Mumbai: Team formed to examine two women seeking permission for abortion

A vacation bench of Justice S J Kathawalla and Justice A S Gadkari directed constitution of the committee, comprising the dean and experts in fields of gynaecology, neurology, paediatrics, psychology and radiology among others.

THE BOMBAY High Court on Monday constituted a Committee of Medical Board at the Sir JJ Hospital to examine the two women who have approached the court, seeking permission for termination of pregnancy.

A vacation bench of Justice S J Kathawalla and Justice A S Gadkari directed constitution of the committee, comprising the dean and experts in fields of gynaecology, neurology, paediatrics, psychology and radiology among others. The Medical Board will examine the women and submit a report on Wednesday.

The directive came in response to a petition filed by a 37-year-old woman from Thane, seeking medical termination of pregnancy in the 25th week. She said that on May 2, 2018, during a routine screening, her foetus was detected as suffering from intracranial abnormalities. The mother was advised to undergo a foetal MRI scan.

On the basis of the MRI scan reports, the doctors told her that the baby could have neurological problems such as global development delay, severe intellectual disability, poorly controlled resistant epilepsy, visual defects, hearing defects, cerebral palsy and behavioural disorder.

The petitioner also told the court that she has a two-year-old daughter who has “more or less similar brain anomalies and that she has global development delay, she cannot see well and has uncontrollable epilepsy”. After receiving an opinion from the doctor, the petitioner decided to terminate the pregnancy. The petitioner had approached the court as Section 3 of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, does not allow termination of a pregnancy beyond 20 weeks.

Another petition was filed by a 25-year-old woman from Andheri who said that a routine screening has revealed that her foetus was suffering from a diaphragmatic hernia. After going through the MRI scan reports of the foetus, the doctor opined that the “foetal MRI indicate poor prognosis of survival”.