Bombay HC nod to terminate 28-week pregnancy with foetal anomalies

MUMBAI: Bombay high court has granted permission to a married woman to terminate a 28-week pregnancy with multiple foetal congenital anomalies and also directed the government to take full responsibility and care of the child if born alive.
A bench of Justices K K Tated and Milind Jadhav had initially on June 30, while permitting the pregnant woman’s plea for termination, had directed the couple to look after the child, if born alive.The HC had at first heard the couple’s counsel Aditi Saxena, state government advocate Jyoti Chavan and called for a report from a medical panel which confirmed the existence of multiple severe malformation.
On July 3, the HC after hearing woman’s counsel Ruchita Padwal modified its order and directed,“ In case, if the child is born alive and if the Petitioner and her husband are not willing or are not in a position to take responsibility of such a child then the State and its agencies will have to assume full responsibility for such a child.’’
The woman had come to court as the legal bar of 20 weeks under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act was over and she needed the court’s nod to be able to abort. She had cited reports of Doctors Manjusha Kulkarni of Yashashri Diagnostic Centre and a second opinion of Dr Harish Shetty who recommended a second Ultrasound conducted by Dr Bharat Sanghavi on June 19 which also pointed to severe anomalies in the foetus,prompting the HC to set up a board from JJ hospital, Mumbai for its advice.
On June 27 the medical board noting fetal neurological condition and its “substantial risk of serious physical handicap and very high morbidity and mortality’’ and adviced termination of pregnancy, if court permits.
“The baby weight is about 1.3 kg and care of baby will be responsibility of parents,’’ the board had said.
The HC had noted earlier landmark judgments of the Supreme Court and Bombay high court on MTP when pregnancy exceeds 20 weeks on reproductive choices to a woman’s bodily integrity and her dignity and also that right to life includes right to live with dignity.
The high court, in exercise of its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, can permit medical termination of pregnancy the length of which exceeds 20 weeks, in contingencies set out in clauses (i) and (ii) of Section 3(2)(b) of the MTP Act.
These contingencies are where the continuance of the pregnancy between 12 and 20 weeks "would involve a risk to the life of the pregnant woman or of grave injury to her physical or mental health; or there is a substantial risk that if the child were born, it would suffer form such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.ones where her life is not immediately under risk but the foetus may have anomalies.
In the landmark ruling last year by the HC, the court had directed the State to constitute Medical Boards for this purpose.
The HC had last year while deciding on the larger issue of MTP beyond 20 weeks while holding that the HC can pass orders had referred to orders passed by the SC which had said such cases can be filed before high courts.
The HC had also, in the April 2019, judgment set out that if the continuance of pregnancy poses grave injury to the physical or mental health of the mother, if the pregnant mother is forced to continue with her pregnancy merely because the pregnancy had extended beyond the ceiling of 20 weeks, there would arise a serious afront to the fundamental right of such mother to privacy, to exercise reproductive choices, to bodily integrity and to her dignity.
It had thus said, if woman "seeks to terminate such pregnancy on the ground that its continuance would involve grave injury to her physical or mental health or where there is a substantial risk that if the child were born, it would sufer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped, such pregnant woman will have to seek permission from the High Court and unless such permission is granted, no registered Medical Practitioner can terminate such
pregnancy.''