Mumbai: Bombay High Court has issued a notice to the state and Centre on a petition that seeks a comprehensive standard operating procedure (SOP) for medical termination of pregnancies beyond 24 weeks with a wider role for medical boards so that vulnerable women do not have to approach the court.
“Pregnancy is a highly time-sensitive medical status. Forcing vulnerable individuals like rape survivors and minors into expensive and prolonged litigation during a crisis constitutes institutional cruelty,” states the petition filed by Pune-based Medico Legal Society of India (MLSI) through paediatrician Dr Rajeev Joshi.
Under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, termination is permitted up to 24 weeks and beyond it is restricted to situations involving risk to a woman’s life or severe foetal abnormality. MLSI has challenged a clause in the state’s June 3, 2024, GR which mandates that for pregnancies past 24 weeks involving vulnerable categories (rape survivors, minors and persons with disabilities) where there is no abnormality, “such cases may be intervened in court.”
The PIL petition states that the absence of an SOP has led to conflicting judicial pronouncements, absence of clear guidelines on foeticide (intracardiac injection) versus pre-term delivery and unresolved legal, ethical and financial liabilities when a viable foetus is born alive following a court order.
Also, “criminal exposure, professional stress and a chilling effect on the medical fraternity” were exemplified recently in an FIR against a Satara gynaecologist who performed a late-term termination and a contempt notice by Supreme Court against AIIMS doctors refusing to terminate a 30-week pregnancy.
The PIL has called out the “shifting of executive burden” from medical boards and offloading it entirely on to HC. “If SOPs are clear, the patient need not go to the court every time pregnancy crosses 24 weeks,” it states. The present framework fosters “absolute arbitrariness. While a woman carrying a foetus with “substantial abnormalities” can access a swift, non-adversarial evaluation by a medical board at any gestational stage, a rape survivor at the exact same stage of gestation is pushed into protracted legal battle.”
The petition states that the need for experts on medical committees, set up by HC in individual MTP cases, increases workload on doctors in govt hospitals. “It is becoming practically difficult to arrange meetings of expert committees for the increasing number of cases referred to one or two institutions in the State, and hence it is necessary to form medical boards at district hospitals in each district,” it added.
The PIL has urged HC to quash and set aside the impugned clause “as ultra vires the parent MTP Act.” Among other prayers, it has urged the state to bear expenses for the “tertiary NICU of a child born alive out of a court-ordered late-term MTP.” On Friday, Chief Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Advait Sethna directed notice to be issued and posted the matter on Oct 9.
