Judges in India rejected a teenage mother’s request for a late-term abortion Wednesday, instead ordering social services to provide her with counseling and medical care.
The Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court said the girl, who turned 18 on Saturday, knew about her pregnancy for months and had plenty of time to abort her unborn baby before the legal cutoff, according to Op India. She currently is about 26 weeks pregnant.
India allows unborn babies to be aborted for basically any reason up to 24 weeks. In recent years, however, the Asian country’s courts have been granting numerous exceptions to the law for victims of rape and mothers of unborn babies with disabilities.
In the latest case, the teenager and her mother petitioned the court for an exception to the late-term abortion ban, arguing that the girl was raped and having a child would harm her mental health, The Federal reports.
However, the judges said a medical examination confirmed the teenager and her unborn baby are healthy, and the young mother can consider adoption if she does not want to parent. The judges also said the evidence indicates the girl became pregnant by a consensual relationship with the baby’s father.
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According to court testimony, the girl began a relationship with the baby’s father in December, and learned that she was pregnant in the early spring; she did not tell her parents.
On July 1, the girl’s parents reported her missing to authorities. After police found her, the girl had a medical examination, and her parents found out that she was about 24 weeks pregnant, the news reports continue.
Here’s more from Op India:
The court said that only 15 weeks were left in the delivery and allowed to give the child up for adoption after birth. The court said the girl or ‘would be a mother’ can live in certain social organizations where special facilities are available to take care of such ‘would be mothers’ such as Shaskiya Vatsalya Mahila Vastigruh or Government’s Savitribai Mahila Rajyagruha.
The Bombay High Court also directed the concerned authorities to arrange for a female psychologist for the girl’s counseling. The court further directed the said organization to ensure proper medical assistance and admit her to the hospital at the right time for delivery. The District Officer of the Women and Child Development Department at Nashik or at Aurangabad has been directed to assist the girl and have interactions with her on a routine basis to monitor her condition.
India has some of the highest abortion numbers in the world. Approximately 15.6 million unborn babies were aborted in the country in 2015, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
If the judges had approved the girl’s request, she likely would have undergone a dangerous, multiple-day abortion procedure that involves killing and then delivering her dead baby.
A late-term abortion typically begins with injecting a poisonous potassium chloride solution through the woman’s stomach into the baby’s body, causing its heart to stop. A few days later, labor is induced and the woman delivers her dead baby.
By 26 weeks of pregnancy, unborn babies can feel pain, and they are viable outside the womb. Premature babies have survived as early as 21 weeks of pregnancy.
Late-term abortions can be dangerous for mothers, and some women have died along with their unborn babies. Abortions also can be traumatic and mentally damaging, with studies showing higher rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and suicide among post-abortive mothers.
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