Abortion Laws and the Uneven Reality of Reproductive Justice
Image Source: SDG Action
Adriana Monet Smith, a 30-year-old nurse from Georgia, was about 8-weeks pregnant when she went to Northside Hospital, in February 2025, when she complained of having severe headaches but was just given medication and discharged. The very next morning she woke up gasping for air and was immediately rushed to Emory University Hospital, several scans later it was discovered that she had numerous blood clots in her brain, and was declared brain-dead within a few hours.
In an interesting turn of events in spite of being declared brain-dead, the hospital refused to release her body to her family and she had been on life support for months to sustain the fetus. This is because they claim that abortion laws in Georgia prohibit ending a pregnancy. Her body keeps deteriorating and has been kept functioning against her prior wishes.
On the 13th of June 2025, when Adriana’s body could no longer function, the baby was born prematurely via emergency Cesarean Section, he weighed less than two pounds. Adriana Smith was legally and medically declared brain-dead, so the principle of this being done as a “good deed” does not apply here, as she was forced to be a human incubator to sustain life for a fetus.
On the other hand in Ahmedabad, India the Gujarat High Court on May 12 2025 permitted a 13-year-old rape victim to abort a 33-week pregnancy. The victim approached the High Court the week before after a Rajkot sessions court rejected her application on May 6, 2025 for abortion on the grounds that she was too young and the pregnancy was already at a very advanced stage.
The victim and her mother petitioned the HC for authorization under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act through counsel P V Patadiya. After requesting a medical report from the Rajkot hospital, a group of doctors, radiologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians, and gynecologists inspected the victim and provided their assessment. It said that because of the increased risk of complications, MTP could be performed following the examination and repair of anemia.
In India however courts often shelve medical opinions on the grounds whether a late-term abortion is “safe” which leads to varying decisions. As for example, in one case a 12-year-old rape survivor was denied an abortion at 28-weeks because the medical board warned of risks, and in other cases courts have overruled this concern and authorized procedures under absolute and apt supervision, citing mental trauma, socio-economic impact, and bodily integrity, as seen in the earlier mentioned case.
India’s Abortion Laws
As on September 29th, 2022, The Supreme Court of India held that unmarried women have the same rights to abortion as married women. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971, most recently amended in 2021 governs the circumstances under which abortions are legally permitted in India.
MTP Act 1971 provides the legal framework which makes CAC services available in India. Terminating a pregnancy is allowed for an array of circumstances up to 20 weeks of the course of pregnancy, as explained below:
- When a pregnant woman’s life is in danger or when carrying the pregnancy through delivery could seriously harm her physiological or emotional well-being;
- When there is a significant chance that the infant, whether alive or dead, will have serious physical or mental disabilities;
- Pregnancy resulting from rape is believed to cause serious harm to the woman’s mental health;
- pregnancy resulting from a married woman or her husband’s failure to take contraceptives is thought to cause serious harm to the woman’s mental health.
MTP Rules, 2021
The new rules as per the amendments were announced by the government on October 12, 2021 are:
- The gestation period upper limit for terminating a pregnancy with 1 doctor’s opinion has been extended from 12 weeks to 20 weeks, with the rule being expanded to include unmarried women as well.
- The gestation period upper limit for termination of pregnancy with 2 doctors’ opinion has been extended from 20 weeks to 24 weeks, for the following special categories:
○ survivors of sexual assault or rape or incest
○ minors
○ change of marital status during the pregnancy (widowhood and divorce)
○ women with physical disabilities
○ mentally ill women
○ the foetal anomalies that have substantial risk of being incompatible with life or if the child is born it may suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities to be seriously handicapped
○ women with pregnancy in humanitarian settings or disaster or emergency - A state-level Medical Board will determine the request for termination of a pregnancy longer than 24 weeks in the cases of fetal anomalies.
