THE ANATOMY OF AUTONOMY Feminist Jurisprudential Analysis of Constitutional Progress and Contemporary Realities of Reproductive Rights in India

Reproductive freedom in India is locked in a heartbreakingly ironic paradox. As the Supreme Court gets more protective of bodily autonomy, actual laws in states become even more controlling and punitive. This paper examines the stark contrast between progressive judicial decisions concerning Article 21, including the landmark AIIMS Curative Petition [2026], and inviolable, rigid, nineteenth-century penal logic that continues to govern real-life medical treatment. The courts may assert that the pregnant body belongs wholly to the person. Still, India's legislative machinery insists on treating bodily autonomy as a conditional favour bestowed by the state and not an immutable human right. This paper exposes the legal apparatus of India that it claims will protect its people, through a case analysis of the BNS, MTP Act, Code on Social Security and PCPNDT Act. The research shows, using an intersectional lens applied to data from the NFHS-5 and the e-Shram registry, that poverty and social vulnerability make metropolitan Medical Boards barriers to care. Whether it is disorganised female labourers affected by an unseen economic "child penalty" or rural health practitioners frozen in fear of criminalisation, the law functions to entrench a basic freedom behind gilded gates. Dismantling this medical paternalism and pro-choice agenda is a critical step towards gender equality, but true gender equality will require an overhaul of not just our institutional data ecosystem, but our entire health infrastructure, one that democratises healthcare and explicitly codifies reproductive justice into Indian statutory law.