Woman’s decision to continue pregnancy or choose termination: HC

While dealing with a case pertaining to a 15-year-old pregnant rape survivor, the Allahabad high court observed that it was a woman’s decision whether to continue with her pregnancy or go ahead with its medical termination.

Allowing the continuation of her pregnancy after counseling her and her parents of the risks involved with medical termination at 32 weeks of pregnancy, a division bench of Justice Shekhar B Saraf and Justice Manjive Shukla held, “This court is also of the opinion that a woman’s decision in whether or not to go ahead with the termination of her pregnancy is a decision that is to be taken by no one but herself. This is primarily based on the widely acknowledged idea of bodily autonomy. Here, her consent reigns supreme.”

“If she decides to go ahead with the pregnancy and put the child up for adoption, then the duty lies on the state to ensure that it is carried out as privately as possible and also to ensure that the child, being a citizen of this land, is not stripped of the fundamental rights that are enshrined in the Constitution. It is the state’s duty to ensure that the adoption process, too, is carried out in an efficient manner and that the ‘best-interests-of-the-child’ principle is followed”, the court added.

Petitioner, aged 15 years (as per her high school marksheet), was living in the house of her maternal uncle, who filed an FIR under Section 363 (kidnapping) of the IPC alleging that she had been enticed away by a man. Upon recovery of the petitioner, charges of rape, along with those under Section 3/4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), 2012, were levelled against the accused.

Subsequently, it was revealed that petitioner was 29 weeks pregnant at the time of her recovery. Even though the missing report was filed in June, and the alleged incident occurred in June, the court noted that since the petitioner was 15 years old, the offence of rape had been committed.

After three medical examinations of the petitioner by three separate teams of doctors, the chief medical officer, in his report stated that though the continuation of pregnancy would impact the physical and mental well-being of the victim, medical termination at this stage was not possible without putting the survivor’s life in danger. On a pointed query by the court, it was stated that despite the risks involved, the parents of the victim were consenting to the termination of pregnancy.

Considering various judgments of the apex court where medical termination was not allowed at later stages of pregnancy, the court, in its decision dated July 24, counseled the petitioner and her relatives regarding the risks involved with termination of pregnancy at 32 weeks. Eventually, the petitioner and her parents agreed to continue with the pregnancy.