Maharashtra woman allowed to abort 26-week pregnancy after foetal anomaly report

3 min readMumbaiUpdated: Jun 23, 2026 12:44 PM IST

The Bombay High Court had directed the Raigad Civil Hospital to constitute a medical board to examine the foetus's condition. (Image generated using AI).

The Bombay High Court Monday allowed a woman to terminate her over 26-week pregnancy after the medical board of the Civil Hospital in Maharashtra’s Raigad district opined that the foetus has “strong congenital heart disease”.

A division bench of Justices Bharati H Dangre and Manjusha A Deshpande passed an order on June 22 on a plea by the woman in her twenties seeking permission for the earliest abortion under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971.

The court observed that even if the woman were to give birth, the child to be born “would require further medical attention” and as she has “categorically stated that she belongs to a weaker strata of society”, “the family may not afford such treatment.”

Advocate Dhruti Kapadia, representing the woman, stated that the medical certificate issued by the Civil Hospital found the foetus suffered from anomalies, prompting her client to approach the Bombay High Court. Kapadia argued that the petitioner was not financially sound to afford the treatment if the child were born.

Medical board report

The court then directed the Civil Hospital to constitute a medical board to examine the foetus’s condition.

On June 22, the bench perused the medical board’s report, which indicated the foetus had strong heart disease, which needs “tertiary cardiac care for delivery, and the newborn, even after birth, would require multiple cardiac surgeries for survival.”

‘In the wake of the report dated June 18 placed before us, since the foetus suffers from some anomalies and, in the wake of the opinion that the child may require post natal cardiac surgeries, which would involve financial burden, and since the Petitioner, a married woman with 26 weeks and 11 days of pregnancy, has also expressed her desire to terminate it in the wake of the status of the foetus in her womb,” the court noted.

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The court also directed the Civil Hospital to carry out the procedure at the earliest.

Under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, a pregnancy is allowed to be terminated only on the advice of doctors. Medical termination of pregnancies is allowed up to 24 weeks, and after that, a medical board has to be set up in “approved facilities”, which may allow termination of pregnancy only if there is a substantial foetal abnormality.