Reproductive Rights and Maternal Mental Health: Law Versus Lived Reality

Feminist movements have evolved through distinct waves, each responding to the social and political conditions of its time. The first wave focused on legal rights, especially voting rights. The second wave, which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, broadened the agenda to include reproductive rights, workplace equality, and domestic violence. A defining idea of this wave was the personal is political: private experiences of women in the home, in healthcare, and in relationships are shaped by public power structures and must be addressed through political action.

In India, the constitutional framework provides a strong normative foundation for women's rights. Article 14 guarantees equality before law. Article 15(3) permits the state to make special provisions for women and children. Article 21 protects the right to life and personal liberty, which courts have interpreted to include bodily autonomy. Legislative expressions of feminist advocacy include the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 and the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013.

On reproductive rights specifically, India's legal framework has expanded over time. The original Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 permitted abortion up to 20 weeks under defined conditions. The MTP Amendment Act, 2021 extended this ceiling to 24 weeks for specified categories of women, including survivors of sexual assault, differently-abled women, and minors. Crucially, the amendment explicitly recognises grave injury to mental health as a valid ground for termination. This legislative shift reflected decades of feminist advocacy arguing that reproductive decisions are inseparable from a woman's overall health and agency.

Women's social capital, the networks, norms, and trust that enable collective action, plays a central role in translating constitutional rights into lived reality. Community-level feminist organising, through solidarity groups and structured sharing spaces, has historically been the mechanism through which women move from individual suffering to collective political consciousness. This is precisely the dynamic that the second-wave feminist movement demonstrated: shared personal testimony became the foundation for political demands.