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Mumbai, India | AFP | A 13-year-old rape survivor who was allowed to terminate a late pregnancy by India’s Supreme Court has given birth to a pre-term baby boy, a doctor said Friday.
The teenager was 32 weeks pregnant, well beyond India’s 20-week legal limit after which terminations are only allowed where there is a danger to the life of the mother or the baby.
On Wednesday in a rare ruling the top court had allowed the girl to terminate the pregnancy in view of the “trauma she has suffered… and the agony she is going through at the present”, according to the copy of the order reviewed by AFP.
Nikhil Datar, a Mumbai-based doctor who had examined the girl earlier, said the doctors took a call to save the foetus, a decision they said was in line with the Supreme Court order.
“Terminating pregnancy as sought by the Supreme Court means discontinuing the pregnancy and not killing the foetus,” Datar told AFP.
“The Court focused on mother’s health as she is a minor and after the termination we have to accept the consequences as they come.”
The baby, who is in intensive neonatal care, will be put up for adoption, the hospital said.
The girl, who cannot be named as per Indian law, was raped allegedly by her father’s colleague who has been arrested.
In recent months courts have received a number of petitions from women — including young rape survivors and trafficking victims — seeking abortions where pregnancies had gone beyond 20 weeks.
Activists say the restriction should be extended to 24 weeks as victims of rape are often late to report their pregnancies.
India has a gruesome record of sexual assaults on minors, with 20,000 cases reported in 2015, according to government data.
i think that wonderful the unborn child was given life.my friend was raped by indian but she kept baby loves him as her child.man has been charged and goin court.thankyou for not killing unborn child.that is murder and regardless how that child was conceived nobody has right destroy life.i would adopt that child.im financially able to raise child.abortion murder.give life to baby best choice.ur concious is clean.thanku givin birth and gettin adopted.iname him hope.
Of course we have the right to destroy life, its in our DNA, don’t we do it every day? The cycle of creation is life consumed life! Thats just it! We kill animals to eat it, we kill plants to eat it, animal kill animal for survivals. I’m happy someone will choose to raise this child, hopefully it doesn’t carry the low energy of a rapist and happy the young girl will not be responsibility for raising a child she didn’t ask to carry. A woman BODY is sacred and precious and shame on any one that violate a PERSON body for their base animal sexual instinct.I’ll sometimes wonder if they themselves were the product of their mothers being rape. God help us if that is the case….
i grieve woman aborting their own children.im so happy that girl did not abort.when woman raped not fault of unborn child.i havea friend who was conceived out of rape.mother kept child.she a beautiful woman touches people lives.