India Woman Dies Following Botched Sex-Selection Abortion

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   May 21, 2012   |   4:32PM   |   Beed, India

A woman in India has died following a botched legal abortion and now the husband and wife doctor team who run the medical clinic where she obtained the abortion face criminal charges.

The PTI news service has more on the abortion death and the reason for the abortion — sex-selection:

Beed district has become infamous for the worst child sex ratio in Maharashtra, as per the 2011 census.

Dr Sudam Munde and Dr Sarswati Munde, the accused husband-wife, run a clinic in the Parli tehsil, police said. According to the police, the victim woman, Vijaymala Patekar, died during abortion procedure at Munde’s clinic yesterday.

As the victim’s relatives got angry, the doctors themselves informed the police about the incident.

According to the police, Patekar had four daughters, and did not want another girl child. Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Shrikant Dhivare told PTI that no one from the victim’s family had filed any complaint against the doctors.

Case was registered against Dr Sudam Munde and his wife for causing death by negligent act under the IPC, and also under Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prevention) Act.

Last year, two people were arrested after another woman died in a botched abortion.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Girish Pandey told the IBN news network, which has a relationship with CNN, that Sabatina Toppo, the head nurse of the district hospital did an abortion on the four-month-old baby of 32-year-old Seema Devi, who died following the abortion procedure.

Devi’s husband Lalan Prajapati brought the woman to a private clinic where Toppo did the abortion. IBN indicates Devi’s grandfather lodged a complaint with local officials after the abortion and they arrested both Toppo and Prajapati on charges of operating an illegal abortion business, causing the death of Toppo and killing a female unborn child. Abortions are legal in India and sex-selection abortions are prevalent in this nation where cultural preference is for boys over girls — especially in rural areas.

The Indian news agency indicated Toppo’s relatives were upset that officials did not act quickly enough and they staged a protest outside of the  Civil Surgeon’s office after no post-mortem was conducted on Toppo within 36 hours following her death from the abortion. Civil Surgeon, Gopal Prasad Srivastav, eventually referred the case to  Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences to conduct the autopsy.

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Women in India are frequent victims of failed legal abortions as a woman died in May 2010 from an abortion at a Marie Stopes International abortion business. According to the Republica newspaper, a woman identified as Durga Devi Khadka went to a Marie Stopes center for an abortion of her 10-week-old unborn child. She died at the MSI facility located in Damak Municipality-15 of Jhapa district.

In January 2010, an India doctor was arrested in a newly-reported case of a botched abortion that killed a woman. The Times of India indicated the Vikhroli police recently registered a case of medical malpractice against Dr. Vinod Ganpati Prabhu.

Prabhu did an abortion on a woman who was three months pregnant in April 2006 at the Priya Maternity Home.

The newspaper indicates a panel of five doctors from JJ Hospital investigated the failed abortion and submitted their report to police on December 30, 2009, asking that Prabhu be charged.

Before that, LifeNews.com reported on another Indian woman who died from a botched legal abortion  and was at least the third to die from a legal abortion and have her case make the Indian media that year.