ILSA Chapter UNS

U.S Abortion Prohibition: A Violation of Women’s Human Rights

By Alma Sanmowa Roida

Abortion has always lain imperfectly within the concept of human rights law. There are high controversies regarding this matter. However, the consensus on abortion and human rights based on the law is that abortion should be safe and accessible. Beyond the law, women should not suffer or die from unsafe abortions. Human rights entitle women that they need to be treated as rights bearers within the health system, allowed not merely to access safe and lawful services but to do so in a manner that respects women’s dignity and respects their needs and perspectives, including while pregnant.[1]As for the challenges to liberal abortion laws, which are based on the right to life of the unborn, the women’s health interest in pregnancy and its termination served as an effective defense. Otherwise, to treat the protection of the right to life as an absolute would prohibit all abortion and many other reproductive health services, with the consequence that unborn life would be regarded as of higher value than the life and health of pregnant women

[1] Joanna N. Erdman. (2014). Abortion in International Human Rights Law. Cambridge University Press. Chapter 27.

 

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