The Supreme Court on Friday said it may loosen the restrictive grip of a 51-year-old abortion law which bars unmarried women from terminating pregnancies which are up to 24 weeks old, saying the prohibition was “manifestly arbitrary and violative of women’s right to bodily autonomy and dignity”.
A Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and J.B. Pardiwala considered pronouncing a judgment which would put these unmarried women on par with anguished women with less than 20-week-old pregnancies who run the danger of suffering a mental breakdown because they had conceived due to the failure of “family planning devices or methods”.
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.
