The petition that Nima Purohit(37) and her husband, Ujjwal Purohit filed in the Supreme Court in 2012 for amending the Medical Termination of Pregnancy(MTP) Act, 1972 is still pending. It’s been now almost five years since Nima underwent pregnancy termination. “When we lost our baby, our dreams were shattered,” she says.
The couples claim that if the Act included provision to delay abortion beyond the 20-week gestation period, their child would be alive now.
Abortion based on a wrong diagnosis
Nima- a lawyer by profession underwent the abortion one day before the 20 week period got over, afraid that the foetus suffered a brain anomaly and so any delay in the decision would be costly. However, a few weeks later, a test result revealed that her baby was perfectly healthy. This took place in May 2012, two years after the couple’s marriage. “We were so excited about our first baby. I went through all necessary scans,” says Nima.
On October 2012, while she was in her 19th week of pregnancy, an anomaly scan showed the foetus’ brain to be under-developed.
The doctors had the suspicion that the baby may have Dandy Walker syndrome-which could potentially harm the baby’s motor skills, thereby making the child wheelchair-bound for life. “I researched and researched on it. We had only five days left to decide on whether we wanted an abortion,” says Nima.
If the deadline had passed, only the court could have permitted, or denied, the pregnancy termination.
As per the MTP Act’s Section 3(2)(b), abortion is legal permitted until the 20th week of a baby suffers from physical or mental handicap. Just days before Nima’s tests showed the anomaly, a Mumbai-based woman was diagnosed with foetal anencephaly. In that case, the discovery was made after the 20 week period. The Surpreme Court denied permission to abort.
“I thought about the woman who was carrying a baby knowing it would die after birth. Those five days were full of dilemma,” says Nima.
After undergoing an MRI scan, Nima consulted a specialist in Boston Children Hospital in America. As per the specialist, the baby could be brought up in America with available medical and social support.
However, the Purohits couldn’t migrate to America. Nima was also aware that the existing social, financial and medical systems in the subcontinent wouldn’t be sufficient. She visited a Dadar based pediatric neurologist for a second opinion.
The neurologist’s suspicion was that the baby may be suffering from Blake’s Pouch Cyst- a brain defect. But an amniotic fluid test was needed to confirm it.
But the problem was that the test would take four weeks.
“By then, I would have reached 22 weeks of pregnancy. What if my baby had the disorder and I was denied abortion like the other woman?” Nima says.
On October 17, a day before the 20 week deadline, she decided to let go of the baby.
“If only there was some provision in the Act for special cases, I would have perhaps continued with pregnancy. Such tests or their timely diagnosis are not in our hands,” she says.
Failing repeatedly to conceive
She tried to become pregnant for the next two years, with no luck, even failing in attempts at in-vitro fertilization.
Along with her husband- a businessman, she filed a petition in the SC to amend the MTP Act. This particular petition, along with multiple others on the same issue would get a single hearing now.
“We are demanding that the pregnancy termination cap be raised to 24 weeks. The court has asked the Union government for a report on this, which is pending,” Advocate Sneha Mukherjee said. Over the past year, she has represented at least five women in court over the MTP Act.
Gynaecologist, Nikhil Datar is also someone who has filed a petition in this regard. He says that several anomalies get diagnosed late- in the 18th or 19th week of gestation. “It is usually the poorer section that bears the brunt of delayed diagnosis,” he says.
After the abortion, both Ujjwal and Nima underwent genetic tests to ensure that nothing was wrong with them. When the attempts to conceive kept failing, Nima started meditating to relax herself. She was able to conceive again in 2015. Her first child, Prahil is now two years old. About him, she says, “He is normal.”
She says she was skeptical during the anomaly scan in her second pregnancy. “Deep down, I can never forget the baby I lost because I was forced to abort it,” she says.
Many experts say that the law need be discussed in detail. “We expect more such cases to come since awareness on the MTP Act has increased,” Datar says.
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