Select Page

India launches first annual March for Life in Delhi

India will host its first national March for Life next month.

Abortion has been legal under various circumstances in India since 1971 and this year will mark the first nationally coordinated March for Life. The March is set to take place in the nation’s capital, New Delhi, on 10 August.

In addition to the 2.5km march, which will start at the Jantar Mantar historic landmark, the March will host exhibits and stalls of pro-life organisations from across India.

Sr Paulina Melite, one of the organisers of the March, hopes that the pro-life march will “carry on for years to come until the day the [Medical Termination of Pregnancy] Act is completely revoked just like Roe v. Wade was revoked this year”.

Under the original Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971, an abortion is legal up to 20 weeks gestation, but this was increased to 24 weeks by an act of Parliament in 2021.

There are reported to be over 15 million abortions in India every year.

Sex-selective abortion in India

Abortion on the basis of sex (sex-selective abortion) where baby girls are aborted in the womb because they are girls, is a significant issue in parts of India.

A 2018 government report estimated 63 million women were “missing” from the country’s population. This is the result, in large part, of sex-selective abortion.

India has an imbalanced sex ratio with significantly fewer girls being born than boys. The country outlawed sex-selective abortion and prenatal sex detection in 1994 in order to try to prevent a further sex imbalance and the associated ills that often accompany it. 

Census data from 2011 showed there were 914 girls to every 1,000 boys for children up to the age of six, but in some northern states that ratio was as low as 850, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson, said: “It is an exciting time for the pro-life movement. As we’re seeing, the end of Roe v Wade presents an opportunity and a cause for hope because it demonstrates to countries like India that such unjust laws can be overturned. Hopefully, the March for Life in India will begin to create more of a pro-life culture, and India, too, can experience its own overturning of its abortion laws”.

URGENT
APPEAL
to protect vulnerable lives

Help stop three major anti-life threats.

Help fight major assisted suicide and abortion up to birth threats.

Dear reader,

Despite the Leadbeater assisted-suicide Bill passing its Third Reading on 20 June, it scraped through by just 23 votes (314-291) after enjoying a 55-vote majority at Second Reading. Had 12 more MPs switched sides, the Bill would be dead. It now limps into the Lords with a wafer-thin majority, where peers can amend, delay or reject it outright.

THE CHALLENGE

Dignity in Dying, My Death My Decision and Humanists UK have poured millions into pushing assisted suicide and will fight hard to stop the Lords overturning the Bill.

At the same time, the Antoniazzi abortion-up-to-birth amendment, passed by MPs in June, also heads to the Lords. If it becomes law, it would no longer be illegal for women to perform their own abortions for any reason – including sex-selective purposes – and at any point up to and during birth.

We will be up against the UK’s largest abortion providers, BPAS and MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes), who are expected to push for even more extreme changes to our abortion laws in the Lords.

WE NEED YOUR HELP

Thousands of vulnerable lives are now at stake. Battling these two threats is the biggest and most expensive effort in our history, and has drained our limited resources. To fight effectively on both fronts, we aim to raise £200,000 by midnight this Sunday (13 July 2025).

Every donation, large or small, will help protect lives, and UK taxpayers can add 25p to every £1 through Gift Aid at no extra cost.

Will you make a donation now to help protect vulnerable lives from these major threats?

URGENT
APPEAL
to protect vulnerable lives

Help stop three major anti-life threats.

Help fight major assisted suicide and abortion up to birth threats.