Between 400,000 and 500,000 abortions take place in Sindh alone – many of them unsafe and often fatal. This is because abortion, in Pakistan, remains one of the most taboo subjects trapped between religious sensitivities and societal silence.
The law itself allows termination only under limited circumstances – to save the mother’s life or for “necessary treatment” – yet the lack of clarity coupled with fear of social condemnation has pushed the practice underground. The result is a flourishing network of untrained individuals performing dangerous procedures, leaving thousands of women maimed or dead every year.
Most of these cases involve women from low-income or rural backgrounds who have neither access to family planning services nor the autonomy to make informed reproductive choices. Majority of them are already weakened by malnutrition and anaemia. In such circumstances, even minor complications can become life-threatening. The moral burden of this crisis, however, is not borne equally. Society’s judgment falls squarely on the woman, while the structural failures that led her to such desperation remain unexamined. Early marriages and lack of birth spacing also continue to perpetuate cycles of unplanned pregnancies.
Religious and cultural sensitivities cannot be ignored, but nor can they justify inaction. Islam itself prioritises the preservation of life – a principle that surely extends to the mother. Public health policy, therefore, must move beyond moral policing and focus on saving lives through contraception access and safe medical care. It is equally imperative that ulema too offer clear, compassionate guidance grounded in Islamic principles that prioritise the preservation of life – including the mother’s.
The silence surrounding abortion has lasted for far too long. It has cost women their health and their lives. To look away now would be to condone preventable tragedy.
