Under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971 and its Rules 2003, for unmarried women between 20 weeks and 24 weeks pregnant with the help of registered medical practitioners are not entitled to an abortion. The latest amendment to the MTP Act was done in 2021.
The court said that the rights to reproductive autonomy, dignity and privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution give the unmarried woman the right to choose whether to give birth to a child as the married woman.
The court has said that barring single or unmarried women between 20-24 weeks of pregnancy from having an abortion, while allowing married women in such a situation would be violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.
A single woman may face the same "change in marital circumstances" as a married pregnant woman. She may have been abandoned or without a job, or she may have been a victim of violence during pregnancy. Discrimination between married and unmarried women is not constitutionally correct. The benefits of the law are equally available to single and married women.
The term reproductive right is not limited to having or not having children. Women's reproductive rights include women's rights and freedoms. Reproductive rights include the right to access to education and information about contraceptive and sexual health, the right to choose safe and legal abortion, and the right to reproductive health care.
The objective of the MTP Act is to include marital rape under the category of rape under the woman's right to reproductive and decisional autonomy.
