WEB DESK
A 10-year-old rape victim gave birth to a baby girl at the Government Medical College and Hospital in Chandigarh on Thursday. Girl was refused permission to abort despite being raped, allegedly by an uncle. According to reports she was unaware that she has delivered a child.
Both the mother and newborn are in good health.The newborn was shifted to the neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU). The newborn is premature, and weighs less than 2.5 kg as the delivery took place at 35 weeks. But she is fine,” said a hospital source. The delivery was done via Caesarean section, scheduled from 9am to 11am.
“The child is too young for a normal delivery. Her pelvic bones are not strong enough to push the baby and she doesn’t have the stamina to bear labour pain,” a doctor told Hindustan Times.
According to sources, the girl has been told that she had a stone in her stomach that had to be removed. The Supreme Court had last month refused to allow the rape victim to undergo an abortion due to risk to her life.
A division bench of Chief Justice JS Khehar and justice DY Chandrachud turned down the plea after the report of a medical board, set up by Chandigarh’s Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) on the court’s orders to examine the pregnant child, warned that an abortion would risk the girl’s life.
“In view of the recommendation made by medical board, we are satisfied it would not be in the interest of girl and neither to foetus who is 32 weeks old. We decline to terminate pregnancy,” the court said.
The order came on a PIL by advocate Alok Srivastava, who moved the top court after a plea for the medical termination of pregnancy was refused by a district court in Chandigarh on July 18. He said rape victim’s body was not ready for childbirth.