HC allows 15-year-old Virudhunagar girl to terminate pregnancy

Taking cognisance of experiences by medical consultants, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has permitted the termination of pregnancy of a 15-year-old girl from Virudhunagar. The court docket additionally ordered {that a} month-to-month upkeep of ₹5,000 be paid to the girl for 36 months.

The court docket was listening to the petition filed by a lady who sought the termination of the pregnancy of her niece. The girl had misplaced her father in 2012 and was taken care of by her aunt and uncle as her mom was of unsound thoughts.

It was stated that the girl had are available contact with a person, later recognized as a history-sheeter. He is alleged to have enticed the girl right into a bodily relationship and she or he had change into pregnant consequently. The gestation interval was 10-11 weeks.

The Medical consultants opined that persevering with the pregnancy might endanger the bodily and the psychological well being of the girl they usually really useful the termination of the pregnancy on medical grounds. The girl who was first unwilling agreed for the termination of pregnancy.

Permitting the termination of the pregnancy, Justice G.R. Swaminathan noticed that whereas we do rejoice life, the foremost non secular prayer is that there ought to be liberation from the cycle of births and deaths.

The court docket should put itself within the sneakers of the unborn baby and objectively resolve if coming into this world could be in its finest curiosity. An unborn baby can be an individual. In the case readily available, the daddy of the kid has been proven to be concerned in a bunch of prison instances, a few of that are very grave in nature, the decide stated.

The decide noticed that the minor girl was aged 15 years and she or he was not able to preserve herself. She had cried earlier than the court docket that her uncle ought to take her again residence. Though the minor may need accompanied the accused on her personal volition, technically what has been dedicated is an offence below the POCSO Act.

If a selection is given to the foetus now within the womb of the minor, it could positively proclaim that it could not want to be born. “I am however spared the trouble of taking such a harsh decision, by overruling the stand of the minor because she had changed her mind in the meanwhile. She told me during video conferencing that she had agreed for the termination of the pregnancy,” the decide stated.

The court docket stated that after all the pregnancy of the minor girl can’t be terminated with out the consent, in writing, of her guardian. The decide directed the pattern of the foetus be preserved for finishing up a medical take a look at for the aim of the prison case.

The case has to be quick tracked, the decide stated. After the uncle of the girl, who initially refused to take her again, agreed to take her residence after 4 weeks, the decide ordered the girl be given shelter in a welfare residence until then.