Supreme Court allows abortion for 13-year-old rape victim
The Centre cautioned the court from treading into the issue of marital rape' as that was not the issue before the court.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed a 13-year-old rape victim, a Class VII student from Mumbai to terminate her 31-week-old pregnancy, preferably on September 8 at the JJ hospital.
A three-judge bench of the Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Amitav Roy and A.M. Khanwilkar passed the order. The bench took note of the medical report filed by a board of JJ hospital doctors which stated that the foetus could be medically terminated. In August, the Supreme Court had set up a panel of doctors to look into the matter.
Experts welcome SC abortion order
The bench said, “Keeping in view the age of the victim, the trauma she faced, we allow her to terminate her pregnancy” preferably on September 8. The apex court added that she should get herself admitted to the hospital on Thursday.
Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing on behalf of the Centre, referred to the medical report and said that both termination and continuation of the pregnancy was not safe, but efforts could be made to terminate the pregnancy. Section 3(2)(b) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act prohibits abortion of a foetus after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
The petitioner told the court that the pregnancy was detected only in late August when her parents took her to a doctor to check whether her sudden obesity was caused by thyroid. A sonography showed that she was 27 weeks pregnant at that time. The child had not informed her parents that she was raped.
Meanwhile, the teenage girl’s lawyer has welcomed the SC order. The girl’s lawyer, advocate Sneha Mukherjee, who had filed the abortion petition on behalf of the girl and her family, felt that a change in the law is required to deal with such cases as time is a major constraint for the health and well-being of such adolescent victims. Speaking about the order, Ms Mukherjee said that the order has brought into focus many cases, which do not get timely intervention.
Dr Nikhil Datar, a gynaecologist who helped the girl’s family decide to go for the abortion petition, welcomed the Supreme Court’s order and gave credit to the scientific and thorough report submitted by the J.J. Hospital doctors. “It is a path breaking judgment and revolutionary order for the protection of women and child welfare activists,” said Dr Datar.