Abortions To Be Allowed At 24 Weeks, Government Approves Changes To Law – NDTV News, Ndtv.com

New Delhi:

The government has extended the upper limit for permitting abortions to 24 weeks, from the current weeks, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters at a Cabinet briefing today, highlighting the increase as a “progressive reform (that) gives women reproductive rights over their bodies.”

The news comes about four months after the center told the Supreme Court that right to reproductive autonomy did not outweigh State’s interest in protecting a foetus’ life and the week limit could not be extended in a blanket manner.

“In a progressive reform and giving reproductive rights to women, the limit of weeks of medical te rmination of pregnancy has been increased to 29 weeks, “Mr Javadekar said, adding this would ensure safe termination and give women reproductive rights over their bodies.

“This is important because in first five months there are cases where the girl concerned does not realise and has to go to court, “the minister added, saying that this was a demand from a section of women and, doctors.

In September, responding to a plea that challenged the constitutional validity a law that fixed weeks as the ceiling for an abortion, the center said the State was morally and duty bound, as the guardian of its citizens, to safeguard the life of a foetus in the womb after it attains the stage of viability.

The government also claimed that studies had repeatedly found in cases where serious abnormalities were detected after the twentieth week, pregnant woman who chose to carry the pregnancy to t erm were able to better cope with the loss, mental anguish and trauma as compared to woman who chose to terminate the pregnancy.

The petitioners had sought to extend the ceiling to weeks.

The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill (2019 to amend the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (1971) will be introduced in the next parliament session.

with input from PTI, ANI

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