ISLAMABAD, Nov 3: Deputy Speaker National Assembly Sardar Mohammad Yaqoob said on Friday provided with a broad based consensus, the country could have separate legislation on abortion.

He made these remarks at the lunching ceremony of a booklet which contained oral testimonies of women who underwent the trauma of abortions and miscarriages in the country.

In response to the issue of abortion raised by other speakers on the occasion, Sardar Yaqoob said that discussion on abortion could be initiated in the National Assembly and if agreed, we could have legislation on abortion.

The booklet ‘Abortion, a dilemma - a reality’ has been written and researched by Qudsia Mehmood and Amna Khalid, two Leadership Development Mechanism (LDM) fellows.

Illiteracy coupled with poverty and societal taboos, women living in rural areas are facing multiple problems, be it decision-making at household level or choice about children, the deputy speaker added.

Referring to the women protection bill, Sardar Yaqoob said the bill would be presented in the next session of the National Assembly, and after its passage from the parliament, women would definitely feel empowered.

Tahira Abdullah, a women rights activist, criticized the government for allowing ‘extra-parliament’ forces to influence the decision-making in the legislature. She referred to the Ulma committee, which were constituted after the women protection bill had been presented to the National Assembly during its last session.

Once a bill is presented in the National Assembly only the parliament has the right to take a decision on it, she forcefully asserted.

However, Sardar Yaqoob argued that the government wanted to have complete consensus before passing amendments in the Hudood Ordinances proposed in the women protection bill.

Director, Uks, a civil society organization, in her remarks pointed out the issue of increasing teenage pregnancies in the country, both in married and unmarried cases.

“Unfortunately, we are in permanent state of denial and the issue of pregnancies in young women is knocking at our doors, which needs serious thinking on our part,” she said.

Talking about the booklet, she was of the view that the testimonies could have been more powerful, if the researchers would include some more information. However, she lauded the effort and called for the booklet’s dissemination through street- theatre, radio, TV and the print media.

In their presentation, the researchers said that the purpose of the study was to invite the attention of the concerned circles towards the rising incidence of abortions in the country.

They said one million women have abortions each year although, in Pakistan, abortion is illegal and is condemned as murder.

In the country abortion is only allowed to save the life of the woman; to preserve physical health and to preserve mental health.

However, in case of rape or incest, fetal impairment, economic or social reasons, it is not allowed.

But, abortion is allowed on these pretexts in India. Abortion is the termination of pregnancy by any method (spontaneous or induced) before the fetus is sufficiently developed to survive independently (fetus less than 20 weeks of pregnancy.

In Pakistan pregnant women who wish to have an abortion are forced to visit illegal clinics run by midwives, and 23 per cent of women, who have unskilled providers, are later hospitalised for complications.

Women often do not use contraception because of inaccessibility or financial constraints. In addition, many men in the country have religious objections in using contraception but do not object to abortion. Out of almost 35 million abortions which take place annually in the world, more than half of them are illegal and performed by untrained, unskilled persons and done under highly unhygienic conditions.