Another case linking domestic violence to abortion is being reported in India this week.
According to First Post, police in India arrested a man on Monday after he allegedly murdered his wife and unborn child when she refused to have an abortion.
The wife, Pratibha Gautam, 30, was three months pregnant when her body was found hanging from a ceiling fan in her house in Kanpur, India, according to the report. Her husband, Manu Abhishek, said he found her body after returning home from a trip; however, a postmortem report indicates that she was murdered.
Authorities found injury marks from a blade on her wrists and injuries on her hands and legs that indicate she may have been beaten with a rod, according to police. Evidence indicates she later was strangled with a rope and hanged from the ceiling fan, police said.
According to police, they arrested Abhishek after going through his phone records. They said the couple had been fighting because Gautam refused Abhishek’s demands to abort their unborn child.
Violence against pregnant women and their unborn babies is common – even without counting abortion. Pregnant women face high levels of domestic violence. In the United States, one in six women is first abused during pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
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As allegedly happened in the recent India case, sometimes the abuse occurs after the woman refuses her partner’s demands to have an abortion. In another case in Pennsylvania, a man allegedly beat and choked his pregnant girlfriend after she refused to have an abortion in October 2015. Last month, LifeNews reported another case where police arrested a Tennessee man after his pregnant girlfriend accused him of kicking and hitting her when she told him that she would not abort their baby.
Several studies also have linked domestic violence to abortion. In these cases, some women were forced or pressured by partners into having abortions, while others believed having an abortion would help them escape abuse.
In a 2011 study in The Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, one woman told researchers: “So when I found out I was pregnant he was like … oh go get an abortion, I don’t want no baby now and threatening me and he was trying to get [X] to come and beat me up, he was telling me he was going to stab me and slice up my face and kick the baby out of my stomach and like … it was really scary.”
The study found that almost 40 percent of the women seeking abortions had a history of physical abuse and relationship issues. Yet, a Canadian study found that half of the women who went to an abortion clinic said they were not screened for abuse.
