CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has permitted a private hospital in Coimbatore to terminate the 24-week-old foetus of a 29-year-old woman who is suffering from serious health problems. Considering the urgency involved in the matter and taking note of the fact that the woman is in a very serious condition, Justice K Ravichandra Baabu on July 29 directed the Medical Pregnancy Termination Committee in Government Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital to examine the woman the very next day and decide if the pregnancy has to be terminated.
The hospital shall perform the termination of pregnancy under the supervision of the committee and based on the opinion of the consultant neurologist, after obtaining consent from the patient if she is conscious, or from her husband, the judge said. The judge was passing orders on a writ petition from a man in Mysore, praying for a direction to the authorities concerned to terminate the pregnancy of his wife.