Supreme Court rejects pregnant woman's plea to abort child with Down syndrome

The Supreme Court rejected a 37-year-old woman's plea to abort her 23-week-old foetus that showed signs of Down syndrome on Tuesday. The Supreme Court bench ruled that there was no danger involved to the mother's life, if the pregnancy was continued. A division bench that has Justice SA Bobde and Justice L Nageswara Rao took note of the report that the foetus, which was now 26-week-old, has chances of surviving in an interim order. "In these circumstances, it is not possible to grant permission to terminate the life of the foetus", said SC. The court said that a report by the medical board had it that the "mother has no physical risk in continuation of pregnancy." As far as foetus is concerned, the baby born with Down syndrome was likely to have mental and physical challenges. The medical report clearly did not observe that this particular foetus would have severe mental and physical challenges, said the bench. Appearing for the petitioner, senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves sought termination of the foetus, saying as per the medical report the child was likely to have severe mental and physical challenges. The Centre also opposed the plea of the woman, saying the board did not favour abortion. The bench, however, observed that it was sad that a mother has to bring up a severely mentally retarded child. Down syndrome is a congenital disorder which causes intellectual impairment and physical abnormalities. Under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971, a pregnancy could be terminated during the normal course, if it was up to 12 weeks old. Pregnancies between 12 to 20 weeks can be terminated only if in the opinion of two doctors the continuation of the pregnancy would involve a risk to the life of the pregnant woman. In her plea, the mother-to-be said that the law allowed termination of pregnancy in extreme cases if it caused grave injury to the physical and mental health of the pregnant woman and if there was a substantial risk of the child suffering from physical and mental abnormalities after birth. She contended that Down syndrome was not curable and could cause physical and mental stress to the child as a normal and healthy life would not possible.