cruel and inhuman treatment

Dec. 2, 2021
By Mary Fitzgerald

Ms. Fitzgerald is the director of expression at the Open Society Foundations and former editor in chief of the global news site openDemocracy.

The decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case currently before the Supreme Court which focuses on the question of Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, is unlikely to hinge on global data or the finer points of international law. And yet a growing cadre of briefing papers, political accords and court filings are co-opting the language of international human rights groups to argue against the basic rights and freedoms that most Americans have enjoyed for decades.

These arguments are worth addressing. They tell us worrisome things both about the health of American democracy and about what could happen if the court reverses Roe v. Wade next year.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/02/opinion/abortion-restrictions-roe-wade-usa.html

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)

The World Is Lifting Abortion Restrictions. Why Is the U.S. Moving Against the Tide?

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