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Decision on abortions taken by men, finds helpline for women
Established three years ago, Samyak found that a large number of women were unaware that abortion is legal in India under certain conditions.
A hotline for women to assist them with their rights and health issues has found that most decisions about aborting the foetus were taken by men.
Anand Pawar, executive director of the NGO Samyak which runs the hotline ‘Marzi’ (Freedom of Choice), said, “These men were either married or in a relationship with the women.”
Established three years ago, Samyak found that a large number of women were unaware that abortion is legal in India under certain conditions.
‘Marzi’ (freedom of choice) for women was not seen anywhere,” said Pawar.
“So far, more than 7,000 calls have been received by us in the last three years and more than 90% calls we received were from men,” Pawar said.
He said the hotline was launched to promote safe abortions and information related to it as no government authority in the state was talking about it.
“We saw responses from a majority of men and more than 150 calls in a week were recorded,” said Pawar.
When asked about the reason for poor response from women, he said, “Reproductive decisions are taken by men, whether they are married or not. Men who called belonged to various categories such as married, unmarried, live-in and even those who were 18 years of age.”
Samyak now plans to expand this hotline to nine other parts of the state, including remote areas where information about access to legal abortion is still lacking. The objective is to provide information about safe abortion, medical provisions about MTP (medical termination of pregnancy) and information about contraception, said Pawar.
The social worker said a large number of men were unaware of the woman’s last menses which is an important factor and information relating to pregnancy and abortion.
“When our team requested the men to ask their partners to call us so that the appropriate information about last menses could be obtained, they never called back. Hence, we lost such callers only because of lack of knowledge and decisions being taken by men single-handedly,” he added.
Samyak plans to propose to the state government to establish a centre for women which talks about safe abortions and assists women in this regard.
“We have ‘beti bachao’ and ‘lek ladki abhiyan’, but what is lacking is access to women for safe and legal abortion. Hence, we plan to involve the state public health department in our endeavour,” he said.