June 11, a young lady died in Phuntsholing Hospital after an unsuccessful abortion in Jaigaon. Until
the doctors saw bleeding from the victim’s genitals, her friend had lied it was
an epileptic attack. Telling the truth could lead to legal actions, but she
left the world, free of pains.
Record shows that every year over 200 women suffer similar
fate, which could be just the tip of an iceberg. There may be hundreds others who
must be crying in the corners with pain, or worse must have died silent deaths.
Our compassionate Buddhist kingdom views abortion as a very
sinful act, equivalent to killing a person. But with due respect, I seek to
know where is compassion in letting a young woman die along with her baby? Where
is compassion in letting an unwanted child see the light of the world, sentencing
him to a home where he wasn’t wanted? Where is compassion in letting a young
woman give birth to a child, whose father has given up on them?
I find more compassion in abortion; killing a cell for the
sake of a woman’s life, and liberating both the mother and the child from depth
of mistake. Abortion is not an ice cream that everybody would enjoy if made
free, it is but the only option left when everything seems wrong. No woman will
go for abortion for pleasure.
If there was a way out, the 23 year old woman wouldn’t have
travelled over 400 km straight against her country’s law and pay Nu.9000 to let
someone dig into her and take her guts out. In such times no amount of law can
stop that. But just because it’s illegal at home, the desperate woman has gone
out to Jaigaon, place where nothing seems right- who knows if the man who
operated on her was a doctor or a vegetable vendor.
Abortion is not permitted in Bhutan because we are Buddhist,
isn’t it more Buddhist to forgive a woman for her mistake and give her a new
life instead of letting her die along with child, which we were trying to
protect? How many women must die before we rethink our role as a Buddhist?
