NEW DELHI: Caught in the interplay of law, ethics and morality in the case of a 26-week-old healthy and viable foetus‘s right to natural gestational life and the carrying woman’s choice to terminate her pregnancy, the SC on Friday decided to seek a fresh report from a medical board in AIIMS on the unborn child’s condition and the woman’s mental state.
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A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra asked the 27-year-old married woman, a mother of two sons, to appear before the medical board for examination on two counts – whether the foetus suffered from substantial abnormality (which would legally permit termination of pregnancy even after 24 weeks); and whether continuance of the pregnancy to its full term would be jeopardised by medicines being taken by the woman since October last year for post-partum psychosis, which she was diagnosed with after the birth of her second child.By the time the board’s report reaches the SC, the foetus will be 27 weeks old.