Supreme Court: The bench of SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao, JJ allowed a 26-year-old woman, who is in 25th week of pregnancy, to terminate her pregnancy after her fetus was diagnosed with Anencephaly, a defect that leaves foetal skull bones unformed and is both untreatable and certain to cause the infant’s death during or shortly after birth. The medical board’s report said that the condition of the foetus was also dangerous for the mother’s life.
Noticing that the fetus is without a skull and would, therefore, not be in a position to survive, the Medical Board said that the continuation of pregnancy can pose severe mental injury to the petitioner and no additional risk to the petitioner’s life is involved if she is allowed to undergo termination of her pregnancy. The Court, hence, said that it was in the interests of justice and particularly, to permit the petitioner to undergo medical termination of her pregnancy under the provisions of Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971. [Mamta Verma v. UOI, WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NO.627 OF 2017, decided on 09.08.2017]