Secret Abortions Amount To Cruelty?

Rachel Small — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:30:00 -0500

I became agitated reading this article from the Times Of India where a husband was granted a divorce because his wife had an abortion. Could a judge grant a divorce because the wife had abortions without first informing her husband?

I always thought women had control over their bodies and had the right to choose. The judge in India decided the wife's decision to have an abortion without her husband's consent amounted to cruelty.

In normal circumstances, a woman would discuss the possibility of abortion with her husband or partner, although she would still have the final say. In this case, the husband and wife lived separately for over eight years out of a 14-year marriage. There didn't seem to be much time to discuss the situation.

I'd like to know when the abortions took place. Was the couple in a continual relationship despite living apart? The court noted that there were numerous feuds between the parties over "trivial matters." The judge mentioned the allegation that the wife took money and jewelry from the husband's parents.

I don't buy the court's rationale. This fuzzy reasoning was also found in my earlier report of an Indian judge who granted a husband a divorce because his wife was HIV-positive. In the abortion case, the wife claims the charges were concocted and not true. She was interested in returning to her matrimonial home and didn't want to divorce.

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Secret Abortions Amount To Cruelty?