Abortion has been made legal in India 50 years back, but it is still considered a Taboo in our country, or the majority of people are not even aware that it is completely legal in India for married as well as unmarried women.
The law that Legalises the same is Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 2002 and the law that criminalises the same is IPC (Section 312 to Section 318 of IPC).
Well, the only line of difference between the 2 statues is that of ” GOOD FAITH” and ” WOMEN CONSENT”.
MTP Act says that when a pregnancy of women is terminated with the consent of women, in good faith, it is completely legal, and no doctor can be prosecuted if it terminates pregnancy as per MTP Act and Rules.
As per MTP Act and Rules, Pregnancy of a Women can be terminated up to 24 weeks with the consent of the Woman. If the pregnancy is more than 20 weeks but up to 24 weeks, then opinion of 2 Registered Medical Practitioner shall be required.
Recently Supreme Court in the case of on September 29, 2022, in the case of, “X versus The Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department, Govt. of NCT of Delhi & Anr” held that unmarried women are also allowed to terminate their pregnancy upto 24 weeks.
Even after a lot of efforts by the parliament and the Judiciary to give women the right to safe and legal abortion, women still have to run from one pillar to another for their rights. In a recent case, even after the SC Judgement, a woman was denied MTP as she was unmarried and her pregnancy was more than 20 weeks, read the case here.
Read out more here