Women's rights

Yesterday's session on Population policy was a great eye opener for me and many others. I used to blame democracy and weak leadership whenever I felt that things were not happening in the way they ought to happen. Recently, in an earlier session, similar argument was made by a section mate, a former IAS officer and at that point I fully agreed with him.

But then the point that women have to right to make a choice about pregnancy, abortion and contraception made me take a step back and think. Till that point I was thinking that the couple should take a combined decision and that both have an equal say but when the argument raised the point of who is going to get affected the most I couldn't say the couple will get equally affected by the decision.

At that point I could relate Stephen R Covey's point about choice. He says that the key difference between human being and any other species is the ability to make choice. Though the context in which he raises that point is different, I could relate it to the issue of rights. The current argument is that any form of coercion is denying the right of making choice and the only thing that you can do is to educate people.

This means that all the arguments of powerful leader making the difference so weak and stale. The collective wisdom of all the members in the society is far more important and all the leader should do is educate and control externalities that harm others.

Another classmate of mine raised the point that creating awareness on key areas is far more important than elementary education. I tend to agree with her considering the reach electronic media today has and the educational power it has. Imagine TV soaps bringing out awareness about the different rights and how they are violated in different situations and how a person can protect his rights. I believe it would be powerful and will have a greater impact within a very short time.

I believe that it is in the benefit of man to respect and protect women's rights