Civil society organisation Sahayog organised a sensitisation workshop at Bhusandpur on 50 years of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971, women’s right to safe abortion and post-abortion care. Tangi CHC ASHA Workers joined the workshop.
At the beginning, Sahayog secretary Bijayalaxmi Rautaray highlighted major features of the MTP Act and its amendment thereafter in 2021. She said that though unsafe abortion is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality rate (MMR), there are no data on how many women are going through unsafe abortion and where. Everybody knows about unsafe abortion, but due to stigma women are not accessing safe abortion service.
ASHA Workers said there are problems in adopting temporary contraception though it is known well that the male contraceptive, condom, is the best choice; it never comes up for mutual discussion. “Abortion is being treated as a sin and people’s perceptions about MTP and Pre-Conception & Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 1994 are really disturbing which deprive women of the right to choose to terminate pregnancy in a safer way,” said Routray.