"As of today, Rule 3B of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Rules, 2003 (which excludes unmarried women) stands, and this court, while exercising its power under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, 1950, cannot go beyond the statute," it said.
During the hearing, the court had said that it would not permit the petitioner to undergo medical termination of pregnancy at 23 weeks, observing it virtually amounts to killing the foetus.
The High Court noted that the law granted time to unmarried women to undergo the procedure of medical termination of pregnancy and the legislature has purposefully excluded consensual relationships from the category of cases where termination is permissible after 20 weeks and up to 24 weeks and suggested that the petitioner can be kept somewhere safe until she delivers the child who can subsequently be given up for adoption.
Under the present Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Rules 2021, in which the categories of women eligible for abortion of pregnancy up to 24 weeks were specified are survivors of sexual assault or rape or incest, minors, change of marital status during the ongoing pregnancy (widowhood and divorce), women with physical disabilities, mentally ill women including mental retardation, the foetal malformation that has substantial risk of being incompatible with life or if the child is born it may suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities to be seriously handicapped and women with pregnancy in humanitarian settings or disaster or emergency situations as may be declared by the Government.
After the Delhi High Court order refused to allow an unmarried woman to undergo medical termination of pregnancy at 23 weeks, observing it is not permitted under the abortion law after 20 weeks for pregnancy arising out of a consensual relationship, the 25-year-old woman on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court seeking relief.
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