Woman's right to choose whether to continue pregnancy or not, says Bombay HC

A woman has the right to choose whether to continue her pregnancy or not and the decision is hers and hers alone to make the Bombay High Court said while allowing a married woman to terminate her 32week pregnancy after the foetus was detected with severe abnormalitiesA division bench of Justices Gautam Patel and S G Dige in its judgment of January 20 a copy of which was made available on Monday refused to accept the the medical boards view that the even though the foetus has serious abnormalities it should not be terminated as the pregnancy is almost at its fag endThe woman had approached HC seeking to terminate her pregnancy after a sonography revealed the foetus had severe abnormalities and that the baby would be born with physical and mental disabilitiesGiven a severe foetal abnormality the length of the pregnancy does not matter The petitioner has taken an informed decision It is not an easy one But that decision is hers and hers alone to make The right to choose is of the petitioners It is not the right of the Medical Board the court said in its orderRefusing termination of pregnancy only on grounds of delay would not only be condemning the foetus to a less than optimal life but would also be condemning the mother to a future that will almost certainly rob her of every positive attribute of parenthood the HC saidIt would be a denial of her right to dignity and her reproductive and decisional autonomy The mother knows today there is no possibility of having a normal healthy baby at the end of this delivery the court saidAlso Read Mumbai Bombay HC scraps probe recovery proceedings against 19 bank employees officialsAccepting the Medical Boards view is not just to condemn the foetus to a substandard life but is to force on the petitioner and her husband an unhappy and traumatic parenthood The effect on them and their family cannot even be imagined it addedThe petitioners foetus is detected with both microcephaly and lissencephaly and this is what the future portends the bench saidAsserting that the rights of the woman should never be compromised in the blind application of a statute the court said Justice may have to be blindfolded it can never be allowed to be blindsided We are agnostic about the relative positions of parties We can never be agnostic about where justice needs to be deliveredIt said cases such as this often raise profound moral questions and dilemmas but it is immutable that the arc of the moral universe always bends towards justiceThe bench said the existence of the foetal anomaly as well as its severity was certain as also the fact that it was detected lateBecause it is difficult to predict at birth what problems will occur microcephalic babies need constant and regular follow up and checkups with health care providers There is no known cure or standard treatment for it In more extreme cases microcephalic babies need intervention almost constantly the court saidMost disturbingly the prognosis for children with lissencephaly depends on the degree of brain malformation it addedThe bench noted the medical board did not take into account the social and economic position of the coupleIt ignores their milieu entirely It does not even attempt to envision the kind of life one with no quality at all to speak of that the petitioner must endure for an indefinite future if the Boards recommendation is to be followed the HC saidThe Board really does only one thing because late therefore no And that is plainly wrong as we have seen the court said while allowing the pregnancy to be terminatedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever