: critical review for the
clinician, Miller
KA, Field
CS.Department of Pediatrics, University of Oklahoma Health Science
Center-Tulsa Medical College 74128., http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3916606
[17] Unsafe
Abortion, Global and Regional Estimates in the incidence of Unsafe Abortion and
associated mortality in 2008, WHO
[18] Sedgh G
et al., Induced abortion worldwide in 2008: levels and trends, Lancet,
2012, (forthcoming)
[19] Slower
population growth cuts the cost of social services as fewer children attend
school; fewer and healthier people seek health care; fewer women die in
childbirth; and demand eases for water, food, housing, transportation and
jobs. In some countries, high population
growth is outpacing economic progress.
Family planning is a powerful tool in combating poverty. However,
universal access to family planning it is not yet a reality–particularly not
among the poorest. Worldwide, 200
million women would like to delay or prevent pregnancy, but are not using
effective contraception. The demand for
contraceptives is expected to grow by 40 per cent in the next 15 years, but funding for it has been
declining over the years. Effective
family planning programmes targeted to meet the needs of poor populations can
reduce the fertility gap between rich and poor people, and make a powerful
contribution to poverty reduction and the achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals.
[20] http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/02/united-nations-delegates-tired-of-activists-pushing-abortion/
[21] Ibid
[23] Robert
P. George, Public Reason and Political Conflicts – Abortion and
Homosexuality, The Yale Law
Journal Vol. 106, No. 8, Symposium: Group Conflict and the Constitution:
Race, Sexuality, and Religion (Jun., 1997), pp. 2475-2504
[24] Ibid
[25] Matthew Hoffman, Latin America Correspondent, Mon Jun 24, 2013 Secret network of foreign NGOs performing illegal abortions in Bolivia, feminist researcher says
[26] ibid
[27] ibid
[28] ibid
[29] http://c-fam.org/en/issues/ngos/534-un-ngo-at-the-center-of-new-york-times-reporting-scandal
[30] ibid
[32] T. Elliot Gaiser, January 25, 2013 Population Control, Updated: Global Tax-Funded Abortions http://blog.heritage.org/2013/01/25/population-control-updated-global-tax-funded-abortions/
[34] Ibid
[35]
Apr 5, 2013, India's foreign-funded mass sterilization camps are
barbarous, Any war on children is war on women, The Christians.com,
[36] Ibid
[37] Ibid
[38] Ibid
[39] ibid
[40] ibid
[41] ibid
[44] ibid
[45] http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/abortion-and-population-control-highlighted-at-global-womens-conference#ixzz2Xap9JTIf
[46] http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-05-21/ahmedabad/31800452_1_sonography-determination-racket-doctors
[47] She received no state funding after being severely
disfigured when a spurned suitor and his friends broke into her room when she
was just 17 and doused her body with chemicals. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2328883/Sonali-Mukherjee-Agony-acid-attack-victim-forced-Who-Wants-To-Be-A-Millionaire-pay-27th-operation.html#ixzz2Y3cADOvP
[49] Ibid
[50] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/01/delhi-rape-damini
[51]
Apr 5, 2013, India's foreign-funded mass sterilization camps are barbarous,
Any war on children is war on women, The Christians.com,
http://thechristians.com/?q=node/80#sthash.xNECxqd8.3b1oMLS6.dpuf
[52] No doubt unintentionally, these secular international
forces have vastly empowered the most vicious facets of Hinduism and Indian
male-centred culture against India’s women: the UK medical journal The
Lancet estimates that perhaps 12 million baby girls have been
selectively aborted in the past three decades, since First World “reproductive
health” was embraced (no one knows how many more million girls are killed by
infanticide), and the resulting skewed sex ratios have only caused more misery
: a steady increase of girls forced into early marriage, sex slavery and
servitude to the Hindu goddess Yellamma as “devadasis” (lifetime prostitutes).
Violent crime against women has soared – rape is the country’s fastest growing
crime, up by almost 800 percent in the past four decades (outpacing murder and
robbery by miles). Government sponsored sterilization mega-camps bolster this
anti-female mentality, whether they intend to or not.
Instead of looking
to Bill and Melinda Gates for inspiration, Indians might want to consider
Christianity as offering a more wholesome model of gender balance consistent
with natural sex differences. Andrea Mrozek, a blogger on ProWomanProLife.org,
comments, “Christianity remains a ground-breaker in the equality of men and
women. As the apostle Paul explained to the Galatians, ‘There is neither Jew
nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are
all one in Christ’.” http://thechristians.com/?q=node/80#sthash.xNECxqd8.3b1oMLS6.dpuf
