Pregnant Pause

In a noteworthy judgment, the Delhi High Court allowed a woman to terminate her 28-week pregnancy as the foetus was suffering from defects. This was a departure from the earlier 24 weeks’ limit for MTP

- Shivam Sharma and India Legal Bureau

THE Delhi High Court on December 31, 2021, allowed a woman to terminate her 28 weeks’ pregnancy while ruling that reproductive choice is an insegregable part of a woman’s personal liberty en shrined in Article 21 of the Constitution.

The 33-year-old woman has been undergoing regular check-ups from the fifth week of pregnancy. From the ultrasonography report conducted during the 20th week of gestation, it was revealed that there was a cyst in the left lateral ventricle of the foetus. However, as the foetus was only 20 weeks old, foetal echocardiography was not performed. On completion of 24 weeks, an EchoDoppler test was done and various ano malies were found in the heart of the foetus, including absent pulmonary valve syndrome, presence of pulmonary stenosis (narrowing of the valve between the lower right heart chamber and lung arteries) and regurgitation with narrow pulmonary valves, dilated pulmonary artery and a large ventricular septal defect (where there is a hole in the wall separating the two lower chambers of the heart) with overriding of the aorta.

Thereafter, the woman consulted many doctors, including paediatric cardiologists, and as per the last medical, infants born with Tetralogy of Fallot (a group of four congenital heart defects) have a 50% chance of survival in the first year of birth and even if they do, repeated surgeries have to be carried out and their success depends on the stimuli of the baby to the environment. As the permissible limit of 24 weeks under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971, as amended by the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021 was over, the woman approached the High Court seeking a direction to undergo MTP.