The upper parliament of India voted Tuesday to expand the killing of unborn babies in abortions up to 24 weeks, including for “eugenic” reasons.
Currently, the Asian country prohibits abortions after 20 weeks under its 1971 law. In the past several years, however, courts have been granting numerous exceptions to the law for unborn babies conceived in rape and unborn babies with disabilities.
DNA India reports the abortion expansion bill, known as the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Amendment, amends the 1971 law to allow abortions for a wide variety of reasons up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Abortions on unborn babies up to 24 weeks would be allowed for “therapeutic, eugenic, humanitarian and social” reasons, according to the legislation. Under that definition, basically any reason could qualify, such as an unborn baby being diagnosed with a cleft lip or Down syndrome.
REACH PRO-LIFE PEOPLE WORLDWIDE! Advertise with LifeNews to reach hundreds of thousands of pro-life readers every week. Contact us today.
The bill also establishes medical boards in every state to consider women’s requests for late-term abortions beyond 24 weeks, the report states.
Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament in India, passed the bill in 2020. It is not clear from the report if the bill must return to the house for another vote.
Abortions involve two lives, not just one, and late-term abortions can be deadly to mothers as well as their unborn babies. Whether a woman gives birth or aborts her unborn baby late in pregnancy, she still has to go through labor and delivery. The main difference is that in a late-term abortion, the unborn baby is killed first.
A third-trimester abortion typically involves injecting a poisonous potassium chloride solution through the woman’s stomach into the baby’s heart – causing excruciating pain to the baby as the poison stops his/her heart. A few days later, labor is induced and the woman delivers her dead baby’s body.
Late-term abortions also are dangerous for mothers. Even abortion advocacy groups admit that the risks of abortion increase greatly later in pregnancy, and women sometimes die along with their unborn babies.
By 24 weeks of pregnancy, babies are viable outside the womb and capable of feeling intense pain.
The Asian country has some of the highest abortion numbers in the world. Approximately 15.6 million unborn babies were aborted in the country in 2015, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
