Mumbai Doctor Slips In Abortion At Ahimsa Meet

July 12, 2003

BY THE INDIAN EXPRESS

By Manju Mehta

Mumbai, March 3: While many gathered to hear the speakers discuss ahimsa at the "National Conference on Non-Violence" in Mumbai yesterday, the last thing they expected was a talk on abortions.

A gynaecologist at Bhaktivedanta Hospital, Dr Mahindra Patel, got his chance to express his views when the speaker for "Role of Freedom Fighters in Ahimsa Movement" failed to show up.

After an hour-long delay in the speaker's arrival, the organisers had asked the doctor to fill in. He began with rampant female foeticide in Rajasthan. "There are two towns in Rajasthan which have not seen the birth of a single female child in the last two years," he said. That made the audience sit up. "Abortion is a sin. I've myself done 30,000 abortions. But a few years ago, I took the spiritual path. Today, I realise it is akin to murder," he said.

Patel had a ready response for the pro-abortion brigade, of which there was none in the desultory audience. "You talk about population explosion? Well then, why don't you kill the old people?" he said. But he was quick to add: "Not that I say elders should be killed."

On the really thorny issue of rape victims and abortion, he said: "The man and the woman should be punished, why punish the child for no fault of his?" By this time, the organisers sensed something was amiss and asked him to wind up. But he got his parting shot. "They say in kalyug (the new age), man will kill man. Then he will eat reptiles and finally man will eat man.... So let's stop himsa (violence), let's stop abortion."