Gujarat rape victim not allowed to abort by HC

Manas Dasgupta

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Ahmedabad, April 16

The Gujarat High Court today turned down the plea of a 24-year-old married woman to permit her to terminate her 27-week pregnancy she has conceived during gang rape.

The woman's plea — that giving birth to a child conceived out of wedlock would not be acceptable to her husband — was not acceptable to the court on the ground that the termination of pregnancy beyond 20 weeks was against the existing laws and that it could endanger the health of the mother.

"A 27-week foetus is a living being and has the fundamental right to live," the high court observed.

The court directed the district collector concerned to take charge of the pregnant woman, ensure her safe delivery, see that the child gets born with proper medical care and is not abandoned. The collector was also directed to take assistance of some voluntary organisations and the government Social Welfare Department to initiate the process of adoption of the unborn child, if needed.

The woman was kidnapped from her home in Surat and was lodged in a room in an unknown place where she was raped by seven persons for about six months. She somehow managed to give her abductors a slip on March 14 and reached her parents in Botad in Bhavnagar district. She, by then, was already 24 weeks into pregnancy.