Murder of the voiceless - abortions in rural India

I just finished counseling a 22 year old lady who we unwittingly diagnosed to be pregnant. She is not yet married, but has a boyfriend. She came yesterday with features which were very suggestive of an early pregnancy with a severe urinary tract infection.

We had repeatedly asked her if there was a chance of her being pregnant and she had vehemently denied of any possibility. Today morning, Nandamani who reviewed her for a vague discomfort of the lower abdomen took her in for ultrasound and found her to have a 7 week fetus. Not an uncommon event in many hospitals.

Nandamani called me in to deal with the crisis. The girl was already in tears and then confided that she had sexual relations with her boyfriend about couple of months back and she had never thought that it could end up such. Very familiar statements for me and Nandu. We get to hear it almost every month.

The issue was on how to deal with it. The girl had a very easy solution. 'I'll abort it'. After sometime we talked with the boy over the phone and he was also very cool about taking a decision to abort. I was very uncomfortable about how fast they had made such a decision.

'Murder planned so easily. Not a hint of remorse in the young voices.'

I know I'll face the brunt of many by making such a statement. The institution of marriage is breaking all over the world. Questions are being asked about the very fabric of it's institution.

However, what I'm more concerned is the cold blooded killing of the unborn. The unborn are most probably the most voiceless of all the people in this world. Recently, I read an article in 'The Hindu' which has put it quite well.

As told by the Dr Ronald, it is very common to see girl babies being killed all over the country. However, the killing of the innocents for sexual freedom is not something which is prevalent only in the West. It is very much present even in remote areas of third world countries such as ours.

The girl is an adult. She took the decision not to tell about the pregnancy to her parents. After a whole lot of counselling, she has still decided to go ahead with the abortion. Tomorrow, the boy has promised to come. Kindly pray that I can convince them to go ahead and have the baby.

However, as I pen this, I'm very much aware of the umpteen number of abortions which take place in very unhealthy and unsterile environments all over the world and more in rural areas of Asia and Africa which is a major challenge to maternal healthcare. There are no easy answers but to kill off unborn babies without any reservations is not the best choice.