2025, Vol. 5, Issue 2, Part B

This abstract explores the complex landscape of reproductive rights for women in India, navigating the often-divergent paths of legal recognition and lived social reality. While India boasts progressive legislation safeguarding various aspects of reproductive autonomy, including access to abortion, contraception, and maternal healthcare, significant challenges persist in their practical implementation. Legal frameworks, such as the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 (amended in 2021), and the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994, aim to empower women and combat gender-biased practices. However, deep-seated societal norms, patriarchal structures, low literacy rates, economic disparities, and inadequate healthcare infrastructure often impede women from fully exercising these rights. Issues such as coerced sterilization, lack of awareness about legal provisions, limited access to quality healthcare facilities, particularly in rural areas, and the pervasive stigma surrounding abortion and contraception, continue to undermine women's reproductive agency. Furthermore, the influence of family and community, coupled with gender-based violence, frequently dictates reproductive choices, irrespective of legal entitlements. This abstract argues that bridging the gap between legal pronouncements and social reality necessitates not only robust policy implementation and improved healthcare accessibility but also sustained efforts in public awareness, gender sensitization, and challenging discriminatory social norms. Ultimately, achieving true reproductive justice for women in India requires a multi-faceted approach that addresses both legal lacunae and the entrenched socio-cultural barriers that continue to constrain their reproductive freedom.

In a patriarchal society, family, or institution, men have all or most of the authority and significance. for the apparent reasons why women in such a culture end up as the victims. Her choices and rights, ranging from education to reproduction, are stifled, rendered dependent, and left dormant. The conditions in which women live, their capacity to obtain and exercise their rights, their mental, physical, and emotional well-being, and their capacity to influence and govern their own lives and fates, and they heavily depend on their reproductive autonomy and health. Women cannot be fully emancipated unless their reproductive rights are guaranteed.

Women cannot exercise any other rights unless they have control over their bodies. When women can make their own decisions about their bodies, they will be liberated both mentally and physically. Only when women are able to exercise their reproductive rights can they obtain other human rights. The fulfilment of many human rights depends on reproductive rights.

rights: the freedom from torture and cruel treatment; the right to privacy; the right to health; the right to liberty and security; the right to life; and the right to equality and non discrimination. Women have the freedom to decide whether or not to have children, which includes the freedom to carry or end an unintended pregnancy and the freedom to select the family planning and contraception method of their choice. This document covers the judicial aspects of women's reproductive health and abortion rights in India, as well as the human rights that make up the legal foundation of women's reproductive rights in a patriarchal society.