Center for South Asia Weekly Lecture Series: Mitra Sharafi (Professor, Law, UW-Madison)

Anti-abortion law was generally enforced in colonial India only when women died as a result of illegal abortions. This approach was contrary to the Indian Penal Code of 1860 (IPC), which criminalized most abortions even when women survived. This talk explores possible explanations for the phenomenon of lax enforcement of anti-abortion law in South Asia, focusing on two key cases.