India’s apex court rules out abortion for 10-year-old

New Delhi: The Supreme Court yesterday refused to allow a 10-year-old rape victim, who is 32 weeks pregnant, to undergo an abortion due to grave risk to her life.

A division bench of Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud turned down the plea after the report of a medical board, set up by Chandigarh’s Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) on the court’s orders to examine the pregnant child, warned that an abortion would risk the girl’s life.

‘Grave risk’

Taking the report into consideration, the bench said: “In view of the recommendation made by medical board, we are satisfied it would nor be in the interest of girl and neither to foetus who is 32 weeks old. We decline to terminate pregnancy.”

The order came on a PIL by advocate Alok Srivastava who moved the top court after a plea for the medical termination of pregnancy was refused by a district court in Chandigarh on July 18.

The girl’s pregnancy was discovered recently after her parents took her to hospital when she complained of stomach pain. They discovered she’d been raped by her uncle over seven months.

— IANS