SNEHAL MUTHA
August 29, 2022
One of the many ways society polices women’s bodies and sexuality is by creating different hierarchies of medical care that a woman could receive based on whether society approves of her lifestyle or not. For instance, did you know that the upper time limit to seek abortion care is different for married and single women in our country? While this could change legally, soon, it does make us wonder, when will women’s rights stop being subjective to society’s understanding of morality?
The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act has to date discriminated between married and unmarried women by limiting the latter’s access to abortion care to a certain limit. The prejudices were in Rule 3B(c) of the MTP Rules, 2003, which allows termination up to 24 weeks for women, who undergo a change of marital status during the pregnancy, but for unmarried women, it is 20 weeks.
Continued: https://www.shethepeople.tv/top-stories/opinion/abortion-care-for-unmarried-women/