Clinicians to Lawmakers: Abortion Bans in the United States are Causing a Health and Human Rights Crisis

On the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, abortion bans continue to harm patients and put clinicians in impossible situations. Physicians for Human Rights joins the renewed call for protection of fundamental rights to health and reproductive justice.

January 18, 2024
By William Jaffe, Advocacy Coordinator

January 22 will mark the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which established federal protection of the right to abortion in the United States. Since June 2022, when the Supreme Court reversed Roe, at least 14 states have adopted abortion bans imposing severe civil and criminal penalties on clinicians for providing abortion except in very narrow circumstances. 

Health and human rights advocates across the United States – including Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) – oppose these bans and the profound harm they cause, to patients and clinicians alike. Read on for a recap of PHR’s work on reproductive justice at the national and international arenas, and a look at how we’re gearing up for the year ahead.

Continued: https://phr.org/our-work/resources/clinicians-to-lawmakers-abortion-bans-in-the-united-states-are-causing-a-health-and-human-rights-crisis/


Countries in the Americas should reinforce abortion protections, rights commission urges

El Salvador “stood out,” the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said, for 30- and 50-year sentences for homicide even though activists said women suffered miscarriages.

Feb. 1, 2023
By Reuters

MEXICO CITY — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on Wednesday called for countries in the Americas to reinforce protections for women and girls seeking abortions, after observing measures that “go backwards” last year.

“Both material and formal measures were observed that go backwards in the guarantee of reproductive rights free of all forms of violence and discrimination,” the IACHR said in a statement.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/countries-americas-reinforce-abortion-protections-rights-commission-ur-rcna68574


Global Anti-Abortion Coalition Targets the Organization of American States

The conservative backlash against efforts to expand sexual and reproductive rights in the Americas threatens a dangerous regression in human rights.

Lynn M. Morgan
June 4, 2021

It has been a good year for Latin American sexual and reproductive rights movements. Costa Rica became the first Central American country to legalize same-sex marriage in May 2020, and Argentina legalized abortion in December 2020. The Biden-Harris administration moved quickly in 2021 to rescind former President Trump’s Mexico City policy, also known as the global gag rule; disband former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Commission on Unalienable Rights; and renounce the Geneva Consensus Declaration, which included the assertion that there is “no international right to abortion.” Optimists note a wave of support for sexual and reproductive rights in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and elsewhere in the hemisphere.

Continued: https://nacla.org/news/2021/06/04/global-anti-abortion-coalition-targets-organization-american-states


The fight against Dominican Republic’s total abortion ban intensifies after polarizing decision

Criminalizing abortions is “causing an increase in maternal mortality and morbidity, which places us as one of the countries with the worst health indicators," one medical professional said.

April 14, 2021
By Nicole Acevedo

A promise made on the campaign trail and not kept has now sparked a month of daily protests in the Dominican Republic, one of two dozen nations in the world with a ban on abortions under all circumstances — even when a woman's life is at risk.

Hundreds of women and reproductive-rights advocates began gathering every day outside the executive mansion of President Luis Abinader in mid-March, after Dominican lawmakers failed to decriminalize abortion when a woman's life is in danger, the pregnancy is not viable or in cases of rape or incest.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/fight-against-dominican-republic-s-total-abortion-ban-intensifies-after-n1263978


Pregnant Women Overseas Lose Access to Pre-Natal Care Due to Trump’s ‘Global Gag Rule’

Pregnant Women Overseas Lose Access to Pre-Natal Care Due to Trump's 'Global Gag Rule'

By Brian Padden
July 18, 2019

WASHINGTON - Medical providers say some pregnant women in developing countries have lost access to prenatal health care because of the Trump administration’s expanded “global gag rule” that cut aid to international organizations involved in abortion-related activities.

A recent study in the Lancet Global Health journal also reports that abortions actually increased in Africa when these aid restrictions were enacted in the past.

Continued: https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-politics/pregnant-women-overseas-lose-access-pre-natal-care-due-trumps-global-gag-rule


Trump Administration Expands Assault on Global Abortion Access

Trump Administration Expands Assault on Global Abortion Access

April 18, 2019
Nina Besser Doorley

In March, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced two significant escalations in the Trump administration’s attacks on sexual and reproductive rights globally: a new expansion to the already-devastating Global Gag Rule and the unprecedented use of the Siljander Amendment to attack funding for a multilateral organization, the Organization of American States.

While the latest expansion to the Global Gag Rule has been well publicized, the use of the Siljander Amendment—an obscure legislative provision that prohibits the use of US funds for abortion-related lobbying—to cut more than $200,000 in US funding to the Organization of American States (OAS) has received less attention. Nonetheless, the use of this provision sets a dangerous precedent by attempting to force global human rights bodies to bow to US political pressure.

Continued: https://iwhc.org/2019/04/trump-administration-expands-assault-on-global-abortion-access/


Salvadoran Woman, One of ‘Las 17,’ Freed After Spending 15 Years Behind Bars Following a Miscarriage

Salvadoran Woman, One of ‘Las 17,’ Freed After Spending 15 Years Behind Bars Following a Miscarriage
"I'm so happy to be free and with my family. We need to keep fighting so all the other women can be freed, too," Maira Verónica Figueroa Marroquin told Rewire.News on Wednesday.

Mar 14, 2018
Kathy Bougher

Maira Verónica Figueroa Marroquín, who was convicted of aggravated homicide after a miscarriage in 2003, was freed from prison in El Salvador on Tuesday after her 30-year sentence was commuted to 15 years. Figueroa is one of the “Las 17,” a group of Salvadoran women imprisoned following obstetric emergencies with sentences of up to 40 years.

“I’m so happy to be free and with my family. We need to keep fighting so all the other women can be freed, too,” Figueroa told Rewire.News on Wednesday.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2018/03/14/salvadoran-woman-one-las-17-freed-spending-15-years-behind-bars-following-miscarriage/


El Salvador lawyers fight to free raped teenager jailed for abortion

El Salvador lawyers fight to free raped teenager jailed for abortion

Anastasia Moloney
July 14, 2017

BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Lawyers in El Salvador representing a teenager who they say suffered a stillbirth but was wrongly imprisoned for murdering her child say they will appeal the decision this month in a case that puts the spotlight on the country's strict abortion ban.

Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez, 19, was handed a 30-year prison sentence earlier this month for aggravated murder by a female judge who ruled the teenager had induced an abortion, which is a crime in the Central American nation.

Continued at source: Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-el-salvador-women-abortion-idUSKBN19Z1VA


El Salvador abortion ban under international scrutiny from human rights organization

El Salvador abortion ban under international scrutiny from human rights organization

By Carter Sherman on Apr 20, 2017

In 2008, a pregnant, hemorrhaging woman staggered into a hospital in El Salvador seeking emergency care. The woman, a 33-year-old mother of two, had suffered an obstetric injury that led her to lose the fetus. But because her doctors suspected she had undergone an abortion, they immediately called the police.

The woman was charged with aggravated homicide and sentenced to 30 years in prison, where she later died. But a petition on her behalf was admitted Wednesday by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an international human rights organization, because according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, she was falsely convicted. The woman, who the Center gave the pseudonym “Manuela,” is also one of thousands of women negatively affected by El Salvador’s anti-abortion laws, which are among the strictest in the world.

Continued at link: Vice: https://news.vice.com/story/el-salvador-abortion-ban-under-international-scrutiny-from-human-rights-organization