Termination of 32-week pregnancy: Teen rape survivor gets nod to abort

NEW DELHI : The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed a 13-year-old rape survivor from Mumbai to terminate her 32-week pregnancy, saying she should not be made to undergo the trauma and agony she suffered because of sexual abuse.

The procedure will be carried out on Friday at Mumbai’s JJ Hospital, said the girl’s lawyer.

The order came after a panel of doctors at the hospital said the pregnancy posed a risk to the girl’s life. A source in the hospital told HT that according to the doctors’ report, both termination and carrying the baby to the full term — 36 weeks — would pose equal risks to the teenager, a Class 7 student.

The report cautioned that the baby born will be preterm and ‘will have its own complications’. The baby will need to be admitted in the neonatal intensive care unit.

The report added that the mortality of the baby could be avoided if the pregnancy is maintained for full term.

India has a 20-week legal ceiling on abortion except when there is a risk to mother’s life.

The apex court, in recent months, has been flooded by petitions from rape survivors, in many cases teenage girls, and their families, seeking permission to abort the foetus.

In many cases the pregnancy was too advanced for the procedure to be carried out.

In one such case, the top court refused permission to a 10-year-old rape survivor from Chandigarh to terminate her pregnancy after a medical board ruled out abortion, citing complications.

“Considering the age of the petitioner (rape survivor), the trauma she has suffered because of sexual abuse, the agony she is going through at present and, above all, the report of the medical board constituted by this court, we think it appropriate that termination of pregnancy should be allowed,” a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra ordered.

The court chose to ignore the objections raised by solicitor general Ranjit Kumar who pointed out several “discrepancies” in the medical report.

“According to the report the expected date of delivery is November 31. How can it be?” he said, quoting an earlier report prepared by a government hospital that gave the expected delivery date as October 10.

A doctor from the ministry of health, present during the hearing, also told the court that abortion after 32 weeks of pregnancy would not be safe.

Petitoner’s advocate Sneha Mukherjee, contended the pregnancy was detected when it was 27-weeks-old.