US Abortion Laws
The abortion laws of the US vary significantly by each and every state following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women Health Organisation which overturned Roe vs. Wade. Prior to Dobbs abortion was federally protected, but now states have the power to regulate or ban abortion.
As of 2025 some states have banned abortion entirely, while the others have enacted varying degrees of restrictions.
Government restrictions on abortion after Roe were restricted to post-viability actions, and the fetus’ life could never be given priority above the patient’s life. The idea of viability was firmly established by Justice Blackmun’s “trimester formula,” which also provided an accurate time frame for when states might legally control abortion. However, Roe did not always guarantee the right to an abortion; rather, it struck a balance between the right to privacy and the government’s interest in the fetus’ life.
Throughout the United States, abortion remains an emotive problem. States’ access to abortion has been divided, despite calls for federal action to “codify” Roe. State high courts have been urged by activists to acknowledge or overrule legislation that already recognizes an abortion right in state constitutions. Additionally, state legislators have pushed for an array of new laws that either protect or restrict access to abortion. Ten states had elections to preserve or increase access to abortion on their ballots in the 2024 election.
Critical Analysis
Talking about the key difference between the United States and India when it comes to abortion laws is as follows:
- The US has a federal system wherein the state legislates on abortions meanwhile India has a unified national law MTP Act with specific regulations based on gestational age and circumstances.
- Access to abortion in the US is more restrictive due to state-level bans and constraints while in India it is relatively not as restrictive and allows for abortion under various conditions up to 20–24 weeks of pregnancy, depending on the situation.
- Grounds for abortion in the US vary from state-to-state with some banning abortion outright on the other hand in India the MTP Act outlines specific conditions for abortions including rape, failure of contraception, and fetal abnormalities.
- Looking through the lens of social and political context, in the US abortion remains a highly controversial issue, with pro-life and pro-choice movements, but India’s legal framework has been comparatively more supportive of women’s reproductive rights.
At the end it all comes down to the age-old debate of Right of a fetus vs. Rights of a woman. This argument essentially comes down to whether a fetus is considered as a person with the right to life from conception, or if the woman has the right to bodily autonomy, including the right to choose whether or not she wants to carry a pregnancy to term.
The arguments that are often put forward by Pro-lifers or Pro-choice movement supporters talk about a potential personhood arguing that the fetus is essentially a human being with the potential for a future. They also talk about Future-of-value which is a concept that suggests killing a fetus deprives it of the potential to experience a future filled with good things.
In all this argument ‘potential’ remains a key word which fundamentally decides whether a woman has a right to her own body. The right to reproductive freedom is often seen as a principle for women’s equality and also the ability to participate in a society which is substantially male-driven and patriarchal.
Furthermore, this pits the interest of an adult woman against that of a fetus — an adult woman who is here now in the present and a fetus who does not have an independent entity either legally or biologically. Why put the life of someone who is already here and alive against a fetus who hasn’t even fully developed?
The institutional patriarchal control over reproductive capacity is further entrenched. Instead of using philosophical language to discuss the reality of unplanned pregnancies, we should address limitations and inequality in a more comprehensive understanding of the right to life, which includes legal safeguards for reproductive rights and the right to reproductive justice.
As a woman’s whole future and personal life depends on it, it should be her decision whether or not to continue or terminate the pregnancy. It is crucial to realize that, in spite of the immense efforts made by religious advocacy groups to present the zygote as a baby, it is still made up of undifferentiated cells from which the embryo and placenta will grow.
Enforcing the right to life of zygotes and fetuses and equating it with the right of a born woman to her life, health, autonomy, and full personhood by making pregnancy termination illegal is one of the most harmful ways to polarize and manipulate women’s bodies and lives, putting them in danger of death or illness and denying them the ability to make their own decisions.
About Authors: Meghaa Kabra is a second-year student pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Media and Journalism at Christ (Deemed to be) University, Bannerghatta Road Campus. She has a keen interest in media studies, journalism practices, and exploring contemporary issues through research and writing.
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