The term ‘justice’ sometimes appears inadequate to describe the outcome of a legal procedure. A Chandigarh district court’s recent refusal to allow a 10-year-old rape victim to undergo abortion on the grounds that the minor’s pregnancy was 26 weeks old is a case in point. First, the perversely long-drawn legal process led to the pregnancy getting into the ‘advanced’ stage; and then, the ruling was delivered without any remote application of mind to interpret the law to serve what it is meant for: to bring justice to the victim.
As a woman doctor of Chandigarh’s PGIMER pointed out, the victim’s life is at risk either way—whether in termination of pregnancy or in a delivery process that the underage body is not equipped to withstand. The court weighed the two threats and delivered a verdict that it felt gave the victim a chance to live: the idea of a life saddled by the consequence of a heinous crime against her presumably did not occur to the judges.
The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, puts a legal ceiling on abortions in India beyond 20 weeks. It’s perhaps time the Act is revisited so that humane considerations can be brought in—as in this case, where a minor will be forced to a psychologically and socially cursed life. Though such early pregnancy is rare, this is not the first case.
Another 10-year-old victim from Haryana, raped by her stepfather, was similarly denied the right to abort her pregnancy by a lower court. So was a Pune girl. This despite the fact the Supreme Court set a clear precedence in 2015, when it gave a landmark judgement in favour of a 14-year-old rape victim, allowing her to terminate her 25-week pregnancy.
It is tragic that we still have to cope with the downside of the Act, which was brought in to stall female foeticide. Either way the girl child seems to be the sufferer. Women’s rights activists and doctors need to join hands so that the letter of the law—cruelly tardy as it is—does not kill the spirit and justice is stillborn.