Tuesday, 23.8.2022

The court made the observations while hearing a petition by a 25-year-old woman who challenged the lower 20-week limit under Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971 that applies to single women who seek to end a pregnancy. The woman said she had been abandoned by her partner.

A woman whose live-in relationship has ended should be given the same rights to end an unwanted pregnancy as a widowed or divorced woman, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday, indicating that it will interpret the law to include “unmarried woman” or “single woman” under provisions that allow abortions till up to 24 weeks.

The court made the observations while hearing a petition by a 25-year-old woman who challenged the lower 20-week limit under Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971 that applies to single women who seek to end a pregnancy. The woman said she had been abandoned by her partner.

“Going by the legislative intent, a widow has lost support of her life partner and in divorce too, there is loss of support from life partner. This logic will equally apply to a woman who has been abandoned,” observed the bench, which comprised justices Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, AS Bopanna and JB Pardiwala.

The court reserved its order, indicating its order will interpret the law to include “unmarried” or “single” woman in the sections in question.

The specific gap was in Rule 3B(c) of the MTP Rules, 2003 that allows women who undergo change of marital status during the pregnancy — either by way of widowhood or divorce — to undergo termination of pregnancy till up to 24 weeks.

“Take a case where a married woman is neither divorced nor widowed but deserted. She is cast away and has no source of livelihood. Should the law be understood to mean that because she is technically not divorced, she cannot have the right to abort her pregnancy?” the bench noted.

Extending the same logic to unmarried women, the judges said: “For the purpose of a woman’s mental health, both actual and foreseeable factors have to be borne in mind. A woman on being deserted faces foreseeable difficulties. Such a situation where a woman is abandoned will apply to both married and unmarried woman.”

The court was posed with the same situation in the case at hand where the petitioner, a 25-year-old woman hailing from Manipur, was in a consensual relationship and realised in June this year that she was pregnant. By then, her partner had ended the relationship, leaving her to approach the Delhi high court for termination of the 24-week foetus.

The high court on July 15 declined permission on the ground that she was unmarried. The Supreme Court, however, on July 21 allowed her to get the foetus aborted at Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). The court held that the MTP Act recognised the woman’s bodily integrity and reproductive right and allowing her to suffer an unwanted pregnancy would violate this intent of Parliament.