After Delhi HC’s refusal: Supreme Court to hear woman’s plea to terminate 23-week pregnancy

The plea comes three days after the Delhi High Court refused to allow termination of the pregnancy. In oral observations, HC judges suggested that the woman should carry her pregnancy to term and give up the newborn for adoption.

The woman, a permanent resident of Manipur who lives in Delhi at present, told the HC that the pregnancy was a result of a consensual relationship she had had and that she wanted to terminate it, as her partner had refused to marry her. She told the court that she fears stigmatisation as a single, unmarried woman.

She will complete 24 weeks of pregnancy on July 18, the court was told.

“We will not permit you to kill the child; 23 weeks are over,” the bench said. “The child will be in the womb for how many weeks for normal delivery? Hardly how many weeks are left? Give the child to somebody in adoption. Why are you killing the child?”

The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act allows termination of pregnancy between 20 and 24 weeks only to certain categories of women under special circumstances.

As per Section 3B(c) of Rules prescribed under MTP Act, women who undergo “change of marital status during the ongoing pregnancy (widowhood and divorce)” are allowed termination of pregnancy. However, the law does not account for change of relationship status between spouses beyond marriage.

The petitioner had also challenged this provision while seeking interim relief for abortion. The Delhi HC refused the interim relief but issued notice to the Centre on the challenge to the Rules.