Big decision of Supreme Court, unmarried women also have the right to abortion

Hearing on abortion, the Supreme Court of India declared the distinction between married and unmarried women unconstitutional. Also said that all women are equally entitled to safe and legal abortion. A bench of Justice DY Chandrachud held that allowing an unmarried woman to suffer an unwanted pregnancy would be contrary to the object and spirit of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act.

The Supreme Court said that after the amendment of 2021, the word partner has been used instead of husband in Section-3 of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act. This reflects the legislative intent to cover unmarried women in the Act. At the same time, the court asked the AIIMS director to constitute a medical board which would see whether abortion would pose any threat to the life of the woman.

It has been held that the marital status of a woman cannot be a ground to deny the right to abortion to an unwanted pregnancy and even a single and unmarried woman has the right to an abortion under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act The Court further ruled that sexual harassment by husbands may take the form of rape, and the meaning of rape should include the meaning of marital rape under the MTP Act for the purposes of abortion.

The matter came to light when a 25-year-old unmarried woman approached the Delhi High Court seeking termination of her pregnancy at 23 weeks and 5 days, claiming that her pregnancy was the result of a consensual relationship, but she She could not give birth to the child as she was an unmarried woman and her partner refused to marry her.

However, a division bench of the Delhi High Court, comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramaniam Prasad, refused to grant him interim relief. The High Court observed that unmarried women whose pregnancies took place in a consensual relationship were not covered under any clause of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Rules of 2003.

She then petitioned the Supreme Court, which issued an ad-interim order on July 21, 2022, allowing her to terminate her pregnancy, subject to a medical board convened by AIIMS Delhi, which concluded That the fetus can be aborted without endangering the life of the woman.