New Delhi: The amendments to the 46-year-old Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act have been given a quiet burial.
The Prime Minister Office (PMO) has sent back the draft to the Union health ministry that proposed right to safe and legal abortion to all women. The PMO has instead asked the ministry to strengthen the existing MTP and Pre Conception-Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC-PNDT) Act.
“The PMO has not specified any particular reason for its decision,” sources said.
The PC-PNDT Act was supposed to be strengthened to prohibit prenatal diagnostic techniques for determination of the sex of the fetus leading to female foeticide.
The decision by PMO has come as a shocker for the health ministry and is considered to be a setback to women empowerment, say activists.
The health ministry will now have to justify the amendments that it had recommended once again before the PMO.
In the proposed amendments would have rised the limit of abortion fr-om 20 to 24 weeks for vulnerable women.
