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Leave me alone, Niketa tells media

Mumbai: Niketa Mehta, who had approached the Bombay High Court for aborting her first child due to a heart anomaly in the foetus, said on Thursday she had a miscarriage.

“I have had a miscarriage,” Ms. Mehta told PTI adding that she wanted to be left alone.

Alleging that she was being harassed by the media, Ms. Mehta said, “Everybody feels sympathy for me but you don’t leave me alone. Can’t you understand that I’m under stress?”

The High Court had dismissed Haresh and Niketa Mehta’s application on August 4, observing that medical experts did not express any “categorical opinion that if the child is born it will suffer from serious handicaps.”

Experts, however, are not sure whether cardiac surgery would be required at or after birth, the court had said.

Under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, pregnancy can be terminated before 20 weeks if doctors believe that the child, if born, will have serious abnormalities, so as to render it handicapped.

Ms. Mehta, the applicant, was in the 26th week of pregnancy. She had moved the court last week, seeking permission to abort, as her doctor found out in the 24th week that the foetus had congenital heart block.

The child, if born, would require pacemaker instantly, and would have a poor-quality life, Ms. Mehta had said.

A Division Bench of Justices R.M.S. Khandeparkar and Amjed Sayed had then constituted a committee of doctors. The committee reported that there “were least chances” that the child would be born with a handicap. — PTI

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