Woman's right to abort the foetus: Revisiting the law

Without indulging in the related debate over its morality, it is noteworthy that the right of a woman to decide by herself whether to continue carry a conceived foetus or to abort the child has received vociferous support amongst the Feministic circles. Being hailed as an important right of woman's self-determination, it is also based on the notion of equality in the social strata. The right, however, has not been vested in the woman for granted. Decisive legal battles have been fought and the decisions that have been rendered on the issue are those which have been hailed as important constitutional bench-marks on personal freedom and the extent of human liberties. In this post, we revisit these decisions which have declared the norm for today's society and the implications on the legal system which they continue to mark.

To begin with, the debate cannot better be revisited rather than by taking note of Roe v. Wade, the decision rendered by the United States Supreme Court in 1973. The case came up before the Court in the background where "Jane Roe, a single woman who was residing in Dallas County, Texas, instituted this federal action in March 1970 against the District Attorney of the county. She sought a declaratory judgment that the Texas criminal abortion statutes were unconstitutional on their face, and an injunction restraining the defendant from enforcing the statutes. Roe alleged that she was unmarried and pregnant; that she wished to terminate her pregnancy by an abortion performed by a competent, licensed physician, under safe, clinical conditions; that she was unable to get a legal abortion in Texas because her life did not appear to be threatened by the continuation of her pregnancy; and that she could not afford to travel to another jurisdiction in order to secure a legal abortion under safe conditions. She claimed that the Texas statutes were unconstitutionally vague and that they abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. By an amendment to her complaint, Roe purported to sue on behalf of herself and all other women similarly situated."

The Court noted the three principal objections made by the State against the challenge; "Three reasons have been advanced to explain historically the enactment of criminal abortion laws in the 19th century and to justify their continued existence. It has been argued occasionally that these laws were the product of a Victorian social concern to discourage illicit sexual conduct. ... A second reason is concerned with abortion as a medical procedure. When most criminal abortion laws were first enacted, the procedure was a hazardous one for the woman. This was particularly true prior to the development of antisepsis. ... The third reason is the State's interest -- some phrase it in terms of duty -- in protecting prenatal life. Some of the argument for this justification rests on the theory that a new human life is present from the moment of conception. The State's interest and general obligation to protect life then extends, it is argued, to prenatal life. Only when the life of the pregnant mother herself is at stake, balanced against the life she carries within her, should the interest of the embryo or fetus not prevail."

In this background the US Supreme Court, declaring the law imposing a blanket ban on abortion as unconstitutional, observed as under;

B. The pregnant woman cannot be isolated in her privacy. She carries an embryo and, later, a fetus, if one accepts the medical definitions of the developing young in the human uterus. See Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary 478-479, 547 (24th ed.1965). The situation therefore is inherently different from marital intimacy, or bedroom possession of obscene material, or marriage, or procreation, or education, with which Eisenstadt and Griswold, Stanley, Loving, Skinner, and Pierce and Meyer were respectively concerned. As we have intimated above, it is reasonable and appropriate for a State to decide that, at some point in time another interest, that of health of the mother or that of potential human life, becomes significantly involved. The woman's privacy is no longer sole and any right of privacy she possesses must be measured accordingly.

Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. 

It should be sufficient to note briefly the wide divergence of thinking on this most sensitive and difficult question. There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live' birth. This was the belief of the Stoics. It appears to be the predominant, though not the unanimous, attitude of the Jewish faith. It may be taken to represent also the position of a large segment of the Protestant community, insofar as that can be ascertained; organized groups that have taken a formal position on the abortion issue have generally regarded abortion as a matter for the conscience of the individual and her family. As we have noted, the common law found greater significance in quickening. Physician and their scientific colleagues have regarded that event with less interest and have tended to focus either upon conception, upon live birth, or upon the interim point at which the fetus becomes "viable," that is, potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks. The Aristotelian theory of "mediate animation," that held sway throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe, continued to be official Roman Catholic dogma until the 19th century, despite opposition to this "ensoulment" theory from those in the Church who would recognize the existence of life from the moment of conception. The latter is now, of course, the official belief of the Catholic Church. As one brief amicus discloses, this is a view strongly held by many non-Catholics as well, and by many physicians. Substantial problems for precise definition of this view are posed, however, by new embryological data that purport to indicate that conception is a "process" over time, rather than an event, and by new medical techniques such as menstrual extraction, the "morning-after" pill, implantation of embryos, artificial insemination, and even artificial wombs. 

In areas other than criminal abortion, the law has been reluctant to endorse any theory that life, as we recognize it, begins before live birth, or to accord legal rights to the unborn except in narrowly defined situations and except when the rights are contingent upon live birth. For example, the traditional rule of tort law denied recovery for prenatal injuries even though the child was born alive. That rule has been changed in almost every jurisdiction. In most States, recovery is said to be permitted only if the fetus was viable, or at least quick, when the injuries were sustained, though few courts have squarely so held. In a recent development, generally opposed by the commentators, some States permit the parents of a stillborn child to maintain an action for wrongful death because of prenatal injuries. Such an action, however, would appear to be one to vindicate the parents' interest and is thus consistent with the view that the fetus, at most, represents only the potentiality of life. Similarly, unborn children have been recognized as acquiring rights or interests by way of inheritance or other devolution of property, and have been represented by guardians ad litem. Perfection of the interests involved, again, has generally been contingent upon live birth. In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.

In view of all this, we do not agree that, by adopting one theory of life, Texas may override the rights of the pregnant woman that are at stake. We repeat, however, that the State does have an important and legitimate interest in preserving and protecting the health of the pregnant woman, whether she be a resident of the State or a nonresident who seeks medical consultation and treatment there, and that it has still another important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life. These interests are separate and distinct. Each grows in substantiality as the woman approaches term and, at a point during pregnancy, each becomes "compelling."

