India’s High Court Denies Abortion for 10-Year-Old Girl
By HARI KUMAR and NIDA NAJARJULY 28, 2017
NEW DELHI — The Supreme Court of India refused on Friday to allow an abortion for a 10-year-old girl who is at least 28 weeks pregnant.
The latest case was first heard this month by a court in Chandigarh, which refused
to allow an abortion, according to Mr. Srivastava’s petition to the Supreme Court.
" Mr. Srivastava said. that Going by the advanced stage of pregnancy, the court has declined to allow the abortion,
In the petition, he said the girl was about 26 weeks pregnant in mid-July; some local
news reports on the hearing on Friday said she might be as far as 32 weeks along.
After reviewing the doctors’ findings, which were not made public, the court ruled
that an abortion at this stage would not be in the girl’s interest, according to Alakh Alok Srivastava, the lawyer who petitioned the court to allow the procedure.
With an abortion ruled out, the remaining options for the girl include inducing labor prematurely or letting the fetus go to term
and be delivered, said Dr. Rishma Dhillon Pai, the president of the Federation of Obstetric and Gynecological Societies of India, which has called for changes in the country’s abortion laws.
