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THE Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy maintains that the acts of getting pregnant and giving birth should not be criminalised. Terengganu's recent amendment to its Syariah Criminal Offences (Punishments) Enactment 2022, specifically Section 29A that criminalises out-of-wedlock pregnancy and birth, threatens and weakens the protections and rights of women and girls to healthcare.
This amendment is the latest in a long list of pieces of pregnancy-related shariah legislation in different states that may do the following: use the pregnancy as evidence or statement of out-of-wedlock sex (Selangor, Negri Sembilan), declare a child as being born out of wedlock if born less than six months of marriage (Kedah), or criminalise out-of-wedlock pregnancy and childbirth outright (Negri Sembilan, Kedah, Perak and Terengganu).
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