SC allows 13-year-old rape victim to terminate pregnancy

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed a 13-year-old alleged rape victim to terminate her 32-week-old pregnancy.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Amitava Roy and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar passed the direction for termination of pregnancy of the girl after taking note of a medical report filed by a board of doctors of Mumbai's J.J. Hospital, set up by the court.

The bench asked the hospital authorities to conduct the termination of pregnancy preferably on September 8.

The girl, a class 7 student, had sought permission to abort the foetus as section 3(2)(b) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act prohibits abortion of a foetus after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The parents of the girl, who was allegedly raped by her father's associate about six months ago, had filed the petition in the Supreme Court seeking permission for medical termination of pregnancy, after they realised she was pregnant just four weeks ago.

In August, the parents took her to a doctor to check whether her sudden "obesity" was caused by a thyroid conditions. A sonography then showed that she was 27 weeks pregnant. Until that moment, she had not informed her parents about the sexual assault, police has said.

Her father is a street vendor while the mother is a homemaker.

--IANS

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