India’s top court grants equal abortion right to married, unmarried women

By Shuriah Niazi

NEW DELHI (AA) – India’s top court on Thursday ruled that all women are entitled to a safe and legal abortion process and making any distinction between a married and an unmarried woman in this regard is unconstitutional.

“Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (MTP Act) allowing termination of pregnancy beyond 20 weeks and up to 24 weeks cannot be denied to a woman merely because she is unmarried,” ruled the Supreme Court.

The court said that to deny the right of abortion to an unmarried woman beyond 20 weeks would be violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.

The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill, 2020, allows only survivors of rape, minors, women whose marital status changed during pregnancy, mentally-ill women, or women with fetal malformation to terminate pregnancy up to 24 weeks.

In cases of pregnancy due to a consensual sexual relationship, termination of pregnancy is allowed only up to 20 weeks as per the rules.

The court also said that the law cannot create such artificial classification based on such narrow grounds of marital status.

The present case came up for discussion after a 25-year-old unmarried woman approached the Delhi High Court after she came to know about her pregnancy.

The High Court refused to give relief to the woman on the ground that an unmarried woman who is carrying a child out of a consensual sexual relationship cannot be allowed to terminate pregnancy beyond 20 weeks under the MTP Rules.

Later, the woman moved the Supreme Court.

The apex court overturned the decision of the Delhi High Court, ruling that the marital status of a woman cannot be a ground to deprive her of the right to abortion and that even unmarried women would be entitled to terminate an unwanted pregnancy within 24 weeks.