In our society, the next step after a marriage is having a child. This makes one’s family ‘complete’, but there is more to being a ‘picture-perfect’ family.
opinion
In our society, the next step after a marriage is having a child. This makes one’s family ‘complete’, but there is more to being a ‘picture-perfect’ family. Having a family should be something planned. Is a couple financially stable to raise a child? If a couple decides to delay having a child because of financial burdens is entirely their decision and no one has a right to criticise them. They are the best judge of their circumstances. Parents always want to provide the best of everything to their children. And if they want to work hard and save enough money before having children, they should be encouraged for it.
A long time back, one of my relatives lost her life ten days after delivering a baby boy. She had a rare heart disease and completing her pregnancy’s term put her life in danger. The incident was unfortunate. However, it highlighted the inflexible customs of our society as well. A lot of factors are responsible for turning a reasonable and logical process into a taboo. However, criticising a woman’s decision to abort her child without realising her circumstances is biased.
Pakistan’s economic condition is not unknown. Unabated inflation has taken a toll on the lives of the people. It shouldn’t be ignored that for some couples as well, raising a child is difficult. In some households, both husband and wife work from dawn to dusk, but at the end of the day they take home a small amount of income. Under such circumstances, raising a child becomes next to impossible. Unplanned pregnancies lead to one child after the other making it difficult for a couple to make both their ends meet.
In the same way, unaffordability of a child is the biggest concern for the poor. Costs associated with raising a child can be daunting. The impoverished segment of the country already faces never-ending problems. When we talk about the lower strata of the society, how can we forget the maids? We see housemaids having babies one after the other without having an ideal gap between two children. This has an adverse affect on their health and no energy is left to carry out any physical work.
Sadly, they are never counselled for proper family planning. Now, it doesn’t surprise anyone when news surface that a man or a woman killed their children owing to financial burdens. Where do the pro-life advocates hide when a parent has to take a bloodcurdling decision? Is morality only limited to bringing a child into the world? It seems that what happens next is nobody’s concern. Instead of reaching to a point where the choice of such frightening decision is necessary, why can we not support a couple’s decision to abort the foetus?
Technology has advanced to great lengths. Pregnancy-related tests can now tell about the health of an unborn child. In this context, if parents find out that their unborn child will have a genetically-transmitted disease or be physically/mentally challenged, they should be allowed to decide whether they want to bring the child in the world or not.
Society stresses that there are certain actions that one ought not to perform no matter what consequences follow. One should abstain from killing and abortion is equal to killing a living child. However, a person should not be bounded by ‘absolute duties’. Each action has a reaction and a person should be allowed to think about the consequences of his/her action. Is a couple mentally strong to raise a mentally challenged child? Will the same society be cooperative to a couple raising a child with special needs? A situation should be looked from different angles. Not everyone is brave or strong. It may sound inhumane, but put yourself in the shoes of a mother who has to take her child to a hospital for -let’s say -a blood transfusion. Nobody wants to end a life, but if one knows for certain that a child’s life in the world will be as difficult as it can get, taking an unconventional decision will not be immoral or evil.
In some cases, the health of pregnant women is at risk if they carry their children to term. In this scenario, opting for an abortion is not wrong. For moral police, killing is wrong -it doesn’t matter whether a killing will save someone else’s life.
Can we give liberty to women to decide on their own whether they want to use their body to sustain another life? Can we show some courtesy to women and allow them to decide whether they want to build a career on their own or live their lives for themselves or that they want to raise a child? Is it an alien idea for the society?
