I don’t know how else to title this post. I am not writing this post to write an opinion on the decisions that Mehtas have had to make regarding the abortion of their fetus/child because I have no such authority. Also, it is their private life, decisions, and my opinion should not matter. I am completely removed from the situation that Mehtas are going through like everyone else, who is discussing and debating the questions that Mehtas have helped raise, is. Over the past two days, since the Indian High Court ruled that Mrs. Niketa Mehta cannot legally have an abortion of her 25 week old fetus (which has the possibility of a congenital heart disease), the blogworld has been lit up with posts regarding the case. Not many actually wanted to write but were requested by their readers to write like Nita and Mad Momma. Others who I’ve read are Shefaly, Lekhni, Prerna and Maami. There are a few others who I read as well but didn’t remember to note their websites down which I am sorry about. I am certainly not against objective debate and discussion but while reading the aforementioned blogs and those I don’t remember, there was something that troubled me. It was perhaps the fact that there were some parts of the writings that were written with a personal and a biased point of view. I understand that it happens when writing about an issue that is so ethically relevant as the one in discussion. However, I felt that the people involved, the Mehtas, deserve reasonable respect and sensitivity from the writers to not let emotions guide their judgments in their writing.
The decisions that Mehtas are having to make are not like helping our audience/readers decide whether piano classes are good for a three year old or not. Normally, when we write posts on these blogs, our words are not of much consequence but in this case, they are. Imagine yourself in one of the Mehtas shoes and reading some of the flak that’s being posted. What would you go through in addition to the pain that you are already carrying? Can we, as writers and commentators, not be sensitive about that? We might not agree with the choices that Mehtas made or make but it gives us no right to discuss their decisions and desiccate them by weighing them in our own ethical scale. I applaud Mehtas for the course of action that they have taken so far as opposed to having gone to some hack in a back alley somewhere to get an abortion in a medically unsupervised condition. Also, I applaud them for having the courage to go on with the case despite them being in full public view. I am thankful to them for giving the country a reason to debate the laws in question and people like you and me fodder to write about.
None of us who hasn’t gone through a situation that they are currently in or might not ever be going through it can truly make a call here. Today, I cooked one of my husband’s favorite dishes for him and while cooking, I said to him, “I’d never eat this even if I am marooned on an island”.”Really?” he asked and I shrugged my shoulders while making a disgusted face, “of course not! I’ll never eat it!” But that’s not the truth, is it? It’s easy for me to say that I wouldn’t because I know that chances of me being marooned on an island anytime soon are rare to zilch. It’s only when a situation is ‘hypothetical’ that having an opinion on it with all the possible logic and rationale is easy. When the same situation becomes a reality, none of us would be blogging about it. We would be going about it in our own way as it suits us the best hoping that no one else judges our decisions and let us be on our own. That’s what Mehtas need from us today.
They are going through a very rough time today that god forbid any parent has to go through. Writing about them and discussing whether their decision was right or wrong is insulting their grief and should not be done. Talking about the debate regarding abortion and the laws in an objective manner without involving any emotional hullabaloo is commendable because these are issues that need to be talked about but if you can’t keep the emotional package out of it, please don’t write about it. Be considerate that there could be others who might have gone through the same dilemma as the Mehtas but privately; they could be feeling miserable reading everything that you are writing.
About the laws governing abortion, pro-life views, pro-choice views, I’ve written plenty on Unchaahi’s blog here. I’ve discussed freedom of choice enough times on Unchaahi’s blog to be rewriting everything all over again. I’ve also spoken of partial birth abortions here. Now that I’ve provided the links, I must summarize here that the practice of Female Foeticide must NOT be confused with cases like Mehtas case. I’ve seen on many blogs that I’ve read that the two issues are being confused. They should not be. They are two unique scenarios. Female Foeticide, as I discussed here, should not form the basis of any debate surrounding laws designed for abortions. Female Foeticide is merely a SYMPTOM of discrimination against women. Before female foeticide, it was female infanticide. Now, there are pre-gender selection kits. Tomorrow, we’ll have even more finer technology and Female Foeticide would be a thing of the past. Females won’t even be conceived. The issue of Female Foeticide must NOT, I repeat … NOT, be confused with the debate between pro-lifers and pro-choicers. Having said that, issues like Female Foeticide must only form the basis of bigger issues like seeking rights for women to be able to decide for themselves, to live their lives as they want, to be respected for they are and not marred because of their gender.
