The Supreme Court, in a Bench led by Justice B V Nagarathna, ruled that no court can compel a woman, particularly a minor, to carry a pregnancy against her will. The ruling affirms that bodily autonomy and reproductive choice are fundamental rights. Courts examining termination petitions must prioritise the woman's consent and wellbeing, not impose continuation of pregnancy as a judicial directive, regardless of gestational age or other circumstances.

This ruling operationalises the reproductive autonomy strand of Article 21 — the right to life and personal liberty — by placing an absolute restraint on judicial coercion in pregnancy-related matters. The Supreme Court has progressively expanded this principle: in X v. Principal Secretary, Health (2022), it held that unmarried women are entitled to safe abortion under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971, and that marital status cannot determine access. The present ruling goes further by establishing that the judicial role is facilitative, not coercive — a court can decide whether a termination request meets statutory criteria, but cannot affirmatively order a woman to continue a pregnancy she has refused.

For minors, this principle is particularly significant. A minor rape survivor, for instance, cannot be told by a court that she must continue the pregnancy because the foetus has crossed the MTP Act's permissible gestational limit. The Court's reasoning draws on the dignity dimension of Article 21: forced continuation of pregnancy is a form of bodily invasion incompatible with constitutional guarantees. The ruling also implicitly addresses gender stereotyping — the assumption that motherhood is always beneficial or that courts know better than the woman herself what she needs. The test the Court applied is consent-centred: the woman's will is the primary datum; statutory and medical considerations are secondary filters, not overrides. This shifts the burden: it is not for the woman to justify refusal, but for the court to find a compelling constitutional reason to override her decision — and the ruling suggests no such reason can ever compel continuation.