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Abortion of Fetus with Down’s Syndrome: India Joins the Worldwide Controversy Surrounding Abortion Laws

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Abstract

Abortion continues to be a moral and ethical dilemma in medicine. While abortions in general have always faced social stigmas, the abortion of fetuses with Down’s syndrome in particular remains the subject of debate across the globe. In India, under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, abortion is legal under prescribed circumstances only till 20 weeks of gestation. Laws for abortion after 20 week of gestation are ill defined. In a recent ruling of the Supreme Court in India, a woman was denied the right to abortion of her 26 week old fetus. With this ruling, India has joined the rest of the world in the debate surrounding abortion laws and the ethics of abortion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, India

    Alankrita Taneja

  2. Department of Community Medicine, Employees State Insurance Corporation Medical College and Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Bangalore, India

    Sharath Burugina Nagaraja

  3. Department of Forensic Medicine, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, Mangalore, India

    Jagadish Rao Padubidri

  4. Forensic Medicine Division, Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, King Fahd Hospital of the University, University of Dammam, Dammam, Saudi Arabia

    Mohammed Madadin & Ritesh G. Menezes

Authors
  1. Alankrita Taneja
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  2. Sharath Burugina Nagaraja
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  3. Jagadish Rao Padubidri
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  4. Mohammed Madadin
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  5. Ritesh G. Menezes
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ritesh G. Menezes.

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All the authors declare that they have no competing interest.

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Taneja, A., Nagaraja, S.B., Padubidri, J.R. et al. Abortion of Fetus with Down’s Syndrome: India Joins the Worldwide Controversy Surrounding Abortion Laws. Sci Eng Ethics 24, 769–771 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-017-9926-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-017-9926-y

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