Indian Supreme Court will allow 13-year-old to undergo violent late-term abortion

A 13-year-old rape survivor in India will be allowed to kill her preborn child past 27 weeks of pregnancy, due to a decision handed down by the Rajasthan high court.

Justice Sudesh Bansal ruled that allowing the girl to give birth would be traumatizing, and therefore, the abortion should be permitted. At the time of the court hearing, the girl was 27 weeks and six days gestation, meaning she would be at least 28 weeks pregnant when the abortion is actually committed.

As pointed out before the court by medical experts, the vast majority of babies born at this gestation are able to survive outside of the womb. The court ruled that if the baby survives, the hospital should provide life-saving measures and place the child in the custody of the state — so one wonders why, at this late stage in pregnancy, an abortion is even being recommended, especially considering that the girl will, in all likelihood, still have to give birth. She’ll just be giving birth to a dead baby instead of a living one.

“The petitioner is a minor girl whose parents, too, have given consent for termination of the pregnancy. The parents are agreeable to high risk of surgical intervention,” the family’s lawyer, Sonia Shandilya, said. “We maintain that it would be gravely injurious to her mental health if her pregnancy is not allowed to be terminated.”

3rd Trimester Late-Term Abortion | Induction Abortion | What Is Abortion?

The most common abortion procedure committed after 24 weeks gestation is an induction abortion, which typically takes several days to complete. The abortionist will often begin by injecting a fatal shot of digoxin or potassium chloride into the womb, typically aiming for the baby’s head or heart, to ensure the baby’s death by cardiac arrest.

He will then insert laminaria (thin seaweed sticks which gradually expand) into the woman’s cervix to begin the process of dilation. The woman will return the next day to have the laminaria replaced, and if the baby has not died, the abortionist may give the child a second shot of feticide. After another day or two, the mother will return to the abortion facility to give birth to her deceased child, though it is not unusual for the woman to go into labor on her own, at home or in a hotel room.

Somehow, this is deemed a preferable and less traumatic option to delivering the baby alive: for one child who has already suffered severe violence to inflict needless violence on another innocent child. Either way, the 13-year-old girl will be delivering a baby. The only difference is that the abortion will ensure the preborn baby’s death first, which can by no means be considered a better option.