Newborns are often found dead or abandoned in our society. Around 300 such children were, unfortunately, found abandoned in the past seven years, according to the Bangladesh Child Rights Forum. Approximately 12,000 abandoned children received shelter in Chhotomoni Nibash, a government shelter for the lost and abandoned children from 2016 to 2022, say the data of the Department of Social Services. Most of these newborns are one or two days old. These newborns, most of whom were born as a result of unwanted pregnancy, were found in hospitals, dustbins, railway stations, bus stands and public toilets. The number of such abandoned newborns may increase more if we cannot raise awareness among people about the use of contraceptives and provide them sex education.
Abortion at any stage is a punishable offence in Bangladesh. However, it is difficult to prevent abortion in a country like ours, where the number of rape cases is alarming, use of birth control low and illiteracy rate high. Illegal routes to abortion can endanger the lives of both the woman and child, leading to social stigma and contributing to increasing numbers of abandoned children. In the civic sense, law should not impose motherhood, respecting the individuals' rights to life, liberty, freedom of choice and privacy. Carrying a fetus in the womb should be the deliberate decision of a woman, as it substantially changes her life. So, we urge the authorities concerned to reform these abortion laws, which restricts a mother from making a decision on her child's birth.
Ashikujaman Syed,
Research Assistant,
Bioinformatics Research Lab,
Center for Research Innovation and Development (CRID),
syedashikujaman@yahoo.com