Right to Life, Right to Choice

The recent decision ofthe Supreme Court of India permitting the medical termination ofa30-week pregnancy represents a significant and carefully reasoned development in India’s constitutional abortion jurisprudence.

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Delivered by abench comprising Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan, the judgment overturned an earlier refusal bythe Bombay High Court and reaffirmed a principle that has steadily gained constitutional recognition: the State cannot compel a woman to carry a pregnancy to term against her will.

The decision is notable not merely for the relief granted in the individual case, but forthe clarity with which it confronts the unresolved tension between two competing constitutional concerns - the protection of potential life and the preservation of a woman's fundamental rights. Justice Nagarathna’s observation that the matter involved difficult moral and legal questions is telling. It reflects anawareness that abortion adjudication cannot be reduced to mechanical statutory interpretation. Yet constitutional courts are required to decide precisely such difficult cases, where moral disagreement cannot be allowed to eclipse constitutional guarantees.

At the core of the controversy lies Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. Over the decades, the Supreme Court has consistently expanded the scope of this provision, transforming it from a narrow guarantee against arbitrary deprivation of life into a broad source of substantive rights. Dignity, privacy, bodily integrity, and decisional autonomy have all been read into Article 21, giving it a dynamic and evolving character.