On April 12, 2026, our Founder and Executive Director Nidhi Goyal participated in a roundtable discussion at the Consultation on the Impact of Medical Boards on Access to Abortion Services, organised by The Centre for Justice, Law, and Society (CJLS) in collaboration with CommonHealth.
This roundtable brought together 40 attendees. Nidhi was joined by fellow speakers Dr. Amar Jesani, an independent consultant, Anubha Rastogi, Advocate, and Dr. Sarojini N. from SAMA, with the session moderated by Swagata Raha from Enfold.
Nidhi brought a disability rights perspective to the discussion. She spoke about barriers of inaccessible transport for travel where medical boards are located at a distance. She raised some conceptual questions about gestation periods and grounds of access to abortion.
She highlighted that including women with disabilities in the 20–24 weeks category, alongside minors and rape survivors, reflects problematic assumptions about their reproductive and parenting capacities. For access to abortion beyond 24 weeks, she noted that the undefined standard of “substantial fetal abnormality” allows for subjective and potentially biased interpretations by Medical Boards, creating a disability exceptionalism and encouraging eugenics.
Her pro-choice reflections were about access to abortion and free and informed consent and choice of a woman beyond 24 weeks and not on grounds of stigmatising an identity. She raised critical questions on disability exceptionalism and medical and state inadequacy to provide disability information and support respectively. She raised questions on temporary disability and the disability categories not mentioned in RPD Act 2016 to access abortion between 20 and 24 weeks. Her conclusion was to rethink access and have an equitable justice approach on pregnant persons’ choice to access abortion care services.