NitiRiti Bureau
The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that CIS gender women will also get the benefits entitled to other women under India’s Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) laws.
In an unprecedented ruling, the top court said that all women be it married or unmarried or those raped or subjected to incest will be entitled to terminate their pregnancies.
To interpret the law otherwise would be violative of the right to equality guaranteed to all women, a bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud.
The term “woman” used in this judgment, will include persons other than cis-gender women who may require access to safe medical termination of their pregnancies, the bench said.
The law currently allows a woman to terminate her pregnancy till up to 24 weeks under medical supervision.
This can be done in case there is a grave danger to the life of the woman or a risk of the fetus developing abnormalities.
In both cases, she can also abort if she had been raped.
Acknowledges marital rape
On Friday, the court also said that rape would cover rape by the husband or marital rape, in another first in India’s judicial history.
In another earlier ruling, Justice Chandrachud had expanded the meaning of a traditional family to include newer manifestations of love and relationships.
“A predominant understanding of the concept of a ‘family’ both in the law and in society is that it consists of a single, unchanging unit with a mother and a father (who remain constant over time) and their children.
“This assumption ignores both, the many circumstances which may lead to a change in one’s familial structure, and the fact that many families do not conform to this expectation to begin with.”
Expands definition of family
Familial relationships may take the form of domestic, unmarried partnerships or queer relationships, the court had then said.
“A household may be a single parent household for any number of reasons, including the death of a spouse, separation, or divorce.
“Similarly, the guardians and caretakers (who traditionally occupy the roles of the ‘mother’ and the ‘father’) of children may change with remarriage, adoption, or fostering.
“These manifestations of love and of families may not be typical but they are as real as their traditional counterparts.
“Such atypical manifestations of the family unit are equally deserving not only of protection under law but also of the benefits available under social welfare legislation.
“The black letter of the law must not be relied upon to disadvantage families which are different from traditional ones.
“The same undoubtedly holds true for women who take on the role of motherhood in ways that may not find a place in the popular imagination.”
Societal reality indicates the need to legally recognize non-traditional manifestations of familial relationships, the court said.
Such legal recognition is necessary to enable individuals in non-traditional family structures to avail of the benefits under beneficial legislation, including the MTP Act, the bench said on Friday.
