Case: Meera Kaura Patel v. Union of India
The Supreme Court will consider whether the 35-year-old age limit for doing pre-conceptional and prenatal diagnostic testing is legal.
The age restriction of 35 years in Section 4(3)(i) of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994, is a restriction on the reproductive rights of women, the lawyer Meera Kaura Patel argued in a petition she filed in 2019. Prenatal sex selection is prohibited under the PCPNDT Act. This legislation was created to stop the evil of female foeticide.
The petitioner argued that the rule would not withstand legal scrutiny by citing the Supreme Court's recent decision in X v. Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department, Govt. of NCT of Delhi, which affirmed women's rights to make reproductive decisions.
In X vs. Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department, Govt. of NCT of Delhi, the Supreme Court had held that all women are entitled to safe and legal abortions and that there is no rationale in excluding unmarried women from the ambit of Rule 3B of MTP Rules which mentions the categories of women who can seek abortion of pregnancy in the term 20-24 weeks. However, the Court had clarified that nothing in this judgment must be construed as diluting the provisions of the PCPNDT Act.
The notice was limited to the aforementioned aspect and was issued by the bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay S. Oka.
It also states that no prenatal diagnostic procedures shall be performed or carried out unless the person qualified to do so determines that one or more of the following conditions has been met, for reasons to be documented in writing:
(i) age of the pregnant woman is above thirty-five years;
(ii) the pregnant woman has undergone two or more spontaneous abortions or foetal loss;
(iii) the pregnant woman had been exposed to potentially teratogenic agents such as drugs, radiation, infection or chemicals;
(iv) the pregnant woman or her spouse has a family history of mental retardation or physical deformities such as spasticity or any other genetic disease;
(v) any other condition as may be specified by the Central Supervisory Board.