The Delhi High Court has allowed a woman to terminate her over 23-week pregnancy as her foetus had several abnormalities and the baby would have required multiple surgeries right after birth to survive.
A Bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad said there was a “substantial risk” that the baby would, after birth, suffer from abnormalities that would be “seriously detrimental to its healthy and normal life”.
“The child would be exposed to numerous intra operative and post operative complications and if any such problems arise, it would affect the quality of its life. “The lack of compatibility of the foetus with a healthy and normal life is, therefore, looming large,” the court noted.
“In view of the above, we are of the opinion that given the medical condition of the foetus, the rigours imposed by the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act ought to be relaxed and the request of the petitioner for termination of her pregnancy...be acceded to,” the Bench said.
The order came on the basis of a report submitted by a multi-disciplinary medical board, set up by AIIMS to examine the woman, which said that while the pregnancy would not pose a risk to the mother’s physical and mental health, the baby after birth would have to undergo major surgeries.
The report also said that there was a 30 per cent chance the surgeries would be unsuccessful and the infant may die within a month or so.
Taking note of the findings in the report, the Bench allowed the woman’s plea and disposed of her petition.
According to the petition, the foetus has “echogenic bowel and hepatic calcification, a condition associated with increased risk of aneuploidy, fetal cystic fibrosis, bowel obstruction and other infections”.
