Supreme Court rejects abortion plea, rules in favour of the 27-week-old foetus
There were numerous attempts to persuade the lady to continue carrying the baby for a few weeks in order to give it a chance of survival.
The Supreme Court dismissed a married woman’s request to abort her almost 27-week foetus due to postpartum depression. The Supreme Court stated, “AIIMS has sought for a direction to stop the heart of the foetus and the court is averse to passing such a direction.”
While reading out the decision, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud stated, “The petitioner also doesn’t wish to do the same.” Since there is no urgent threat to the mother and there is no evidence of a foetal anomaly, the CJI continued, “permitting the termination of the pregnancy at this stage would violate the rules of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act.”
After AIIMS, New Delhi declared the embryo to be viable, the Centre filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking to have the order from October 9 recalled. On October 11, the all-female bench of the Supreme Court rendered a split decision and forwarded the case to a larger bench of three judges.
Is postpartum depression an acceptable justification for abortion?
The woman’s situation was distinct. She was a married lady who requested the abortion of the 27-week-old foetus due to postpartum depression. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act of 2021 makes it permissible to abort a pregnancy up to 20 weeks of gestation, and up to 24 weeks in some circumstances.
Only in rare circumstances is a pregnancy longer than 24 weeks permitted. The petitioner in this instance is a married woman who is not in any threat to her life physically, and the foetus shows no abnormalities.
A woman has complete control over her body, the Supreme Court said in September 2022. The highest court ruled that every woman has the right to an abortion up to 24 weeks into her pregnancy, regardless of her marital status or caste.
There were numerous attempts to persuade the lady to continue carrying the baby for a few weeks in order to give it a chance of survival. According to the medical testimony requested by the court, if she delivered the child at this point, its chances of surviving would be poor because it would be physically and mentally disabled, but if she carried the pregnancy to full term or at least two more weeks, the child’s chances of surviving would be better.
“Why doesn’t she consider carrying the pregnancy for a few weeks more and give the child a chance. That’s why AIIMS had a serious ethical dilemma,” the Supreme Court questioned.
“Indian law is not regressive” asserts CJI Chandrachud- Supreme Court
The Supreme Court stated that while abortion regulations in India were not regressive, it was easy to object to our nation’s policies.
“…You know what has happened in the United States of America after Roe v Wade (where the US Supreme Court banned abortion)? Indian law is not regressive. We should also be conversant of the fact that it’s easy to criticise our own country…,” DY Chandrachud, the Chief Justice of India, observed during the hearing that we should be aware of how simple it is to criticise our own nation.
The top court was involved in a debate over whether to support life or choice for abortion, and where our nation’s laws stand on this issue, thus the hearing drew everyone’s attention. Although the Centre claimed that there is a dichotomy between being pro-life and being pro-choice, the Supreme Court made it clear that the Act was clearly pro-choice.
When does life begin? During one of the hearings on this subject last week, CJI Chandrachud posed this question.
The CJI had pondered the problem of how to strike a balance between the rights of the mother and the unborn child and wondered, “Who is fighting for the child? The judge had noted that post-partum depression affects every woman to some extent.
In this case, senior attorney Colin Gonsalves claimed that as of right now, there are no rights for unborn children in India. According to Gonsalves, ““The rights begin when the foetus is born; till then the woman’s right is absolute,” Gonsalves said. “In this case, the unborn child’s rights are being put before that of a woman’s rights.”
“Fetecide has been done for the past 10-12 years. It is done by a guideline issued from the government of India which authorizes it,” he added “all abortions result in the termination of fetal heart”.
“If the fetus is less than 24 weeks old, only one injection is given, post 24 weeks there are two injections. Therefore, to say this (feticide) is a shocking and surprising phenomenon is not true,” Gonsalves had argued in support of the woman’s case for an abortion.
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