As someone who denounces Female Foeticide, I cannot be labeled as someone who is against abortions. Neither can I be labeled as being FOR them. There is no causation effect there. All I can be accused of is that I value a woman’s right to her life, her body, and her decisions regarding both. I openly say that if a woman chooses to not have a daughter and if I was in power to nullify her choice, I would not use my power. I will try to rationalize with her, ask her for the reasons behind her decisions and try to make her see the available options, but, finally, it would be her choice. It has to be. If I didn’t give her the choice, I would be untrue to my stance of denouncing discrimination against women. You see how that works? Raising a voice against Female Foeticide means raising a voice for women to have a voice in the society, be treated as equals and not be discriminated against starting from the womb itself. Women in India where Female Foeticide is occurring are not in charge of their lives yet and that is what I am trying to address with Unchaahi. Society is still influencing most of their decisions which it should not. Women should have enough respect in the society that their birth is not condemned! We have the case of Dr. Mitu Khurana, who I am in touch with on emails, who fought against her in-laws to not abort her gorgeous little girls and she’s struggling in courts today against authorities who tell her that her rightful place as a woman is to be with her in-laws.
Actually, in comparison to the abortion debate, Female Foeticide is too simplistic an issue. Female Foeticide can be definied as a by-product of a societal system gone kaput on the whole. However, the decision whether to abort or not is (and should be) a private and a personal one only and cannot be wrapped in a universal definition. It cannot be differentiated into black and white. Grey areas are aplenty when judging a parent’s split between losing her child and keeping her child. No outsider should dare judge.
If a parent feels that she doesn’t want her child, which technically is still a part of her body that she has every right on, it is her choice irrespective of the reason. Yes, designer babies is a risk that we’ll have to take on as a society but how many parents do you know who would abort their children if the fetus doesn’t have enough big enough eyes? Even if a parent chooses to only have a designer baby, we need to learn to respect her choice and ‘try’ not to judge her despite her reasoning that might seem flawed to us. Judging her although would be an immediate reaction and I will be guilty of the same as well. However, we need to teach ourselves to let people think for themselves, make their decisions, while we learn to respect them, irrespective of gender, religion or any such bias, for their decisions. The more we develop respect for all human beings in our society and their decisions, the less we will be faced with problems like Female Foeticide or even Terrorism for that matter for they are only by-products of an unevenly biased society. We have to learn to live and let live as the cliche goes.
Agree one hundred percent on exercising personal choice. And am glad you clarified on the female foeticide issue vs this abortion issue.
Though not directly dealing with this issue, it reminds me of AG Gardiner’s Essay, Rule of the Road. One’s liberty should not clash with another’s. In the case of Female foeticide, the liberty to abort a female baby BECAUSE she is a female, is messing up with the equation of entire society and hence endangering the already born female babies.
Mehtas’ case should not be confused with it.
I hope there are more people like you, because I’m glad you are siding foremost with reproductive liberty. Although I don’t necessarily agree with what you say (because I’m actually for sex selection and designer babies), I’m glad you’ve identified that this is just a symptom of the underlying problem of sexism.
As I discussed with you, this is not something we can be objective about. I keep thinking, It could be me… and take the same decision and feel as sad as Niketa. It just too darn personal to be “I would not”. Because no one can ever be in exactly the same situation as her. Not even her a second time around. And she needs her space. The more we discuss this, the more we become like vultures no matter how well meaning we are.
mampi: thank you for that. i shall look into reading that essay!! thank you. :)
Joshua: thank you sire, and if you are for sex-selection and designer babies, i’ll have to respect your choice, isn’t it? would i be wrongly assuming if i say that you are not sexist though?
alanki: yep, ‘n like i said, if we can’t be objective about it, let’s not write about it.
