13 July, 2007

Big Brother is watching your foetus

I swear I’m not making this up. Here’s the link:

The central government plans to make it mandatory for the country’s women to register their pregnancies with it. It also wants abortions to be carried out only under specified circumstances. [...]

On Thursday, Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury told Hindustan Times that she wanted each pregnancy to be registered. [...] If Chowdhury has her way, abortions will be allowed only where there is a “valid and acceptable reason”. HT could not get officials to reveal the criteria that would make an abortion “acceptable and valid”.

So if you’re a young couple who have accidentally got pregnant and want to terminate, you will first have to convince a babu somewhere, without whose signature you will not have control over your own bodies. And if the government makes us register every pregnancy today to prevent female foeticide, why would they not demand that we register every act of sex so that sexually transmitted diseases can be stopped? Same logic, no? Applaud intention, forget outcome, throw the mommy out with the bathwater.

Also read: “Does Your Body belong To You?”