NEW DELHI : The Government is making the 45-year old Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 easy to allow abortions even after 20 weeks of pregnancy in case of the babies developing life threatening conditions as also in case of mothers who are victims of rape, incest and other sexual crimes or who are widows or single mothers.
The law so far allows medical abortion of a fetus only up to seven weeks and a surgical abortion only under certain conditions when the fetus is aged between 12 and 20 weeks. A major amendment proposed is to allow the Ayush doctors, staff nurses and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) to conduct the medical terminations of pregnancy through use of medicines that is so far permitted only by the qualified MBBS doctors.
The Health Ministry has drawn up a draft of the proposed changes in the law after wide consultations with the experts who agreed to remove the gestation age limit of the fetus in cases where its survival is impossible for medical reasons and where the fetus is incompatible with life. The draft Bill has, however, put the cap of 24 weeks for any such abortion as experts said it would be riskier for mothers after that.
The draft Bill has been sent to the Law Ministry for vetting and it may be brought in the monsoon session of Parliament, the Health Ministry sources said.
