Neha Bhayana, Kanika Johri | Hindustan Times | Mumbai | 6 August 2008
Haresh and Niketa Mehta may be the only couple to have gone to the court to plead for abortion, but they are certainly not the one to have realised that they may have to live with the suffering, their child’s and their own.
Gynaecologists feel there is an urgent need to review the country’s abortion law, which does not permit medical termination of pregnancy beyond 20 weeks, since certain abnormalities can only be detected after the foetus is 20 weeks old.
“Heart abnormalities are best detected only by an electrocardiography when the foetus is 22 to 24 weeks old. Some neurological abnormalities also become evident only after 20 weeks,” said Dr Rishma Pai, consultant gynaecologist with Jaslok Hospital. “We have no choice but to turn away such patients.”