Disability and Sexual Reproductive Health & Rights.

Yesterday,"We the People" in NDTV by Barkha Dutt was probably watched by many, and it was really impressive how the supreme court judgement could bring out such strong emotions on isssues of disability, pregnancy, choices, rape, abortion etc amongst the participants. Majority of them do believe that an woman should exercise her choice on whether she should have a baby or abort her foetus, but whether a women with disability has a right to exercise her choice is a contentious issue.

Probably majority of them felt that the women with disability should not reproduce, some of them openly spoke out against it. This feeling has a lot to do with the fact that many of us do believe that people with disability 'can not' feel, sense, love, have pleasure through sexual relationship, enjoy sexual relations, have the pleasure of pregnancy, having a baby, raising a child etc. This kind of belief has a lot to do with the fact that there is little awareness about disability and the extent to which disability impacts on a individual's life and on his/her sexuality.

One thing that we should know is people with disabilty do not form a homogenous group. Our tendency to club all kinds of disability together, and speak for all of them is because of our lack of awareness. DIfferent disability have varying implications with respect to sexuality. The young women in question was mildly mental retarded and evidence suggests that if she were given proper environment, she could live her life like all 'normal people'. The word mental retardation is substituted worldwide with "intellectual disability" and "person with developmental delays". Retarded persons are slow learners, however they are not insane or of unsound mind....

It was humbling to see a women with disability talk about her life in the same show.

I am learning and hope that all of us learn to integrate disability and sexuality in our project management cycles and into our project activities as we constantly talk of working with vulnerable and marginalized and I can't think of anybody more marginalized and more vulnerable than people with disability.

Sarita

Supreme court's pro-life decision.

NEW DELHI, India -- In a landmark pro-life decision, the Supreme Court on July 21 allowed a 20-year-old mentally challenged orphan girl to keep her pregnancy resulting from a sexual assault and set aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court ruling ordering medical termination.

The HC had ordered medical termination of the girl's 19-week-old pregnancy after coming to the conclusion that since she was unable to take care of herself, she should be relieved of the pregnancy given the state of her condition — both mental and physical.

The HC was guided by opinion of two panels of doctors, including psychiatrists and gynaecologists, which assessed the rape victim to be of the mental age of 7-9 years. They had expressed concern over her ability to undertake pre-natal and post-natal precautions and care, though they were unanimous that she was physically fit to carry the pregnancy and deliver the child.

The SC allowed her to keep the pregnancy as it was in an advanced stage and the National Trust for Mentally Retarded pledged to take care of the mother and child for the rest of their lives.

Initially, a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan, which in the past has dismissed PILs seeking abolition of death sentence, appeared to be torn between the mentally retarded girl's right to motherhood and its apprehension about the child's future.

The unfortunate girl's case was presented in a legal docket scribbled with emotional arguments by counsel Tanu Bedi, who sought the SC's intervention to allow the orphan girl to have her first blood relation through the child she was carrying.

"If her mental age is a consideration for the judiciary to think that she cannot take care of her baby, why should poor women, who are found lacking in bringing up their children, be allowed to become mothers," Bedi asked.

Appearing for Chandigarh administration, counsel Anupam Gupta referred to the support flowing in from NGOs for the rape victim and said it would be wrong to get swayed by the response of NGOs as there was no guarantee that they would continue doing so for the entire lifetime of the girl and the child after it was born.

When the court asked why the state could not take care of the mother and child, Gupta said, "Let's not get swept off our feet by euphoria shown by NGOs to support the mentally challenged girl and let's not be blind to the ground reality. Even normal parents take it as a setback if their child turns out to be mentally challenged. If the mentally challenged girl's child turns out to be mentally retarded, then will the NGOs be there to lend support constantly and continuously?"

The Bench conceded that the girl was not in a position to take care of herself and her child. "The foetus is fine and does not appear to suffer from any deformity. We cannot say for sure whether the child will be mentally retarded. The pregnancy is in an advanced stage. Moreover, if someone agrees to take care of the mother through the pregnancy and the child when it is born, then why should she be deprived of motherhood," it said.

Times of India