Solving vs dissolving problems
In the examples you refer to, you touch on an approach to situations and problems that are Indian (in the sense of culture) contrasted to which stands another culture’s way of dealing with situations. The simplest way to explicate this difference in a general way, using your examples as a reference point, would be this: when we speak of problems and solutions, there are two ways of looking at them. In the first, an existing problem gets resolved: both the problem and its solution continue to exist (both in memory and in records) in their forms of appearance. They have their independent existence even though they are conceptually (and chronologically) linked to each other. That is, a problem does not ‘disappear’ after its resolution; the solution retains its status (as a solution to a particular problem) as does the problem. This is how the West looks at problems and their resolution (mostly). This is also how we think scientifically. To put it in the form of a slogan, which has its own limitations: a situation is transformed into a theoretical problem.
In human situations (i.e., situations involving human conflicts and difficulties), the above approach is damaging. In the Indian way, which is geared and focused on human situations, the event (or the situation) is turned into a practical problem. In such cases, the solutions dissolve the problem. Neither the problem nor the solution has any existence thereafter because the dissolution of the problem creates a new situation. The memory and the records of this act, which transformed one situation into another, will exist but in their status as changed states: a memory or a record of how a state-change occurred because of a set of actions.
When the first way is used to deal with human problems, psychologically speaking, a trauma is ‘left behind’. In the second case, what you undergo in the world gets structured as an experience and this is what a human being accumulates over the course of its life. In a very general sense, again in the form of a slogan, a situation is made into a practical problem.
It appears to me that in situations of uncertainty and imperfect information, the second approach is better of the two. Even if a solution might not have been the best (speaking from hindsight), it enables a human being to continue to live as well as situations possibly allow. In the first approach, you continue to live as a crippled human being haunted by one or multiple traumas. (Because in ‘What does it mean to be an Indian?’ these ideas are treated in greater detail, I will not elaborate further on these here.) The general Indian approach to, say, rape, would then be contrasted with how Indian (and western) feminists speak of rape using a legal and a western language. Abortion would also be an illustration: the examples you give would then be contrasted with how the issue is ‘debated’ in the US.
Now, to the issue you raise. Is the Indian route moral and ethical? If you follow how the West has thought on morality and ethics (especially in the last 200 years or more), the answer is in the negative. This is how our intellectuals and semi-intellectuals talk: with the greatest possible ignorance about what the West says and about what ethics is, they reproduce their words. Moral/immoral, just/unjust, ethical/unethical, and so on. Even though most would not be able to explain what a moral obligation is or what a moral forbiddance is, they hold forth a moralizing discourse defending atrocious policies, laws, and attitudes. Those who follow the Indian way are intellectually incapable of saying or thinking coherently about their ethics: they spout what they ‘think’ Shastras say and what, according to whatever takes their fancy at the moment, dharma and adharma are. In short: all the moral talk and ethical theories in the West has only produced the most immoral civilization that humankind has the misfortune to live under. A truly humane and reasonable approach to the human predicament has generated the biggest bunch of morons that the world has ever produced in recent times, who parade their utter ignorance as knowledge.
When you formulate the above issue as a question, “pregnancy and abortion are very practical affairs – emotional yes, but not moral or ethical. Is this a right way to think about it?” the answer cannot be unambiguous. Yes, it is a moral and ethical issue because it is a practical issue. Ethics and morality are practical issues par excellence: but one who talks about it (the West) has made this issue theoretical whereas the other (India) who acts in a practical way does not know how to talk about it. One is bloated with an insufferable pretention and the other is bloated with absolute ignorance. But both ply their trade on the market fighting for customers.
In simple terms: we must try to think and articulate how human issues are practical and ethical and thus live without traumas dominating our lives. A task for the millennials and the Z-generation, I suppose.
For more, read “Who needs a world view” (esp 3.5 & 6.3)