The Centre on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that it has written to States and Union Territories about the court’s suggestion to appoint permanent medical boards to provide women, especially rape survivors, urgent access to medical care and to consider their requests for abortion.
The government’s submission came during a hearing in the case of a Pune-based woman who was permitted by the court to medically terminate her 24-week-old foetus detected with abnormalities.
A Bench led by Justice S.A. Bobde banked on the medical opinion of doctors at the B.J. Government Hospital in Pune and found it “in the interest of justice” for the 20-year-old woman to terminate her pregnancy. The medical board, in its report, said the foetus was without a brain and skull.
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Meanwhile, the court deferred the hearing on a similar plea by a Mumbai-based woman for abortion as she could not be examined by the medical board due to the floods that have brought the city to a standstill.
Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar said that the government’s communication to the States and Union Territories was in compliance with the court’s suggestion, during the recent hearing of a separate case of a 10-year-old pregnant rape survivor, to set up permanent medical boards. The apex court, in that case, was compelled to deny abortion as the pregnancy had crossed the 20-week mark under which the law allows abortion.