The recent observation by the Madras high court that victims should not be unnecessarily compelled to knock doors of the court to terminate their unwanted pregnancy brought the focus back on draft Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill of 2014 lying in limbo.
The judge, while disposing of a petition from a raped girl who sought medical termination of pregnancy, said in cases where the length of pregnancy exceeded 20 weeks, the pregnancy can be terminated in accordance with section 5 (1) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act. Also the medical practitioner can take steps in accordance with the MTP Act to save the pregnant woman's life. The court also exhorted the doctors to be more sensitive and act fast since the victim was carrying a foetus, which keeps reminding her of the rape and the depression she suffers due to unwanted pregnancy.
Last year in July the Supreme Court denied a woman permission to terminate her 25-week-old pregnancy, stating that aborting a healthy foetus, which is unlikely to affect the mother's physical health, amounted to murder. Despite the petitioner council's arguing that her client's right and mental health must be given priority, the apex court rejected her plea.
However, in 2016 the same apex court gave a rape survivor the permission to go for abortion of her 24-week foetus. The medical board's examination had found that the pregnancy could endanger the petitioner's life.
The Madhya Pradesh high court last month granted permission to a gang-rape victim to abort her nine-week-old foetus.
In 2008, a couple from Mumbai, Haresh and Nikita Mehta, petitioned the court to abort their 26-week-old foetus diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. The Bombay HC did not allow the parents to terminate the pregnancy. Nikita suffered a miscarriage and lost the foetus. Six years after this case, the government drafted the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, Amendment Bill, 2014, aimed at increasing the abortion ceiling from 20 to 24 weeks under special circumstances. The draft allowed women, whose pregnancies are within 24 weeks, reproductive rights in consultation with their doctors.
Abortion is not a right under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act. It is the discretion of the doctor to allow abortion of foetus.
However, doctors say detecting and determining genetic abnormalities is possible only after the 20-week period. Activists say forcing a woman to go through an unwanted pregnancy is violation of her right to dignity and sexual and reproductive freedom as guaranteed in our Constitution. Marital discord and the trauma it causes must also be considered as substantial risk in such cases. As debate rages over this sensitive issue, the call to implement draft Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill of 2014 as law grows louder.
