Women's consent to sexual act does not mean forsaking reproductive rights: Delhi HC

A woman giving consent to a sexual act cannot be presumed to have consented for violation of her reproductive rights, ruled a Delhi court. The judge added that the same applies to sexual relations that are of a consistent and long duration.

The court was addressing a bail plea of a man accused of raping a woman several times and forcing her to abort. The petitioner had alleged that the man befriended her on Facebook and forced her to have sexual relations. The FIR says that she was raped multiple times and forced to carry out abortions. She was pregnant for the fourth time when the accused assaulted her again, reported The Indian Express.

Additional Sessions Judge Vishal Gogne observed that the act of contravening reproductive autonomy through multiple pregnancies and abortions takes away the element of consent which may have been given for the sexual act itself. The court also observed that the counsel for the accused sought to get bail on the basis of the "sexual autonomy" of the woman.

The bench stated that the exercise of sexual choices by a woman does not vest any corresponding right in the partner to exploit her sexually. The woman does not forsake her other rights, including reproductive rights, when she enters into a sexual relationship with a partner.

The court also noted that it would be a decision of immense difficulty for a young woman to go ahead with pregnancy as a single mother, especially when the child has been fathered by a person she has accused of rape.