Marriage, driving, voting, parenting: rights that stay fully intact

A lot of anxiety around adult neurodivergent life centres on rights people assume are at risk, when in most cases they simply aren't. Marriage isn't affected by an autism or ADHD diagnosis on its own — under the Hindu Marriage Act, a marriage can only be challenged on grounds of "unsoundness of mind" preventing informed consent, a far higher and narrower bar than a neurodivergent diagnosis meets. Voting is fully intact too: being under Limited Guardianship for specific decisions does not disenfranchise anyone.

Driving isn't automatically barred either — the Motor Vehicles Act doesn't name autism or ADHD as disqualifying conditions; passing the standard RTO tests and a medical fitness check is the same bar everyone clears. And becoming a parent carries real legal protection: Section 10 of the RPWD Act explicitly prohibits separating a child from a parent on grounds of the parent's disability, and Section 92 protects reproductive rights directly.

The one place this protection doesn't reliably hold in practice is family court. In custody disputes, a parent's ADHD or autism diagnosis is sometimes weaponised by opposing counsel as evidence of "instability," and judges don't consistently have training to tell neurodivergence apart from incapacity. If custody becomes contested, this is worth raising with a lawyer directly and early, rather than assuming the law's protection speaks for itself in a courtroom.