USA – It’s Time to Call Abortion Bans What They Are—Torture and Cruelty

The US must learn from other countries where denials of abortion are considered intentional, state-inflicted torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

By Payal Shah and Akila Radhakrishnan
June 9, 2023

On August 24, 2022, Mayron Hollis sought an abortion after receiving news that her pregnancy was endangering her life and its continuation would likely result in uterine rupture and organ damage. Unfortunately, August 24 was also the day that Tennessee’s near-total ban on abortion went into effect. Denied care in her own state and unable to travel to one where she could get the care she needed, Hollis was forced to endure a dangerous pregnancy and birth, where she ultimately suffered severe hemorrhaging and lost her uterus, destroying her ability to give birth to any more children.

There are many terms to describe Mayron Hollis’s experience of being denied an abortion in Tennessee—harrowing, agonizing, unconscionable—but we should also call it what it is: torture and cruelty.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/abortion-bans-torture-cruelty/

Mike Pompeo is Wrong: There Is an International Right to Abortion

As reluctant as Pompeo and the rest of the Trump administration may be to follow the law, the fact remains: The U.S. is party to a number of human rights treaties that protect abortion rights—and adhering to these treaties is a legal requirement.

11/2/2020
by MERRITE JOHNSON

Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a U.S.-led document that fired yet another shot across the bow at reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy. Bookended by a bizarre montage video, the signing ceremony was touted as a watershed moment in the fight against an international movement to declare a right to abortion at the expense of traditional family values. The only problem? There very much is an international right to abortion.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2020/11/02/mike-pompeo-geneva-consensus-declaration-international-right-to-abortion/

Sri Lanka’s Fifth State Party Report in relation to its examination of Submission to the Committee against Torture

November 29, 2016
by Safe Abortion

Background
On 15 November 2016, the Committee Against Torture (CAT), during its 59th session, examined Sri Lanka’s fifth State party report. In October 2016, the Global Justice Center (GJC) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) jointly submitted a shadow report focused on how Sri Lankan law violates the Convention Against Torture by (1) banning abortion in most circumstances, (2) having an antiquated and flawed rape law and (3) by permitting child marriage.

The CAT has established that restrictions to abortion access, especially in cases of rape, incest, fetal unviability and where the health of the woman is at risk, can amount to cruel and inhuman treatment. The CAT has routinely expressed concern about the absence of marital rape provisions and repeatedly found that a widespread and high rate of sexual violence in a country violates the Convention. The CAT has also found that child marriage is a form of ill-treatment.

[continued at link]
Source: Internatonal Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion
(reprinted from Global Justice Center and World Organisation Against Torture)