@ Roop – somebody else put it on my blog – and I agree – mine is definitely a the Voltairesque stance – “I disapprove of what you say but I defend to the death your right to say it”
So i personally wouldn’t go in for an abortion, no matter what the situation – but I defend your right to want one. Which is what I wrote. that parents who dont want a child, for whatever reason – shouldnt be forced to have one.
moving on to your next point – as you said – you have never been stranded on an island so you wouldnt know. BUT I was at risk for Down’s syndrome. I had terrible pregnancies each time. And both times I was told that the children were growing abnormally – body parts not growing in the correct ratio – so it would have been a child with a huge head and tiny body or long gorilla arms – anything. so i AM a mother and I HAVE run certain risks, so i DO know what i am talking about. after birth, my son is okay but my daughter has a bunch of problems, some that require a little mask to be put on her face so that breath comes back to that little body. I’ve seen my child struggle to breathe adn I know its not nice. even so – I believe its my job to give her the best quality of life and only God’s to take that life. that is a personal matter of faith and not one I impose on others. They’re free to decide what they want to do with their children with special needs naturally.
to my mind – the objection is to a certain argument that has come up across all blogs – that its a woman’s body and she has a right to abort – not just if the child is defective but if she has financial trouble, marital problems, or even if it was a drunken dandiya night with no protection.
now the argument here – shifted from a foetus in distress – to the right a woman has to abort a baby at any time, no matter how healthy. please note that it was a complete shift. that is when many of us brought up the point, that if its simply about you own body and your right to do ANYTHING you please – then why stop them from aborting a girl child. many husbands remarry if the wife has daughters again and again. many DILs are illtreated for producing girls again and again. And many families cant afford the dowry. and many little girls grow up to be discriminated against in their own families. I am guessing that is a compelling enough reason for a woman to want to abort her girl child – well she shouldnt need one then, going by the ‘my body, my wish’ argument.
secondly – this is India. i lived in UP – the cow belt. ANYTHING is possible. you make it easy for people to abort and they will find the slightest defect in a girl child and get an excuse to abort it.
and finally of course the whole designer baby trend. i know someone who conceived after much IVF and tried to drop the baby because it was a girl.
but – yes – much respect… to the Mehtas. And finally – i dont think you can really ask for sensitivity – When you go to court and make a case – people will talk. Why just them – people talk about everyone. That is the thing in this age of information.
And finally – I may not like the concept of aborting a child – but with the legal framework of 20 weeks (or if the law changes to extend it) – I support your right to it – unquestioned.
oh good Lord look at that huge comment. kill me now please.
Interesting. You say if we cannot keep emotion out of it, we should not discuss it.
Perhaps it is worth mentioning that mine is probably the most “coldly” rational post you have read (since you mention it). :-)
At the risk of beating my own drum a bit further, I have to say that, also so far the only one that acknowledges that for all others it is hypothetical and hence we can discuss all we like but we must acknowledge that in the end it is the parents’ (Mehtas’) can to carry and none of us can comment on how they feel.
Thanks for mentioning it at all.
Oh the only reason I mention it is because many of my friends, who have children, have called up and given me buckets of abuse since then. :-(
Sorry, the last one now. Please forgive me – it is very early morning here.
The reason for this abuse was that I did NOT bring any emotion into it.
MM: no, thanks for the comment .. cuz it’s only out of these huge comments, learning happens. like i said, that if a woman wants to abort her girl child and has her reasons, more power to her. wut can anyone else say? who are we to stop? my problem is only with the families and the society discriminating against her cuz she is a woman who can’t produce sons. end of it all, my trouble when it comes to female foeticide is not abortion but sexism. they are distinct issues.
shefaly: thanks to you as well. i am not sure though how you got the idea that i am blaming you for not being rational. i said ‘SOME’ of the writings i read … not all. and i certainly didn’t point out which ones. they could be in the ones i didn’t name or they could not be. i didn’t insinuate you at all. I clearly wrote:
“It was perhaps the fact that there were some parts of the writings that were written with a personal and a biased point of view.”
That does not incriminate your writing or mm’s or anyone else’s. there were bits and pieces i picked here and there. That’s all. I am sorry if you felt i was insinuating you. I’d be happy to take off your name if that’s what you;d like me to do. thanks for the comments. :)
Roop, there is nothing sexist about wanting to let parents choose which gender of child to have. There is a difference between preferring to have a child of a certain sex and thinking that sex is superior.
If it helps, consider the difference between preferring to date people of your own race and thinking those of your own race are superior to those of other races.
