Mumbai
(Maharastra), August 20: Bombay High Court ruled that domestic violence was valid
grounds for pregnancy termination.
Justices Ujjal Bhuyan
and Madhav Jamdar on August 3 allowed a 22-year-old woman to terminate a
23-week-old healthy foetus after she filed a plea in the court seeking abortion
on the account of mental trauma that she went through in the initial days of
her pregnancy.
The current MTP
(Medical Termination of Pregnancy) Act does not allow the termination of a foetus
that is beyond 20-weeks-old unless the pregnancy imposes a risk to the mother
or foetus.
The women in plea
did mention that she filed for termination when she was 17 weeks pregnant but
the case reached the court quite late. Though the court did not ignore her
petition and she was sent to get examined in Bombay District JJ Thomson
Hospital.
The doctors
examining the woman mentioned in their report that the foetus was healthy
without any abnormalities and the woman was mentally stable with no stress or ill
mental condition.
The applicant
stated that she was having a divorce with her husband and the continuation of
this pregnancy would eventually lead to mental distress as she would not get
the required emotional or financial support from her husband.
HC stated that “If
contraception failure leading to pregnancy can be presumed to constitute a grave
injury to the mental health of the pregnant woman, can it be said that a
pregnant woman suffering from domestic violence would not face grave injury to
her mental health if pregnancy is allowed to continue in the face of continuing
domestic violence with a grim foreseeable future?”
Also, the Bombay HC while ruling the judgment
referred to the reproductive rights of women as envisaged by the World Health Organisation
(WHO). The bench said, “The core issue is the control a woman has or exercises
over her own body and reproductive choice. Control over reproduction is a basic
need and a basic right of all women. Linked as it is to women’s health and
social status, it is from the perspective of poor women or women of rural areas
that this right can be best understood.”
The HC further said, “Rape is an instance of extreme
violence committed on a woman. Domestic violence is also violence committed
on a woman, though the degree might be lesser.” In addition to it the HC said, “in such circumstances,
we are of the view that declining permission to the petitioner will be
tantamount to compelling her to continue with her pregnancy, which in the
circumstances will not only become extremely burdensome and oppressive on her,
but has the potential to cause grave injury to her mental health.”
The HC also
mentioned that if barring the woman from termination of the pregnancy could
lead to financial burden along with emotional trauma. The woman is not in
the condition to support a child as she does not have any income.
The Court, therefore,
allowed her to abort the child at Cooper Hospital.