When the Bombay High Court’s Aurangabad bench denied a 17-year-old girl’s request to have an abortion, it stated, “When a live child is going to be born even today, we might as well let the child be born after 15 weeks, and if the petitioner desires to give the child away to an orphanage, she shall have the liberty of doing so.”
The girl, who was 17 at the time of the incident and would turn 18 on July 29, 2023, submitted a petition, which was heard by the bench of Justices Ravindra Ghuge and YG Khobragade. Her mother filed the petition to end the pregnancy, arguing that she qualified as a child under the terms of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
The bench found that since December 2022, the girl and boy had been in a mutually consenting relationship. After engaging in multiple instances of physical contact with the accused, the girl brought a pregnancy test and confirmed the pregnancy in February of this year.
“Therefore, it appears that the petitioner victim is not innocent, and she was having full maturity of understanding. If the petitioner was not interested in carrying on the pregnancy, she could have sought permission for termination soon after confirmation of the pregnancy,” the court said.
If it is determined that the pregnancy poses a threat to the mother’s or the child’s life or health, a court order is required under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act to terminate a pregnancy after a time span of 20 weeks. According to the petition, the petitioner’s pregnancy would seriously harm her future plans to pursue a career as a doctor and her desire to study.
The court had advised a medical board to evaluate the girl before issuing the order. According to the study, the fetus’s growth was normal and there was no abnormalities. The medical board had stated that although the kid might exhibit signs of life if the pregnancy were terminated at this point, it would not be able to survive on its own.
“If a baby is born alive even after forcible delivery considering the request of the mother to terminate the pregnancy, then it would lead to an under-developed child with chances of deformities,” the bench said. The bench added that if the baby was delivered at full term, then there would be no deformity, and the chances of adoption would brighten.
The bench added, “In the backdrop of the girl having accompanied her friend and having had physical relations with him for a couple of weeks until they were apprehended, we are of the view that the future health of the child as well as its physical and mental development needs to be considered at this stage.”
