Abortion of a foetus!!
We all know each government has its own rules for abortion.. In India is reportedly 20 weeks.. In US its 28 weeks etc.. But what if when a foetus suffers from heart disease or the parents get to know that the child will be born abnormal??? Shouldn't the parents be allowed to decide whether they must have the baby or not in such crucial cases??
Now here is an example.. The Mehtas have been declined to abort the child by the Mumbai High Court..
Bombay HC declines abortion plea
The Bombay High Court has denied Niketa and Harsh Mehta the permission to abort their 25-week foetus. The couple had gone to court seeking an abortion.
The judgment came even as an expert panel of doctors, appointed to examine the case said the foetus has "least chance" of having a congenital handicap at birth.
Petitioners Niketa and Haresh Mehta along with their doctor Nikhil Datar had moved Bombay High Court for medical termination of preganancy(MTP) after physicians had diagnosed the unborn child with a congenital disorder. Niketa had found out in the 24th week of her pregnancy that the foetus had a congenital heart block.
"There are 'least chances' that the child will be born with a handicap or incapacitated," the panel of three doctors appointed by the dean of J J Hospital noted in their report submitted to the court.
Earlier, a committee of doctors appointed by the same hospital stated that there were "fair chances" of the child being born with a congenital handicap. The committee, however, added that "the findings observed do not have substantive significance to resort to termination of pregnancy".
In their petition, the couple had sought to abort the child since it would need a pacemaker right from the time of birth and the quality of its life would be poor.
For the purpose, they sought amendment of a section of the MTP Act under which a foetus can be aborted after 20 weeks only if there was a fatal risk to mother and not the foetus.
The couple, who hail from a middle-class family, said the pacemaker, which costs about Rs one lakh has a limited lifespan of about five years. Changing the pacemaker every five years is not economically viable for the family, they said.
A Division Bench of Justice R M S Khandeparkar and Amjad Sayed hearing the petition observed that they could not alter the provision of the MTP Act. "It is the job of the legislature to help you alter the provision. We cannot legislate the provision," Khandeparkar observed. (With PTI inputs)
https://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080060016
Shouldn't the parents be given some relaxation in such cases???
