SC allows 24 weeks pregnant woman to abort malformed foetus

The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed a 24 weeks pregnant woman to abort as the foetus suffers from severe abnormality of not having a skull for which there was no medical remedy.

Allowing the 20-year-old woman to undergo MTP, the bench of Justice S.A. Bobde and Justice L. Nageswara Rao, said "We consider it appropriate and in the interest of justice to allow termination of pregnancy."

The top court's direction came after perusing the report from a medical board which examined the woman.

The report was submitted by the medical board of the Pune-based B.J. Government Medical College. The report said that there was no medical treatment of the severe abnormality.

As the court permitted termination of pregnancy, Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar informed the court that the Centre has written to all the state governments and the Union Territory administrations to set up permanent medical boards to examine such cases for termination of pregnancy.

He said that this would reduce the time for examining the requests for abortion.

"The government has written to all states and Union Territories to set up such medical boards," Solicitor General informed the court.

--IANS

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