Women must be given the right to choose when to have a baby and when to abort it as it concerns her body,” said Supreme Court judge AK Sikri on Saturday. Speaking at a symposium in the Capital, the judge rued the fact that in our country women’s reproductive rights are governed by the choice of the husband or elders in the family.
“When we talk of reproductive rights in this country, then there is hardly any choice so far as the woman is concerned... there again the choice is of the husband in the family or what the elders say...when there should be a child, whether that child should be male or female etc,” Justice Sikri said. He was speaking at a symposium on “Reproductive Rights in Indian Courts: Celebrating Progress, Identifying Challenges and Discussing the Way Forward”, organized organised by the Jindal Global University.
Reproductive rights should be seen with sexual rights of women, the judge argued, while linking both with the basic human right of the woman intertwined with human dignity. He also laid emphasis in his talk on the criminal practice of female foeticide and the role of men and families in forcing women to undergo this crime.
“A woman’s choice to reproduce, abort or prevent pregnancy, deals with her body. It is she, who, by the virtue of her anatomy, undergoes the process eventually. It is her body and her right to choose,” the judge said.
In the same vein, Justice Sikri batted in favour of the judiciary’s role in coming to the aid of women who seek to abort the foetus. “Ultimately, it is the judiciary which is the interpreter of the law, having the final say in what the law is.”