Roop:
This is what happens when people write comments with eyes half-open :-(
I meant since you said that people should strip emotion away and then write about this case, perhaps it is worth saying which ones you found on which side of the fence. I hope this is now clear (as mud)… :-)
;p why create trouble unnecessarily? if my efforts are not towards getting myself liked by the masses here through what i write, they certainly are not towards getting meself kicked either. :D
The rest of my comments were meant to say that the non-emotional/ cold rational approach is also unlikely to please many, since many of my friends with children came at me all guns blazing (and these are women who *know* me well enough to know what I was saying..).
yep!! that … and people like to read emotion anyway. people like to read news with shock-value …. blogs that make us feel self-righteous …. give us a feeling of self-importance ….. or so i assume. i might be wrong as i am about many things though. :)
I think the best thing would have been if none of us ever discussed it. On the web, somehow things remain for posterity. I was thinking why I wrote it at all and am still thinking. I guess I got tired of the she-should-she-shouldn’t tone of most posts I read (I cited only those I know well). Which was my reason for emphasising that for all of us, it is hypothetical and therefore perhaps we should discuss the issues, preferably without emotion…
It should not have been discussed.
After all, the child will be born, grow up and probably see all this and find out his/ her parents tried to abort it and we can not even imagine the impact…
Well, if there are plenty positive posts around, s/he might see both sides to the coin and if there are more ‘rational’ posts around, h/she might even be proud of the debate their birth started :)
Hmm. Now wondering if I should take the post down.
Nope, you shouldn’t. Not at all.
josh, I won’t comment on sex selection being right or wrong cuz that is an individual choice. I personally won’t do it myself but atleast I have that choice. In most of the cases in areas where female foeticide is occuring, societal pressures and brainwashing that a male child is better are so deeply ingrained in the social fabric that women are left with no choice. If a woman should hve the choice of aborting a child, she also must have the choice of not aborting it if she doesn’t want to. However in most cases of female foeticide she has no choice but abort because of sexism that I’d rife in society. I hope that made sense. It’s too late here. Must get some rest.
shefaly, that’s EXACTLY what I meant. Will write more tomorrow. Shud sleep now. Writing this from iPhone while lying in bed. Yes yes, I cheat on husband with iPhone often ;p. Nite luv.
//she doesn’t want her child, which technically is still a part of her body that she has every right on, it is her choice irrespective of the reason// what about the father’s right and choice Roop ?
Before I say anything, I must admit that your question is a very pertinent one and that I might not be able to do justice while answering because of the oft-repeated ‘grey’ area again. This question has often crossed my mind too but the only answer I can come up with is the same as you would have expected …. that a woman not only nurtures the baby in her womb for nine months, gives birth to it, but is also the primary caregiver in most of the cases worldwide. Not just in the east but also in the west, it’s a mother in majority of the cases who lets go of her career and her job to be at home with her children. A mother, regardless of her ethnic background, is the one who devotes more time to her children than a father can. How many daddy-blogs do we see whilst the blogosphere is full of mommy-blogs? We can cry ‘equality’ at the top of our lungs but truth of the matter is that equality is not in proving that a man can be equally motherly to a child as a woman or not. Equality is in accepting that a woman has her maternal role to fulfill as a mother while father has his role and both should be equally respected.
Having said that, the ‘mother’ is also a ‘woman’. A woman whose personal choices need be respected. In situations where the woman wants an abortion and her partner doesn’t, I do feel that it is unfair on the partner’s part to demand the woman to keep the baby. After all, it is her who has majority of the responsibility for the baby by first bringing it into the world and then nurturing it for as long as it takes. It should be her making the main decision and her partner, no matter how tough it is for him, should respect that. However, if he is willing to guarantee that he will not bother her with any responsibility for the child etc etc and they come to an understanding, I don’t see why a woman shouldn’t give into her husband’s wishes.
See, it is a very complicated area. Men certainly have rights, no doubt, but just not as many when it comes to their wife’s body. My husband has a friend who was crying on the phone because his wife went through an abortion without his knowledge. He badly wants a child but she doesn’t. At first, I felt sorry for him but then I figured that he should respect her choice in that case. Why is he impregnating her then? Why does she need to go for abortions behind his back? Why this lack of communication? If she doesn’t want a kid, they need to discuss that openly and at the end, if he loves and respects her enough, he needs to abide by her choice … cuz honestly, there is nothing much he can do. He is never at home anyway. Always out on business trips. She is the one taking care of kids at home and taking care of home as a housewife. If she is not up to taking up more responsibility, he cannot force her until he promises her extra help which he cannot either. What choice does he have then? I truly am sorry for him but really …. his wife should matter to him more than a child that might be born. Like a popular saying in Sikh religion goes something like ….. take care of those who are alive first and bother about after-life later.
