Supreme Courts broadens abortion rights
INDIA’S top court widened abortion rights on Thursday (29) by ruling that all women could end their pregnancy up to 24 weeks from conception, abolishing restrictions placed on unmarried mothers.
Abortions have been legal in India since 1971, the year reforms permitted terminations in various instances including contraceptive failure among married couples.
The marriage requirement was removed in an overhaul of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act last year, which also saw the legal abortion limit raised from 20 to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
But the amended law did not explicitly guarantee abortion rights to unmarried women after 20 weeks to account for the new limit - a guarantee the Supreme Court has now enshrined.
‘The MTP Act recognises the reproductive autonomy of every pregnant woman to choose medical intervention to terminate her pregnancy,’ its judgement said.
Any exclusion of single women’s rights to ‘safe and legal abortion’ would be ‘unconstitutional’, it added.
The decision came in response to a petition from a 25-year-old woman who was seeking a ruling on her right to terminate her pregnancy after her relationship with a domestic partner ended. Indian law has permitted aborz