With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in the health of the mother, the "compelling" point, in the light of present medical knowledge, is at approximately the end of the first trimester. This is so because of the now-established medical fact, referred to above at 410 U. S. 149, that, until the end of the first trimester mortality in abortion may be less than mortality in normal childbirth. It follows that, from and after this point, a State may regulate the abortion procedure to the extent that the regulation reasonably relates to the preservation and protection of maternal health. Examples of permissible state regulation in this area are requirements as to the qualifications of the person who is to perform the abortion; as to the licensure of that person; as to the facility in which the procedure is to be performed, that is, whether it must be a hospital or may be a clinic or some other place of less-than-hospital status; as to the licensing of the facility; and the like.

This means, on the other hand, that, for the period of pregnancy prior to this "compelling" point, the attending physician, in consultation with his patient, is free to determine, without regulation by the State, that, in his medical judgment, the patient's pregnancy should be terminated. If that decision is reached, the judgment may be effectuated by an abortion free of interference by the State. With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life, the "compelling" point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother's womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

In short, what the Court did was to declare that while the State did have an interest in protecting the lady, it did not imply that the State could blatantly abolish all forms of abortion. The Court stated that the role of a State came into play only after a particular "point at which the fetus becomes 'viable', that is, potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid". Prior to that, it was the sole dominion of the mother to decide whether to carry the child or abort. The decision has had its own share of heated controversy (aptly noted in its wikipedia article) but then the law is what has been declared in the decision. The determination has been retained in as much as even in a subsequent challenge in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey the US Supreme Court refused to overrule the decision in Roe v. Wade. 

In the Indian context, the law is governed by the 1971 law entitled 'Termination of Pregnancy Act' which imposes a general ban on the termination of pregnancy unless two registered doctors form an opinion "formed in good faith, that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve a risk to the life of the pregnant woman or of grave injury to her physical or mental health; or there is a substantial risk that if the child were born, it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities to be seriously handicapped." There is a further restriction that the termination cannot take place after twelve weeks of the conception. This limit is to be strictly observed in terms of the decision of the Indian Supreme Court which refused to break the shackles of this time-limit even for a mentally retarded pregnant mother in a recent decision. Even there the Supreme Court declared that the right to abort the child was a dimension of the right to personal liberty of a woman. The Court observed as under;

There is no doubt that a woman’s right to make reproductive choices is also a dimension of ‘personal liberty’ as understood under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. It is important to recognise that reproductive choices can be exercised to procreate as well as to abstain from procreating. The crucial consideration is that a woman’s right to privacy, dignity and bodily integrity should be respected. This means that there should be no restriction whatsoever on the exercise of reproductive choices such as a woman’s right to refuse participation in sexual activity or alternatively the insistence on use of contraceptive methods. Furthermore, women are also free to choose birth-control methods such as undergoing sterilisation procedures. Taken to their logical conclusion, reproductive rights include a woman’s entitlement to carry a pregnancy to its full term, to give birth and to subsequently raise children. However, in the case of pregnant women there is also a ‘compelling state interest’ in protecting the life of the prospective child. Therefore, the termination of a pregnancy is only permitted when the conditions specified in the applicable statute have been fulfilled. Hence, the provisions of the MTP Act, 1971 can also be viewed as reasonable restrictions that have been placed on the exercise of reproductive choices. 

To similar effect is the decision of the Canadian Supreme Court in Dr. Henry Morgentaler, v. Her Majesty the Queen. Then we have a case pending in the European Court of Human Rights wherein the challenge involved is to the Ireland's law which declare abortion to be illegal. A recent paper on SSRN on this pending case through considerable insight on the possibility of this case becoming the Roe v. Wade of Europe. 

On the related note, however, the Bombay High Court in Vinod Soni v. Union of India refused to declare as unconstitutional the "Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act of 1994" which imposed use of medical techniques through which the sex of the embryo could be determined in the womb itself. It was sought to be argued before the High Court that "the personal liberty of a citizen of India includes the liberty of choosing the sex of the offspring. Therefore he, or she is entitled to undertake any such medicinal procedure which provides for determination or selection of sex, which may come into existence after conception. The submission is that the right to personal liberty extends to such selection being made in order to determine the nature of family which an individual can have in exercise of liberty quaranteed by Article 21. It inturn includes nature of sex of that family which he or she may eventually decided to have and/or develope." Dismissing the petition, the High Court observed as under;

The right to life or personal liberty cannot be expanded to mean that the right of personal liberty includes the personal liberty to determine the sex of a child which may come into existence. The conception is a physical phenomena. It need not take place on copulation of every capable male and female. Even if both are competent and healthy to give birth to a child, conception need not necessarily follow. That being a factual medical position, claiming right to choose the sex of a child which is come into existence as a right to do or not to do something which cannot be called a right. The right to 

personal liberty cannot expand by any stretch of imagination,to liberty to prohibit coming into existence of a female foetus or male foetus which shall be for the Nature to decide. To claim a right to determine the existence of such foetus or possibility of such foetus come into existence, is a claim of right which may never exist. Right to bring into existence a life in future with a choice to determine the sex of that life cannot in itself to be a right. In our opinion, therefore, the petition does not make even a prima facie case for violation of Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

Thus the law is clear. While the right to terminate the foetus is undoubtedly recognized a part and parcel of the personal liberties of a woman, the same is limited (or rather regulated) under the legislations framed in the country to prevent the misuse of such unfettered right by ensuring that the woman's health and person are equally protected.