Between trauma and legal delay, a woman’s fight to end her pregnancy

The Bombay High Court has often underscored a woman’s bodily autonomy in such cases, granting relief to minor victims of sexual assault.

A 33-year-old Pune software engineer in the 24th week of her pregnancy finds herself caught in an increasingly surreal legal battle that not only complicates her personal situation but also throws up larger questions over laws governing termination of pregnancy.

The Bombay high court on Friday dismissed a petition filed by a 33-year-old married woman seeking an abortion under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971, observing that she did not fall into any of the categories or situations under which women are permitted to terminate their pregnancy up to the 24th week, under the MTP Rules, 2003. (HT Archive)

In early July, she found out that her husband — who she met on a matrimonial website and married in 2025 — was married to another woman and their divorce was not yet finalised. Weeks later, the woman found out she was around 13 weeks pregnant. She then moved to terminate her pregnancy and approached clinics in Pune. However, under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971, at least two doctors need to clear an abortion when the pregnancy is beyond 12 weeks, which she was unable to procure. She said the clinics insisted she get a court order.

However, the Bombay High Court, which heard her August prayer only last week, refused to grant her relief under the MTP Act, stating that she did not fall within any of the seven categories of women who can be permitted to undergo an abortion with the approval of a medical board constituted under the Act.

Her lawyer is now preparing to move the Supreme Court, where they may have to seek an urgent hearing.

The law provides exceptions for victims of rape, incest, or for women whose marital status may have changed at a later stage in the pregnancy like divorce or widowhood to be referred to a medical board for termination of the pregnancy past the 24th week.

The Bombay High Court has often underscored a woman’s bodily autonomy in such cases, granting relief to minor victims of sexual assault. However, for the woman in this case, the court could only offer its empathy.

“Although we empathise with the predicament of the petitioner (woman), unfortunately, in the facts of the present case, we see no legal relief for her under the provisions of the MTP Act, 1971,” a division bench of justices Bharati Dangre and Ashish Chavan said in their order last week.

However, the woman argued that the court’s delayed hearing pushed her pregnancy past the threshold.

“I was 15 weeks pregnant when I approached the High Court. But I am past 24 weeks now. The delay was not on my part. But I am the one who has to suffer,” the woman told HT. To be sure, the High Court judges took note of this — they wrote in their order that the woman learnt about her pregnancy after an ultrasound on July 26 and approached the court in August.

However, the case was placed before the judges for a hearing on October 6.

Her lawyer, Narayan Mishra, who also represents her husband’s previous wife, said that of the various legal pursuits before the woman, the termination of her pregnancy is most urgent.

The sequence of events that led her to the court is etched in the woman’s memory.

On the matrimonial website where she first encountered him in 2023, his marital status was described as “never married.” They were of the same age but from different castes and separate regions. Their marriage was solemnised in February 2025. She told HT that she had a miscarriage in 2025 and that her husband and her mother-in-law began ill-treating her and “hurling caste slurs.” She said the humiliation escalated dramatically after she grew suspicious of her husband’s secretive use of his phone. One day she found his phone and saw a number of blocked accounts on his Instagram which carried the same surname. She followed up on her suspicions and eventually tracked down a man on Instagram who told her his sister was married to her husband.

“This man told me his sister had filed divorce and domestic violence proceedings against my husband in Mumbai but that the divorce had not been granted,” the woman said.

After further verifying facts, she lodged an FIR against her husband on July 20 at the Kalepadal police station in Pune accusing him of bigamy and offences under the SC/ST Act.

Ever since, she has been trying to terminate her pregnancy and frets that with each passing day an abortion might become untenable.

“The law won’t let me terminate it at this stage. Bringing this child into the world is going to be very hard. I am not prepared to be a single parent. I don’t know what to do.” The woman’s elderly parents have moved to Pune from their village in Vidarbha to live with her. “I am living off my savings,” said the woman. “My parents are elderly and none of this is easy for them either,” she said.

Gynaecologist and medical activist Nikhil Datar said he had filed a case in the Supreme Court two years in which he had listed 22 different categories of women who are not covered by the 2021 amendment in the MTP Act. “The rules under the MTP Act make an exception for a divorced or widowed woman but not for a woman in a live-in relationship or a woman cheated by her husband. Her right to terminate pregnancy is linked to her relationship with her husband. What logic does that have?” he asked. On the question of a woman’s bodily autonomy, he said: “Up to the 20th week a woman can get an abortion if she says her contraceptive failed. Why does this change in the 21st week?”