Baby Whose Mother Was Denied Abortion by SC Dies After a Month

A woman had approached the Supreme Court in March with a plea to abort her 27-week-old foetus which was diagnosed with a neurological disorder. The court denied her permission to abort. A month after being born, the baby passed away at Mumbai’s KEM Hospital, Hindustan Times reported on Friday.

The foetus was diagnosed with Arnold Chiari Syndrome Type-II , a neurological disorder in which fluid accumulates in the brain and spinal cord. The boy was born with the disorder on 4 July and died 15 days ago. The report quotes doctors saying that children with this disorder have very slim chances of survival.

This comes at a time when the debate around India’s abortion law has intensified. Under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, abortion is legal only up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

After that period, a court-appointed medical team ascertains whether the continuation of pregnancy will be a risk to either the mother or the foetus, only then abortion is allowed.

The bench, however, had rejected her plea saying that the baby could be “born alive” during abortion. The judgment was based on the findings made by a team of experts from KEM Hospital.

A Times of India report says that the woman told the KEM medical team that she didn't want a disabled child as she saw the sacrifices and troubles her family has been through with her severely handicapped and bed-ridden brother.

Gynaecologist Nikhil Datar, who had helped the woman file the petition, said that she underwent an ultrasound at 15 weeks of her pregnancy, which couldn’t detect the abornormality. Then at 24 weeks in another ultrasound the deformity was detected.

The child was later born with a critical condition at KEM Hospital and was put in the neonatal ward’s intensive care unit.

Most doctors and activists fighting to change the ‘archaic’ law say that many foetal defections are detected only after 20 weeks of the pregnancy. They argue that keeping this in mind, the 20-week limit should be done away with.

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