Family of girl ‘raped by father’s colleague’ forced to go to court to seek abortion
'There are definite risks to her health. It will be more troublesome for her the longer it's allowed to continue,' says Dr Nikil Datar
The parents of a pregnant teenage rape victim are appealing to the Indian Supreme Court to allow her to have an abortion.
The 13-year-old is currently 30 weeks pregnant. She alleges that she was raped by her father's colleague, who police have arrested.
Currently Indian law only allows terminations after 20 weeks only if the mother’s life is in danger.
The girls’ parents said they had first discovered she was pregnant when they took her to the doctor in their home city of Mumbai, because they were concerned about obesity.
The doctor, Dr Nikil Datar, told the BBC: “She was brought to me by her parents on 9 August. They suspected she had a thyroid problem or some other medical condition because she was gaining weight. The scan showed that she was 27 weeks pregnant so I informed the police”.
He said he recommended that she should have an abortion because her body was not developed enough to cope with the strain of childbirth.
“Her pelvis is not fully developed to carry a baby to full term and she will go through physical and mental trauma if she's not allowed to abort”, he added. “There are definite risks to her health. It will be more troublesome for her the longer it's allowed to continue”.
The case is one of a spate of abortion cases which have shocked the country in recent months.
Just last week a 10-year-old rape victim gave birth to a baby girl in the northern city of Chandigarh after she was denied the right to abort by a court.
Another 10-year-old, who was allegedly raped by her stepfather, was given permission to abort after her case was brought before the court in the northern town of was allowed to abort.
None of these girls can be named for legal reasons.
Dr Datar said the 13-year-old in the Mumbai case “knows she's pregnant and kind of understands what it means, but not fully”.