Unmarried Women Have The Right To Terminate Pregnancy: SC

The Supreme Court allowed an unmarried woman to terminate her 24-week pregnancy, a plea that was earlier rejected by the High Court.

“We are of the view that allowing the petitioner to suffer an unwanted pregnancy will go against the parliamentary intent and the benefits under the Act cannot be denied to her only on the basis of her being unmarried. The distinction between a married and an unmarried woman has no nexus to the object sought to be achieved by the Parliament”, the bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud, Surya Kant and A S Bopanna said.

“Petitioner should not be denied the benefit merely on the ground that she is an unmarried woman,” the bench added.

The SC said that the abortion will be carried out after a final nod by a medical board by All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi.

The 25-year-old woman is from Manipur and I’d currently living in Delhi. She moved the SC after the HC called the abortion equal to “killing the child”.

The woman said that she wanted to terminate the pregnancy since her partner refused to marry her. She told the court she was afraid of being a single mother due to society’s stigma.

The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act,1971 (MTP Act), allows termination of pregnancy for in the first 20 weeks, and between 20-24 weeks only in special cases.

While the law allows for women who were married and got divorced to seek termination of pregnancy between 20-24 weeks, it has no provision for status change of unmarried women.

The SC criticised HC’s strict adherence to textbook definition of relationship status instead of expanding it to ‘woman and her partner’.