Selective abortions to be banned in Karabakh

Sex-selective abortions will be banned in Karabakh. 28 out of 33 Nagorno-Karabakh MPs backed the aforesaid decision. Nagorno-Karabakh Parliament passed a bill on amendments and addendums to the Law on Reproductive Health and Human Rights on 30 March. It will take effect upon signing by the NKR President.

The bill caused serious misinterpretation: judging by media reports and social media posts, the impression was that abortions would be banned completely. It was also unclear as to how exactly the present law was going to be amended.

Therefore, we turned for explanations to Aram Grigoryan, the Chair of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Healthcare and Social Affairs. “In view of the demographic situation in Karabakh, as well as discrimination and humanitarian factors concerning this issue, by introducing that bill we aimed to prevent the practice of artificial termination of pregnancy based upon the predicted sex of an infant.’

The MP reminded that voluntary abortions are done within first 12 weeks of pregnancy, whereas from 12 to 22 weeks the abortions are done only for medical reasons. In his words, those grounds make quite a substantial list, including cases where there is a risk to the mother’s life, or abnormal development of a fetus.