The Bombay High Court recently distinguished between ‘mental health’ and ‘mental illness’ in order to allow an 18-year-old woman to terminate an unwanted 26-week pregnancy on the ground that further continuation of the pregnancy would adversely affect her mental health.
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION
WRIT PETITION (L.) NO.21977 OF 2021
XYZ … Petitioner
V/s.
State of Maharashtra and ors. … Respondents
UJJAL BHUYAN &
MADHAV J. JAMDAR, JJ.
DATE : OCTOBER 06, 2021.
The Bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Madhav Jamdar relied upon the judgment in the case of Sidra Mehboob Shaikh v. State of Maharashtra, among other verdicts, to conclude that mental health is a wider concept that encompasses mental illness within it.
“Many individuals with poor mental health may not be formally diagnosed with any mental illness.” the order stated.
Hence even though they sounded similar, the expressions mental health and mental illness are not the same, the Court held.
LEGALFLAME 