New Delhi, Compelling a rape survivor to continue with a pregnancy resulting from the crime and fastening the responsibility of motherhood on her against her will would amount to a serious impairment of her right to live with dignity, the Delhi High Court has held.
To compel a survivor of sexual assault to carry and deliver a child conceived as a consequence of the alleged assault might subject her to further and enduring physical and psychological trauma, the court added. The judge observed that while the advanced gestational age of the pregnancy required heightened medical caution, it could not by itself deprive the minor of consideration of her rights to bodily autonomy, dignity and reproductive choice. The court made the observations while allowing a plea on behalf of a 15-year-old rape survivor seeking the termination of her pregnancy, which had exceeded 30 weeks of gestation. Justice Jain said while exercising jurisdiction under Articles 226 or 32 of the Constitution, the court must give due primacy to the best interests and welfare of the minor mother-to-be, while simultaneously considering the statutory framework under the MTP Act.
“In cases arising out of sexual assault, compelling a survivor to continue with a pregnancy resulting from the assault and thereby fastening upon her the responsibility of motherhood against her will would amount to a serious impairment of her right to live with dignity,” the court said in its September 8 order. The court said it was constrained to observe that cases like this one leave an “indelible sense of anguish” and noted that the petitioner was a child of aged merely 15 who had already been subjected to the trauma of a heinous sexual assault and, to add to her vulnerability, had lost both her parents.
“A child of 15 years cannot, in the eyes of this court, be reduced to the description of a ‘mother’ merely because she has been forced into pregnancy as a consequence of sexual violence,” the court said.
