IMPORTANT POINT
The central legal point established in the judgment is the recognition of the constitutional right of women to make reproductive choices and the recognition of women's autonomy over their reproductive decisions, particularly in cases of rape victims seeking termination of pregnancy.

A 16-year-old rape victim who does not want to give birth to the child of a man who sexually assaulted her has approached this court through her mother seeking permission for medical termination of her pregnancy.

2. It is alleged that the victim while studying in the XIth standard was sexually abused by her 19-year-old lover and became pregnant. A crime was registered as Crime No.210/2024 of Edakkad Police Station, Kannur City based on the intimation from the Doctor at Pariyaram Medical College under Section 376 IPC and Sections 4(1), 3(a), 3(b), 6(1), 5(j)(ii) of the POCSO Act, 2019 and Sections 3(1)(w)(i) and 3(2) (v) of the SC/ST(PoA) Act.

3. The victim is now in her 28th week of pregnancy. Permission to terminate the pregnancy has been sought on the ground that the continuation of the same would adversely affect the mental and physical well-being of the victim as well as the child.

4. I have heard Smt.Shameena Salahudeen, the learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri.T.C.Krishna, the learned senior panel counsel appearing for the 1st respondent and Smt.Deepa Narayanan, the learned Senior Government Pleader appearing for respondents 2 to 5.

5. Until 1960's, abortion was illegal in India. The Shantilal Shah Committee was formed in the mid-1960s to examine the need for regulations governing abortion. As a result, the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 (for short, MTP Act) was enacted legalising safe abortions and protecting women's health. The law is an exception to the criminalisation of abortion under the Indian Penal Code. MTP Act permits licenced medical professionals to perform abortions in specific predetermined situations as provided under the legislation – such as, when there is danger to the life or risk to the physical or mental health of the pregnant women, when pregnancy arises from sex crime or rape or intercourse with lunatic women etc., and when there is substantial risk that the child when born would suffer from deformities and diseases. The MTP Act was amended in 2021 to allow abortions up to 24 weeks of gestation, raising it from the previous 20 weeks for “certain categories of women”. These are listed under Rule 3B of the MTP Rules notified under the MTP Amendment Act and include survivors of rape, incest, minors, women experiencing a change of marital status (widowhood or divorce), women with disabilities, women with foetal anomaly and those living in emergency, disaster or humanitarian crisis. The Amendment Act allows termination of pregnancies beyond 24 weeks only in cases of foetal anomalies of the child. It sets up State Level Medical Boards to decide if the pregnancy may be terminated after 24 weeks in cases of substantial foetal abnormalities. The MTP Act also provides for the protection of women's privacy, confidentiality and dignity in accessing safe abortion services.

6. The right of a woman or a girl to make autonomous decisions about her own body and reproductive functions is at the very core of her fundamental right to equality and privacy. Reproductive rights include the right to choose whether and when to have children, the right to choose the number of children and the right to access to safe and legal abortions. The constitutional right of women to make reproductive choices as a part of personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution of India was firmly recognized by the Supreme Court in the landmark judgment in K.S.Puttaswamy v. Union of India [(2017) 10 SCC 1]. The Constitution Bench reiterated the position adopted by the three-judge Bench in Suchita Srivastava v. Chandigarh Administration[(2009) 9 SCC 1] which held that the right of a woman to have freedom to reproductive choice is an insegregable part of her personal liberty, as envisaged under Article 21 of the Constitution and that she has sacrosanct right to her bodily integrity. Following Puttaswamy (supra), the three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court, recognizing the importance of women's autonomy over her reproductive choic