India’s Supreme Court has said that all women, including those not married, could get an abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. The bench of Justice D Y Chandrachud, AS Bopana and JB Pardiwala gave the judgment on Thursday on a plea of an unmarried pregnant woman having a consensual relationship but was denied the right to abortion because she was past the 20 weeks limit. The court said that provisions of the Medical Termination Pregnancy Act cannot be interpreted to deny right to a single woman beyond 20 weeks of pregnancy. The court said that if the act and rules were interpreted such that only married women can go for abortion, then the society is also making a statement that “only married women indulge in intercourse”.
The court said excluding unmarried women in consensual relationships would be “unconstitutional”.
In India, Abortion have been legal since 1971 under Medical Termination Pregnancy Act (MTP). Last year, the government amended the MTP to allow several categories of women to seek abortion between 20 and 24 weeks. The category included rape survivors, minors, women with mental disabilities, women with foetuses that had major abnormalities and married women whose marital status had changed during the pregnancy.
The artificial distinction between married and single women is not constitutionally sustainable. The benefits in law extend equally to both single and married women, it said.
Article 21 of the constitution “recognises and protects the right of a women to undergo termination of pregnancy if her mental or physical health is at stake. It is their body and they have full right over abortion or not. Depriving women from taking their personal decision means an affront to their ‘dignity‘”, it said.
The bench also said that the meaning of rape must include ‘marital rape‘ for the purpose of the MTP Act. The society can’t compell a woman to give birth to and raise a child with a partner who inflicts mental and physical harm upon her. The Judges also said that under this law, the meaning of rape would include sexual assault by husbands.
India is yet to criminalise marital rape. Under current laws, sex “by a man with his own wife” who’s not a minor is not rape.
image credits: The Logical Indian
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