Just when the Supreme Court has allowed unmarried women to have their 24-week pregnancy terminated, legal experts have hailed a recent Kerala High Court verdict allowing a married woman, who is living separately but is not legally divorced, to terminate her pregnancy without the permission of her husband.
While allowing the petition by a 21-year-old woman, Justice V.G. Arun held that she cannot be denied permission for terminating her pregnancy on the premise that she is not divorced and her marital status has, therefore, not changed. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act has included married women whose marital status has changed ((widowed or divorced) during the course of their pregnancy in the category of women eligible for termination of pregnancies up to 24 weeks.
