"Reproductive Rights and Maternal Mental Health: Legislative Gaps and Feminist Legacy"
Social Capital
Networks of trust, solidarity, and collective action that help communities access rights and resources.
Bodily Autonomy
A person's right to make decisions about their own body, protected under Article 21.
Feminist movements have evolved through distinct waves, each shaped by 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. Its defining insight, the personal is political, argued that private experiences of women in the home, in healthcare, and in relationships are shaped by public power structures. This insight was not merely rhetorical. It became the basis on which feminist organising built social capital: shared testimony in community spaces created solidarity, and solidarity created the political pressure that eventually produced legislation.
In India, the constitutional foundation for women's rights is strong. Article 14 guarantees equality before law. Article 15(3) permits the state to make special provisions for women and children. Article 21, interpreted broadly by the courts, protects bodily autonomy as part of the right to life and personal liberty. 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. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021 further expanded access to abortion for vulnerable categories of women, reflecting decades of advocacy on reproductive freedom. Yet the gap between constitutional promise and lived reality remains wide.
Reproductive rights refer to the legal and social recognition of a woman's authority to make decisions about her own body, including whether and when to become a mother. In India, the primary legislative instrument governing this is the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021. The amendment expanded the upper gestational limit for abortion access for specific vulnerable categories, including survivors of sexual assault, minors, and women with foetal abnormalities. This was a significant step forward from the original 1971 law and reflects decades of feminist advocacy translated into statutory form.
Social capital is a concept central to understanding how formal rights become real protections. Social capital refers to the networks of trust, solidarity, and collective action that communities build over time. For women, social capital formation through solidarity groups, Talking Circles, and grassroots civil society organisations bridges the gap between rights on paper and rights in practice. …
Women's social capital complements in advancing empowerment and gender equity. Explain.
How does Indian society maintain continuity in traditional social values? Enumerate the changes taking place in it.
With reference to the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021, consider the following statements:
1.It raised the upper gestational limit for abortion to 24 weeks for all women without restriction.
2.Grave injury to mental health is explicitly recognised as a ground for termination under the Act.
3.The opinion of two registered medical practitioners is required for terminations between 20 and 24 weeks.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Which of the following constitutional provisions form the primary basis for reproductive rights and gender-specific protective legislation in India?
1.Article 14 — Equality before law
2.Article 15(3) — Special provisions for women and children
3.Article 21 — Right to life and personal liberty
4.Article 44 — Uniform Civil Code
Select the correct answer using the code below:
Consider the following pairs relating to feminist movements and their defining characteristics:
1.First wave — Reproductive rights and workplace equality
2.Second wave — Voting rights and legal personhood
3.'The personal is political' — Second-wave feminist principle linking private experience to public power structures
Which of the pairs given above is/are correctly matched?
With reference to maternal mental health, which of the following statements is correct?
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