Why avoiding a nation-wide two-child policy is the right decision

With fertility rates falling across states, India does not need a law enforcing a two-child norm as sought by a petitioner recently in the Supreme Court (SC), experts told IndiaSpend. Such a law could instead have unintended impacts--sex-selective and unsafe abortions and a further skew in India's sex ratio.

Ashwani Kumar Upadhyay, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician and lawyer, had asked for a law that would deny access to government jobs, subsidies, and certain rights to those with more than two children. The denied rights, as per the petition, would include the right to vote, to property and to free