SRINAGAR: Jammu & Kashmir high court has expressed displeasure over doctors hesitating to undertake abortions without judicial orders even in “justified cases”, despite this being permitted under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971.“The registered medical practitioners, especially doctors working in the associated hospitals of medical colleges and in other district hospitals, do not shoulder their statutory responsibilities in terms of the provisions of MTP Act, 1971 and the rules of 2003 framed thereunder in justified cases, thereby leaving the aggrieved mothers at the mercy of the God, who feel constrained to shoulder further mental agony and burden of approaching the courts of law for legal directions,” the court said.Disposing of a petition seeking termination of a nearly 32-week pregnancy on grounds of foetus anomaly, a single bench of Justice Mohd Yousuf Wani directed the medical superintendent of Srinagar’s Lalla Ded Hospital to constitute a medical board for the examination of the petitioner. The court ordered that immediate action be taken based on the medical board’s opinion regarding the MTP.Under the MTP Act, termination of pregnancy beyond 24 weeks is highly restricted.Justice Wani said clause 2-B of section 3 and clause 1 of section 5 of the MTP Act clearly state that the provisions relating to length of pregnancy shall not apply when MTP is necessitated by the diagnosis of any substantial foetal abnormalities by a medical board and/or is immediately necessary to save the mother’s life. Where statutory directions are clear, medical practitioners or medical boards “shall not unnecessarily avoid to attend such emergent cases”, the judge observed in his Oct 6 order.
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The petitioner submitted that scans conducted at the gestational age of 12 weeks and six days, and again at 21 weeks and four days, showed no gross congenital anomalies in the foetus. Serious foetal abnormalities were detected for the first time only on Sept 24, when the pregnancy had reached 31 weeks and six days.Doctors, however, refused to undertake MTP without the court’s permission because of the advanced state of pregnancy, prompting the petitioner to approach HC.