New Delhi: In a historic judgement delivered on Thursday, September 29, a bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud emancipated women from the restrictive grip of a 51-year-old abortion law which barred unmarried women from terminating pregnancies which are up to 24 weeks old. The bench said all women are entitled to choose abortion while pronouncing the judgement in the medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) case. "The marital status of a woman can't be ground to deprive her right to abort an unwanted pregnancy. Single and unmarried women have the right to abort under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act and rules till 24 weeks of pregnancy," it added.
The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1971 and its Rules of 2003 prohibit unmarried women who are between 20 weeks to 24 weeks pregnant to abort with the help of registered medical practitioners.
"The rights of reproductive autonomy, dignity and privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution gives an unmarried woman the right of choice as to whether or not to bear a child on a similar footing as that of a married woman," the bench said.
Justice DY Chandrachud held that prohibiting single or unmarried pregnant women with pregnancies between 20 and 24 weeks from accessing abortion while allowing married women with the same term of pregnancy to access the care was violative of the right to equality before the law and equal protection (Article 14).
"A single or unmarried woman may suffer the same "change in material circumstances" or injury to mental health that a married pregnant woman may have. She may be abandoned or lose a job or be subject to domestic violence during an ongoing pregnancy. She may not want to have a child with her former partner. She may also be in danger of her life due to foetal abnormalities. A single woman may also have been exploited or the cause of her pregnancy may simply be due to contraceptive failure, leaving her in mental anguish", the bench said in the order.
The source of her pregnancy may also be the same vulnerability that applies to other women. There is a need to have a forward-looking interpretation of the law, the supreme court said.
"The law should not decide the beneficiaries of a statute based on narrow patriarchal principles about what constitutes permissible sex. This would create invidious classifications," Justice Chandrachud said in the judgment which happen to coincide with the International Safe Abortion Day.
The court said the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act of 2021 has addressed the "continuing crisis" of unsafe abortions. Close to eight women die every day in India due to unsafe abortions. Sixty-seven percent of the abortions carried out in the country between 2007-2011 were classified as unsafe by studies. One of the reasons, the Parliament was aware, of was that women outside marriages and in poor families were left with no choice but to use unsafe or illegal ways to abort unwanted pregnancies. Hence, to address this issue, the 2021 amendments included the word 'partner', showing that the law was not just concerned about women who undergo pregnancy within marriage, but outside marriage too. After all, the medical risk was the same for both married and unmarried women.
The court said the artificial distinction between married and unmarried women was not constitutionally sustainable. "The benefits of law extend equally to single and married women… If women with unwanted pregnancies are forced to carry them out to term, the state would be stripping off their right to determine the immediate and long-term paths their lives would take and deprive women of autonomy not only over their bodies but also over their lives. This will be an affront to their dignity," Justice Chandrachud observed in the verdict.
The court held that reproductive autonomy required every pregnant woman to have the intrinsic right to choose to have or not have to undergo an abortion without any consent or authorisation from a third party.
(PSU Watch– India's Business News centre that places the spotlight on PSUs, Bureaucracy, Defence and Public Policy is now on Google News. Click here to follow. Also, join PSU Watch Channel in your Telegram. You may also follow us on Twitter here and stay updated.)