Woman seeks permission for termination of pregnancy, HC seeks experts' view
Dec 12, 2020
New Delhi [India], December 12 : A pregnant woman has approached the Delhi High Court seeking permission to undergo medical termination of her pregnancy due to serious abnormalities detected in the fetus after the 20th weeks.
A single-judge bench of Justice Navin Chawla on Friday sought the opinion of expert doctors and asked the Medical Superintendent of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to appoint a board of doctors to examine the petitioner and to submit a report on the advisability of the medical termination of pregnancy of the petitioner.
The plea, filed through advocates Sneha Mukherjee and Siddharth, also challenges the constitutional validity of Section 3 (2) (b) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 (MTP) restricted to the ceiling of 20 weeks stipulated therein.
This challenge is to the effect that the 20 weeks stipulation for a woman to avail of abortion services under section 3(2) (b) may have been reasonable when the section was enacted in 1971 but has ceased to be reasonable today where technology has advanced and it is perfectly safe for a woman to abort at any point during the entire period of pregnancy, the plea said.
It said that determination of fetal abnormality in many cases can only be done after the 20th week and by keeping the ceiling artificially low, women who obtain reports of serious fetal abnormality after the 20th week have to suffer excruciating pain and agony because of the deliveries that they are forced to go through.
The ceiling of 20 weeks is therefore arbitrary, harsh, discriminatory and violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India, the plea said.
It said that the petitioner's physical and mental health has been put in serious risk because of the 20-week time limit in Section 2(b) of the MTP Act. It was during a DNA Test that it was revealed the fetus has Ketrozygrous variant 1 2 RG in Euon3. This form of genetic mutation risks immunosuppression in the fetus causing to severely affect the health and standard of life of the child at birth.
The plea said that the petitioner lost her daughter in 2019 due to an anomaly in genetic mutation that caused severe neuro regression in the child post-birth. Hence, the possibility of the fetus having a condition that could potentially cause health complications has affected the Petitioner's mental health adversely, it added.
