A high court in India has agreed to allow a woman to abort her unborn baby who has a disability.
According to LifeNews.com, the baby reportedly has heart, brain, and gastrointestinal issues. The baby’s mother requested that she be allowed to abort the baby, even though the child has reached 27 weeks gestation, which is weeks past the 20-week abortion cutoff in India.
The woman petitioned the court for the right to abort her child, and the court granted it to her, stating that having the disabled child would inflict mental trauma on the woman.
Pro-life advocates are concerned that this case could pave the way for other late-term abortions by using mental trauma as a way to get around there being a threat to the mother’s life.
“The HC had asked the woman’s lawyer Meenaz Kakalia to demonstrate if there was any threat to the mother’s life and she had responded by saying that mental trauma must be considered as part of risk to her health and life,” The Times of India reports.
“The bench appeared to agree with her as it referred to past pronouncements on women’s right to bodily integrity and applying principle of purposive interpretation of law, held that foetal malformations, their severity and the effect on women’s mental and physical health must be read into Section 5 of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act that governs reproductive procedures in the country and lays down restrictions,” the report continued.
The court also previously granted the petition of a woman who was 31 weeks pregnant to abort her child.
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Publication date: January 10, 2018
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