… and that, my dear, is my take. :)
amazing post Roop. U have put across ur thoughts in a wonderful way where nobody would get hurt. I was feeling so bad for mehtas and the hard time they must be going through after reading many blogs and posts in orkut discussing very meanly abt them. I was pinched and pricked by reading many remarks which highlighted them as killers. Its really sad and we dont have a right to talk against anyone else’s personal decision or beliefs or whtever.
Thank you very much for your kindness, Karuna. I woke up this morning with a heavy heart as well. This whole topic is just so emotionally charged. I don’t think I am built to handle it either. So I felt I had to put across my thoughts and I sure hope nobody feels hurt for that is not my intention at all. Thank you for acknowledging that. I appreciate it. :)
I read the post twice and the comments – each one of them. I do not usually read all the comments before I comment, sometimes I don’t read the comments at all!
Anyway, frankly I feel I am out of my depth here. Roop, you know a lot about female feticide and the implications of it so I bow to your superior judgement. And while I do agree that a woman has a right to abort, I do think aborting after the 25th week is a little different…I cannot help feeling the way I do because I think of the fetus after some number of weeks becomes a human being. As you said it is easy to say that as long as one is not in that situation, but as MM pointed out, there are people who will do it. She is an example and I have the utmost admiration for her. I feel I will do the same, but again maybe I will become weak, maybe I am not a good enough human being, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what is right or wrong (again, what I think is right or wrong). This doesn’t mean that I won’t look up to and admire those who will accept their babies the way they are. Whichever sex, whichever disability. Hats off to those who do!! And I will never ever admire anyone who aborts the child whether it is because of sex or disability, after a certain number of weeks, because of some sort of perference for a perfect child. Even if this means that I might do it too. If I do it, I will consider myself scum. I thank God that I never had to ever make this choice, though I know what that choice will have been. Whatever it is growing inside of me, it made because of me, me and my lover, my husband, it is the way it is because of us and I should be able to take the responsibility for it. If I can’t, if I succumb, then it’s something I have done that will make it difficult for me to sleep at night.
However as MM has done, I am speaking only for myself. I do not believe in interfering in the rights of others. I never bother to correct others in whatever they do even if I don’t approve of it, or because I think it’s worng. Their life is their business. If they can sleep at night, it’s fine.
I think I better stop writing here. I haven’t posted my today’s post yet! :)
Nits, thanks for giving this post the in-depth reading that you did. I truly appreciate it. :) Thanks for the comment as well. I appreciate where you are coming from and shan’t argue at all. You being pro-abortion or not is not of any concern to me. That is your private business. It’s imposing your thoughts on someone else with a different set of ethics and values that concerns me. You didn’t do that of course. You would never do that. However, I saw it happening at a few places and just wanted to point that out. :)
I hope what I said won’t be misunderstood here. I just want to repeat, I am speaking only for myself. As I said in the post on my blog, no judgments on the Mehtas’ decision because it is their life and their circumstances.
Also I am PRO abortion. :)
- amen!! :)
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Thanks! Really interesting. I wish i could spend my time on writing articles…just have no time for it.
I personally feel very sad at the thought of aborting a baby at any stage, and I can understand how painful a decision it can be. But I also have a friend with a child with major multiple handicaps, and her entire life has changed. Especially since the father has next to nothing to do with this child, and dotes on the other, brilliant child. I don’t know if pre-natal diagnostics wee available that long ago- 30-35 years ago, but it has been a very tough journey for her. Now she fortunately has a lot of state- support, the child is well taken care of in an institution and comes home for a weekend with an attendant.
It is such an emotionally fraught issue- but at least in India it is a legal option upto 20 weeks. There are some choices.
John: oh i hear ya. i wish i could write more but .. … laziness takes up most of my time. :D
Dipali: exactly. too emotional an issue to be judged as black and white really.
[...] personal unflattering opinion of them public under the guise of freedom of speech? For example, the Nikita Mehta abortion case that got much spotlight more than a few months ago. I might be completely off the rocker here but [...]