Gs Paper-2
Syllabus: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India.
Context:
- In a significant curtailment of women’s rights, the U.S Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a 1973 landmark decision giving women in America the right to have an abortion before the foetus is viable outside the womb — before the 24-28week mark.
- Abortion rights, which have been available to women for over two generations — will now be determined by individual States.
- Also overturned on Friday was Planned Parent-hood v. Casey, a 1992 case that upheld Roe.
| Roe v. Wade Judgment:
● In 1973, in the landmark Roe vs Wade judgment, the Supreme Court of the United States made the right to abortion a constitutional right, establishing a benchmark for abortion laws across the world. ● US Supreme Court struck down laws that made abortion illegal in several states and ruled that abortion would be allowed up to the point of foetal viability, that is, the time after which a foetus can survive outside the womb. ○ Foetal viability was around 28 weeks (7 months) at the time of the Roe judgment; experts now agree that advances in medicine have brought the threshold down to 23 or 24 weeks (6 months or a little less). ● Foetal viability is often seen as the point at which the rights of the woman can be separated from the rights of the unborn foetus. ● Abortion laws across the world rely on this metric but those opposing abortions argue that this is an arbitrary timeframe that legislation and the court in Roe adopted.
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Insta Links:
To read about abortion laws in India: Click here
To read about the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 2021: click here
Practice Questions:
With reference to the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Amendment Act, 2021, consider the following statements:
- Opinion of one Registered Medical Practitioner (RMP) for termination of pregnancy up to 20 weeks of gestation.
- It allows only married women to also terminate a pregnancy.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
a. 1 only
b. 2 only
c. Both 1 and 2
d. Neither 1 nor 2
Ans: (a)
