Abortion is essential healthcare and women’s health must be prioritized over politics

International Safe Abortion Day
28 September 2021
United Nations Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner

On the International Safe Abortion Day, a group of UN experts* stress that abortion is essential health care and a human right. Denial of access to abortion services jeopardizes a person's physical and mental health and takes away their autonomy and agency. It unjustly denies them the freedom to live with dignity and on equal terms with other human beings while exposing them to various forms of violence and oppression.

Furthermore, and as Human Rights bodies have long acknowledged, the denial of abortion services through the criminalization of abortion or through barriers and delays in access to lawful services can in certain circumstances constitute cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment, may amount to torture and could lead to arbitrary detention.

Continued: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=27549&LangID=E

UN Experts Say U.S. Abortion Restrictions During COVID-19 Crisis Violate Human Rights

Experts Condemn States’ Efforts to Restrict Access to Abortion Care

09.08.2020

UN human rights experts have declared that efforts by U.S. states to restrict access to abortion care during the COVID-19 crisis are violations of human rights.

The UN Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls, together with the UN special rapporteur on right to health and the UN special rapporteur on violence against women, asserted in a statement that eight U.S. states—Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Iowa, Ohio, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee—“with a long history of restrictive practices against abortion, seem to have been manipulating the crisis to severely restrict women’s reproductive rights.”

Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/story/un-experts-say-us-abortion-restrictions-covid-violate-human-rights

United Nations: U.S. Authorities manipulating COVID-19 crisis to restrict access to abortion, say UN experts

United States: Authorities manipulating COVID-19 crisis to restrict access to abortion, say UN experts

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
May 27, 2020

GENEVA (27 May 2020) – UN experts* said today that some US states appear to be manipulating the COVID-19 crisis to curb access to essential abortion care.

The UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls said COVID-19 emergency orders suspending procedures not deemed immediately medically necessary had been used by states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Iowa, Ohio, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee to restrict access to abortion.

Continued: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25907&LangID=E

UN statement: Poland must not further restrict sexual and reproductive health and rights

POLAND – UN WORKING GROUP STATEMENT: Poland must not further restrict sexual and reproductive health and rights, say UN experts
by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion

Geneva (22 March 2018) – A group of United Nations human rights experts has called on the Polish parliament to reject a new draft bill entitled “Stop Abortion” which will be debated this week and which risks causing serious damage to women’s health and lives, and violating Poland’s international human rights obligations.

The United Nations Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice has called on the Polish Parliament to reject a draft bill up for consideration this week that would ban abortion in situations where there is a severe fetal anomaly, one of only three legal grounds for termination of pregnancy available in a country that already has one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws.

Continued: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/poland-un-working-group-statement-poland-must-not-further-restrict-sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-rights-say-un-experts/