Where life is sacred—only until birth

Something stunning happened five days ago in the country that describes itself as the worldrsquos beacon of democracy upholder of human rights champion of the downtrodden and defender of life liberty and the pursuit of happinessThe Supreme Court of the USA decided that a pregnant woman must give birth to the child she is carrying whether she wants to or not The American womanrsquos body is now a state subjectIt doesnrsquot matter if the pregnancy was caused by rape or sexual abuse or a condom that slipped off It doesnrsquot matter if the mother is an adolescent trafficked and forced into sexFor many America fell from grace in that moment when a sanctimonious panel of its Supreme Court justices rode roughshod over 50 years of legal precedent that protected women who were not ready for the children they carried The word abortion the court argued was not mentioned in the US Constitution and hence could not be considered a rightLike many other things abortion is a binary in the USA You either hold a foetus to be sacred with a right to be born prolife or you believe that women have a right to make their own reproductive decisions prochoiceThere at the intersection of biology religion and ethics is a grey area where no one can quite agree when exactly a foetus becomes an ensouled human with a constitutional right to life Yet science tells us that at the precise moment when a sperm fuses with an ovum to start a new little bundle of joy that embryo has the full genetic sequences of the adult human it will become Killing an embryo say antiabortionists is murder no matter how old it isLetrsquos say theyrsquore right Letrsquos say that life is sublimely precious and that every foetus is a glowing package of divinely bestowed promise and potential Letrsquos agree with the prolife half of America which believes this Letrsquos say the American senators who want to ban abortion believe in this godgiven sanctity of lifeLetrsquos even assume they believe in some corner of their soul that children are precious and must be cherished from the moment they are conceivedHere are a few questions for them about human lifeIn the past 23 years an estimated 311000 American children have looked death in the eye in their classrooms Since 1970 there have been 2032 school shootings in the USA Every day 12 children die of gun violence there For 26 years American politicians have responded only by tweeting Our thoughts and prayers are with youQuestion Is life precious only until birthThe Iraq Body Count project records that between 2003 and 2011 US coalition forces killed at least 1201 children in Iraq alone Another NGO airwarsorg estimates that attacks by the US and its allies in Iraq and Syria have killed at least 1239 civilians including an unknown number of childrenVietnam war US forces killed around 182000 Vietnamese civilians 84000 of them children Vietnam claims nearly 400000 people were killed or maimed when the US sprayed 182 million gallons of the deadly Agent Orange over southern Vietnam fields Nearly 500000 children have reportedly been born with severe birth defects for two generationsQuestion Is a childrsquos life precious only if it is AmericanThere is a certain hypocritical piety to prolifersrsquo claim to cherish human life The same voices that rise to protect unborn foetuses from their lsquomurderousrsquo abortionseeking mothers having nothing to say of children killed in American schools in wars in other countries of crushing poverty and malnutritionmdashafter they are bornProlifers donrsquot seem to have much to say about the murder of living childrenLooking inwardmdashI generally find few reasons these days to laud my own country as I watch it slide into bigotry misogyny corporate greed and arrogance But India and abortion is another thing entirelyBefore 1970 abortion in India was a crime punishable by up to seven years in jail for the mother But no law can stop sexual intercourse and untold numbers of women were dying after undergoing dangerous lsquocoathangerrsquo abortions in backalley clinics The government set up a commission a legal framework was proposed for an abortion lawThe result was the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act passed in 1971 As a female in India you might fear walking urban streets at night and hurry past the lewd stares of loitering men but you will never be forced to mother a child against your willAbortion in India is now legal up to 24 weeks into the pregnancy It is safe private and reliable though perhaps not as accessible as it could be for poorer people There is no shame to it It is inexpensive as little as Rs 1500 for a medical abortion modern and quick It is 100 per cent covered by the governmentrsquos Ayushman Bharat insurance and Employeesrsquo State InsuranceIndia got this one right Theyrsquove had it right for over half a century nowHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper