While talking about law and homosexuality, I am reminded of a story of a washerman and his donkey. The donkey refused to move with the heavy bundle of clothes on his back from his house to the pond. The washerman nailed a carrot to a stick, which was tied in front of the animal's mouth.

The focus on mother and child health as a key element in Indian health policy evolved out of what was identified as one of the strongest explanatory factors for continued high fertility, viz., the high infant mortality rates.

This paper presents a part of the qualitative exploratory study conducted in rural Maharashtra from April 1994 to April 1996 to understand the issue of abortion from women's perspective.