'Husband's consent not required': Kerala HC allows termination of 21-week pregnancy to woman separated from husband

The Kerala High Court on Monday allowed a man claiming to be separated from her allegedly abusive husband to terminate 21-week-old pregnancy, reported Bar and Bench. The single-judge bench of Justice VG Arun noted that a husband’s consent is not necessary for termination of pregnancy under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act. 

As per the rules under the MTP Act, one of the factors for allowing termination of pregnancy between 20 and 24 weeks is “change of marital status during the ongoing pregnancy (widowhood and divorce).”

While in this case, the woman was not legally divorced with her husband, the court took note of the changed equation of the woman with her husband, against whom she had filed a criminal complaint. 

It noted that the husband’s unwillingness to continue with her, amounts to a “drastic change in her matrimonial life”. 

The high court referred to a recent Supreme Court verdict in which it adopted a purposive interpretation of the MTP Act. It held that the drastic change in matrimonial life of the pregnant woman is equivalent to a 'change of marital status.

"As held in Suchita Srivastava v Chandigarh Admn, a woman's right to make reproductive choice is also a dimension of her personal liberty, as understood under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. There can be no restriction on a woman’s right to exercise her reproductive choice to either procreate or to abstain from procreating," Bar and Bench quoted the high court as observing. 

"Another crucial factor to be noted is that the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act does not contain any provision requiring the woman to obtain her husband's permission for terminating the pregnancy. The reason being that it is the woman who bears the stress and strain of the pregnancy and the delivery," the Court said in its order.

The Court passed the order on a plea moved by a 21-year-old pregnant woman seeking medical termination of her 21+ weeks pregnancy.

The petitioner had met and married her husband, against the wishes of her family, when she was pursuing her undergraduate studies and he was a bus conductor in the area.

After marriage, however, the petitioner alleged that the husband and his mother treated her poorly with demands of dowry. She also alleged that her husband questioned paternity of the unborn baby and refused to provide support, either financial or emotional.