Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act

Key points

• • The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act legalises ending a pregnancy under stated conditions and shields a registered medical practitioner who acts within its limits.
• • Lawful grounds include serious risk to the woman's life or health, a substantial risk of grave abnormality in the fetus, and pregnancy resulting from rape or from failure of contraception.
• • One registered medical practitioner's opinion is enough up to twenty weeks; two are required from twenty to twenty-four weeks for specified categories of women; and beyond twenty-four weeks a State Medical Board decides in cases of substantial fetal abnormality.
• • The woman's own written consent is required, and for a minor or a person with mental illness the consent of a guardian is needed.
• • The identity of the woman is kept confidential, and ending a pregnancy outside the conditions of the Act remains a criminal offence.