These instruments ground safe abortion in a constellation of rights, including the rights to life; liberty; privacy; equality and non-discrimination and freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Human rights bodies have repeatedly condemned restrictive abortion laws as being incompatible with human rights norms.
While a majority of women live in countries where they can exercise their right to abortion, 41 percent of women live under restrictive laws. The inability to access safe and legal abortion care impacts million women of reproductive age. According to the World Health Organization, 23, women die of unsafe abortion each year and tens of thousands more experience significant health complications.
Legal restrictions on abortion do not result in fewer abortions, instead they compel women to risk their lives and health by seeking out unsafe abortion care. The legal status of abortion indicates more than just where women and girls are legally permitted to decide whether to a pregnancy term or not.
In short, tracking the legal status of abortion shows us where women and girls are treated with equality and are afforded the opportunity to direct the course of their own lives. Our Abortion Law and Policy Guide showcases international and regional human rights norms, global medical standards, and comparative laws and policies on the following topics:. The Center for Reproductive Rights tracks the most recent developments in abortion law and policy. The laws of countries in this category permit abortion on the basis of health or therapeutic grounds.
The most common gestational limit for countries in this category is 12 weeks. Gestational limits are calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period, which is considered to occur two weeks prior to conception.
Where laws specify that gestational age limits are calculated from the date of conception, these limits have been extended by two weeks. The World's Abortion Laws. View by category Prohibited Altogether i. To Save the Woman's Life i. To Preserve Health i.
Pro-choice activists embraced and cheered while waving the green handkerchiefs which have become symbolic of their decades-long fight for free and legal abortions to be made available to women across the country. Anti-abortion demonstrators meanwhile watched dejected as the bill was passed in the Senate, the last step needed for it to become law. Until now, abortions had only been permitted in cases of rape or when the mother's health was at risk.
Without access to legal abortions, tens of thousands of women had clandestine abortions each year often performed by people not medically qualified. Journalist Jeevan Ravindran asked a selection of Argentine women to reflect on what the change in the law means to them. Metal craftswoman, 42 years old. She says she was lucky that doctors agreed to perform the abortion clandestinely in a hospital, and it went well.
Years later, she had a "backstreet abortion" which she describes as a "terrifying experience". She is confident that legalisation will improve things. Carmen is aware that while the legislation may have changed, people's attitudes may take longer to shift. Legalisation to her is a huge step forwards: "It's very moving. Before, doctors [who carried out clandestine abortions] and women [who had them] were both labelled criminals.
Anti-abortion campaigner and church volunteer, 25 years old. For Belu Lombardi, one of the anti-abortion activists who demonstrated outside Congress on the night of the vote, the legalisation of abortion has come as a bitter disappointment which she promises to fight against. Legalising abortion is a crime, it's disastrous and it's unacceptable," she argues. And I know that we'll get there some day. Criminalization of abortion entrenches inequalities. Vulnerable groups, including people living in poverty or in rural areas, and adolescents -- are the most likely to be driven to clandestine, unsafe, abortions.
No international legal instrument explicitly references the right to have an abortion. However, authoritative interpretations of human rights treaties ratified by Argentina, including by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the UN Committee Against Torture and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, have long established that highly restrictive abortion laws violate the human rights of women and girls, including their rights to life, to health, and not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Forcing a woman or a girl to continue a pregnancy in cases such as when the fetus has serious complications incompatible with life outside of the womb or the pregnancy was the result of rape is a form of inhuman and degrading treatment.
Criminalizing abortion can force pregnant persons to complete a pregnancy, imposing overwhelming burdens that is incompatible with respect for their human rights. Access to abortion is also a critical public health issue. In , the National Health Ministry estimated that between , to , abortions are performed each year in Argentina. In , public hospitals admitted around 40, women and girls for abortion complications.
In , the National Health Ministry reported 35 deaths from abortion, constituting 13 percent of maternal deaths. This is not, and should not be, a debate about religious beliefs, personal anecdotes, or ideological views. By legalizing abortion, legislators would not push anyone to have an abortion. The Impact of Abortion Prosecutions in Ecuador.
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