“Your aunt is having an abortion so I need to go with her to the hospital today. Will you be fine by yourself at home?” my mom asked me one day. I was about 12 years old and wasn’t really sure what that word meant. From my mom’s tone, I assumed it was just another health procedure. When I pressed for more information, she explained that abortion is a procedure people get when they want to space out their pregnancies.
While that conversation with my mom was pretty straightforward, I navigated a different reality growing up in Chennai.
As a young woman coming to terms with the changes in her body, conversations around sexual health were taboo. Women were categorised into two phases of their lives: married and unmarried. If you were married, you had unencumbered access to contraception, fertility counselling, and—as my mom had told me—abortion care. If you were not married, none of these were accessible to you. You could not go to a pharmacy to get emergency contraception or tell your ob-gyn that you were sexually active. Having a conversation about gender or sexuality was a pipe dream.
Despite the Supreme Court of India guaranteeing abortion access up to 24 weeks regardless of marital status, society had only deemed getting an abortion respectable if you were married. If my parents heard of someone unmarried getting an abortion, they used it as an opportunity to teach me a lesson about abstinence and purity.
I thought that I could have more freedom and reproductive rights if I moved to a foreign country—one unlike India. A naive but common opinion.
Keeping this in mind, I applied to pursue my master’s degree in the United States around 2016 and found myself in a new landscape where abortion rights were much more politicised. Sexual and reproductive health and rights were at the forefront as Donald Trump was elected to office that year. Over the next six years, I learned a lot from working with reproductive justice community organisers. I attended the Women’s March and spoke out about my own experiences during the #MeToo movement.
In June of 2022, I joined The Planned Parenthood Federation of America as the associate director of health media. Three weeks into my new role, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to abortion. Shortly after the ruling, states across the country swiftly moved to ban abortion with minimal exceptions. As of today—exactly a year later—these bans eliminate access to some or all abortion in 20 states.
I checked in with my community on social media, listening to people in India criticise the U.S. and laud India for protecting the right to abortion. Truthfully, I remember also thinking “India is so much better.”
But is it?
According to World Health Organization, 45% of all abortions that happen are unsafe, of which 97% take place in developing countries. Based on statistics between 2001 and 2007, 67% of abortions in India are classified as unsafe and there is still a huge access disparity in rural areas.
I did not have conversations with friends, family members or doctors about what abortion is—except for the conversation with my mom. Reflecting on that, I realise that her explanation of abortion was entirely based on her own experience. I know now that abortion is a deeply personal decision that anyone can get for any reason.
And despite the fact that abortion is legal in India, access is still limited for working-class, disabled, queer and trans, and caste-oppressed people.
That seems to be a common theme here in the U.S. as well. I live in New York City, where studies have shown that both foreign and US-born Indian Americans have the highest abortion rate among Asian Americans. Yet, until this very moment, we have not been able to talk openly about abortion as it is conflated with caste, religion and culture.
My experiences exist exclusively within the context of being Indian but South Asia is not a monolith and every community has different needs. We are a diverse diaspora, across ethnicities, languages, religious beliefs, caste, class, gender, ability, insurance status and immigration status, and other facets of our identities.
In July 2022, shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, U.S.-based organisation South Asian SOAR launched South Asians for Abortion. According to their community briefing, “For South Asians who already experience economic, linguistic, cultural, social, ability, immigration-related, and/or legal barriers, the lost right to an abortion will force the most marginalised in our diaspora to either forgo reproductive healthcare altogether or accept compromised care.”
This past May, with support from Planned Parenthood, South Asians for Abortion released an Abortion Care Guide for South Asians living in the U.S. The guide provides medically factual information on how to get an abortion, types of care and aftercare, and it has been translated into 20 South Asian languages.
According to Amrita Doshi, the founder of South Asian SOAR, “Empowering ourselves with knowledge about abortion care transcends merely understanding the options for care.... It paves the way for open conversations about abortion and bodily autonomy, which are pivotal in dismantling the deeply ingrained stigmas surrounding this topic within South Asian communities. By actively breaking down societal barriers, our Abortion Care Guide becomes a powerful tool for fostering understanding, compassion and awareness, ultimately shaping a more liberatory and progressive future.”
Chances are, like me, someone you love has had an abortion. For our community to fight for reproductive justice and rights, we must have conversations with our loved ones about freedom and the ability to control our own bodies, even if those conversations are difficult. We must rely on communal and relational organising to ensure that everyone—no matter their background—has access to abortion.
SOAR’s Abortion Care Guide serves as a resource for South Asian communities. To learn where and how to get an abortion in your state, visit abortionfinder.org. You can find out about financial assistance that may be available at abortionfunds.org.
Also read:
Roe v Wade: Why Indians shouldn’t laud their abortion laws just yet
Abortions in India will now be legal regardless of marital status, according to the Supreme Court
5 women speak to Vogue about their personal abortion experiences, so others won't feel alone
