8.2 Law relating to Contraception and Abortion in Nepal

The historical arc: abortion entirely criminal (the old Muluki Ain's infanticide-adjacent treatment) → the 2058 (2002) liberalization (the eleventh amendment legalizing abortion on conditions) → the constitutional and statutory consolidation. The modern framework (the Safe Motherhoodand Reproductive Health Rights Act, 2075):1. Every woman's right to safe, legal abortion services within the Act's conditions — the general window (the first twelve weeks) and the extended windows in defined circumstances (rape and incest pregnancies, the woman's health, and fetal grounds, as the Act provides).2. Consent requirements (the woman's own consent; guardian rules for minors per the Act).3. Service standards: only authorized providers and facilities — the quack-abortion injuries that the old ban produced as the reform's rationale.4. Compulsion's bar: no sterilization or contraception without free, informed consent — the coercive-programming prohibition (the ICPD principle's statutory form).5. Contraception: the family-planning services' public framework (information and methods through the health system) — the choice architecture of modern fertility policy. The LaxmiDevi Dhikta litigation (below) belongs to this arc — the case that pushed the state toward the poor woman's access (free services, the rights framing) before the 2075 Act.