New Delhi: In a rare case, a 35-year-old Maharashtra woman recently expressed her wish to have a second child with her husband who had filed for divorce. She pleaded before a family court for conception through restoration of conjugal relations or in-vitro fertilisation before her biological clock times out.
According to a report in The Times of India, the judge observed that the issue of reproductive rights is "emotionally debatable and gender intricate" and can generate legal and social complications and consequences.
The court, though, added it can only hold that the woman has a right to reproduce and is entitled to exercise it but acknowledged that law has limitations. But holding her request for her husband to donate his sperms for artificial insemination as a "legitimate, eugenic choice of hers", the court directed the couple to an assisted reproductive technology (ART) expert.
It said that the husband's consent for ART is crucial.
The TOI report further stated that the court, in its order this week, court cited international laws and treaties on personal autonomy and reproductive health to back her "reproductive rights" as being the "basic civil rights of a human being". The court directed the couple to head for consultation with a marriage counsellor on Monday (June 24) and fix a meeting with an IVF expert within a month.
The husband, however, opposed the plea as being illegal, an illusion and against social norms.
The couple, both professionals, have a minor child. The husband, who is based in Mumbai, had filed for divorce alleging cruelty by her in 2017 and she approached a court in Nanded for restitution. But while both petitions were pending, she also approached the Nanded family court in 2018 with an application to have another child with him.
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