Supreme Court allows woman to abort 24-week foetus without skull

Image only for representational purpose

New Delhi: The apex court allows a Pune woman who was suffering from abnormalities to abort her 24- week foetus after the woman informed the court that there was no medical treatment for this. This comes after the Supreme Court of India issued a notice to all the states and Union Territories to set up permanent medical boards for abortion cases considering the women suffering from abnormalities during pregnancy to cut the delay in abortion. Doctors after examining the woman’s foetus, said that “there was complete absence of brain and skull and survival rate was less”. The court had urged the government earlier to put a place to examine abortion requests while continuing with pregnancy as this can put the life of mother at risk. Need for the mechanism rose when parents of a 10-year-old victim approached the apex court when she was pregnant. The woman who had delivered a baby girl in August, was denied the permission to abort due to the risk of her life and the formalities for forming a medical board took time. Another woman in Haryana was allowed to abort her 21-week foetus in May. As per Section 3(2)(b) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (MTPA) “We consider it appropriate and in the interest of justice to allow termination of pregnancy". The apex court heard a plea on behalf of a 13-year old woman to terminate her pregnancy of 30 weeks. The bench which had earlier set the medical board of doctors, said that due to heavy rains in Mumbai the woman had not been examined and the bench had fixed this matter for hearing.