KARACHI, Feb 14: Five female foetuses — two in jars and three in plastic bags — were on Tuesday found in a Manzoor Colony garbage dump within the remit of the Mehmoodabad police station.

While the police surgeon believed that the foetuses might have been preserved as specimens for study purposes in a medical college or a biological laboratory before being disposed of. The recovery stirred debate among doctors about medical ethics and current abortion practices in the country.

The foetuses, aged between five and nine months, were found in the garbage dump near a storm drain.

The police spotted the jars and the plastic bags in Street 11 of Sector-E and called the rescue service to shift the foetuses to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for an examination, said Mehmoodabad SHO Rao Muqeem. “Their examination has revealed that they had been preserved in formalin for a considerable period of time,” said Police Surgeon Dr Hamid Pariyar while speaking to Dawn.

He added they smelt as if they had been kept in formalin for quite some time, suggesting that they might have been preserved in a medical college or a biological laboratory before being dumped.

He said that one of the foetuses was nearly nine months old while the other four were younger. “All of them were female foetuses.”

They weighed 300 grams, 314gms, 325gms, 365gms and 392gms, hospital sources said.

Special Secretary Health Dr Suresh Kumar said that accurate time of their death (or abortion) could not be ascertained due to the fixation of internal and external tissues by formalin. “Probably they had been preserved for teaching purposes,” he observed.

Dr Shershah Syed, a senior obstetrician, was of the opinion that midwives generally did not dispose of foetuses in such a manner if they had carried out abortions at some private clinic.

He said although he had not seen the foetuses, there was a strong possibility that a laboratory might have been cleaned up and foetuses kept in the jar might have been discarded in the garbage dump.

“However, it can be ascertained if traces of formalin are found on the foetuses,” Dr Syed maintained.

A handout issued by the office of the health minister stated that a committee had been constituted to inquire into the circumstances under which the five foetuses were found in a garbage dump in Manzoor Colony. The committee would be headed by Dr Kumar, it said.

According to a senior official of the Edhi Foundation, Anver Kazmi, about four years back, six foetuses in jars were found along Massan Road in Keamari.

Debate on medical ethics The recovery of the five foetuses stirred debate among medical professionals, with some senior doctors pointing out that the job of a medical professional is not to get judgmental on patient’s actions but to save a life.

The incident needed to be thoroughly investigated and there was a dire need to create public awareness on the issue of abortion, the doctors said.

“Abortion is a sensitive issue and people must avoid jumping to conclusions in the absence of complete details. The media, too, must not sensationalise the matter since we don’t know the conditions which forced a woman or women to abort the pregnancy and the circumstances in which the procedure was carried out,” said Dr Syed, who is currently heading the Pakistan National Forum on Women’s Health.

It could be a case of improper disposal of clinical waste or termination of pregnancy by unqualified medical practitioners whereas the patient could be a rape victim, he added.

Dr Syed also called for a DNA test of all the foetuses to determine whether they belonged to the same woman.

“Given that the foetuses weighed only between 300gms and 400gms it was very possible that they were all conceived by a single woman,” said Dr Nighat Shah, who represents the Society for Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Pakistan.

She said the foetuses could be between 18 and 20 weeks.

“Multiple pregnancies are usually the result of fertility treatment, but the incidence of five pregnancies even in such cases is uncommon. In these circumstances, doctors have no choice but to abort the pregnancies considering there is little chance of the babies’ survival.

“The staff that carried out the procedure might have thought that the foetuses were too small and threw them in the garbage dump. But, ethically speaking, it’s wrong. Once body parts are formed, respect must be given and the foetuses should have been buried,” she said.

Legal status Commenting on the legal status of abortion, Dr Shah said that the foetus attained the right to life only when it started breathing independently.

“Abortion is allowed legally and religiously under certain conditions, but most doctors think otherwise compelling a large number of women, largely poor, to seek treatment from unqualified staff,” she said.

Subsequently, they end up having lots of medical complications, or even die, she added.

“Maternal life is important and if qualified doctors discourage women from seeking abortion, they will naturally seek help from quacks,” she said, while calling for spreading awareness about modern family planning methods and making them accessible to the people.

According to estimates, about 890,000 induced abortions are carried out every year in the country and the procedure — contrary to the general perception that it is sought by unmarried women — is wanted by married women, with four to five children, who consider abortion an ‘easier family planning tool’ rather than using contraceptives.

According to official statistics, about 276 women die per 100,000 live births on account of pregnancy-related complications in Pakistan. Of them, 13 per cent of women die of abortion-related complications.