Biology · Ch 3 — Reproductive Health
Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP)
Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP)
Medical termination of pregnancy (MTP), more commonly called induced abortion, is the deliberate ending of a pregnancy before it would otherwise reach full term, carried out intentionally by a qualified medical practitioner rather than occurring naturally (as in a spontaneous miscarriage). In India, MTP is governed by a specific piece of legislation, the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, first passed by Parliament in 1971 and subsequently amended to update its provisions.
The Act does not permit termination of pregnancy on demand at any stage or for any reason; rather, it sets out specific medical and legal grounds under which a registered medical practitioner (or, for pregnancies more advanced, more than one practitioner acting together) may lawfully terminate a pregnancy. These grounds broadly include: a serious risk to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman if the pregnancy were to continue; a substantial risk that the child, if born, would suffer from a serious physical or mental abnormality; and pregnancy resulting from the failure of a contraceptive method used by a married couple, which the law treats as a source of grave mental anguish justifying termination. The permissible period within which termination may be carried out, and the number of practitioners whose opinion is legally required, both depend on how far the pregnancy has advanced, with stricter requirements the further a pregnancy has progressed — a structure meant to balance a woman's need for safe, timely medical care against appropriate medical caution as pregnancy advances. …
Worked out. Before the MTP Act came into force, women seeking to end an unwanted or medically risky pregnancy in India frequently had no lawful, hygienic option and turned instead to untrained persons or unsafe methods, a major and largely preventable contributor to maternal death, infection and long-term injury. By setting out clear medical grounds on which a registered practitioner may lawfully terminate a pregnancy — such as danger to the mother's physical or mental health, a serious foetal abnormality, or a contraceptive failure within a marriage — and by requiring the procedure to be carried out in an approved medical facility, the Act's central purpose was to make abortion, where medically and legally justified, safe rather than clandestine, thereby reducing maternal mortality and morbidity linked to unsafe abortion practices. The law is not, however, a general licence for abortion at will, still less for sex-selective term …