ABSTRACT
Much of the literature on abortion in India focuses on aspects such as the quality of abortion care and services and post-abortion complications. From the early 1980s, Tamil Nadu has been witnessing a sharp decline in the fertility rate, essentially due to a strategy of family limitation, especially among the younger age group, which largely seems to have followed terminal methods like abortion and sterilisation. In the case of unmarried women, especially young working girls, this chapter explores how specific production relations that deny women labour rights and economic security produce the material bases for exercising their reproductive rights. It examines how unmarried young women’s location in production mediates their relations of reproduction. The study was carried out in four villages in Kancheepuram district, which adjoins as well as forms part of the Chennai city agglomeration. Focus Group Discussions were organised in all four villages, among women of varying age groups, to determine the differences in their views on abortion.
