Nepal – Decrminalise abortion: Rights activists

By Ram Kumar Kamat
Mar 18, 2023

Kathmandu – Article 38(2) of the constitution ensures the right of every woman to safe motherhood and reproductive health thereby acknowledging the right to safe abortion as part of reproductive health right, but in practice, women have not been able to enjoy this right, due to criminalisation of abortion and a number of restrictive measures.

Executive Director of Forum for Women, Law and Development Sabin Shrestha said Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act, which was brought to enable women to enjoy their reproductive health rights, conversely prohibited abortion after 28 weeks of pregnancy.

Continued: https://thehimalayantimes.com/sports/decrminalise-abortion-rights-activists

18.03.2023

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Centre for Reproductive Rights

decriminalisation of abortion

Prabhakar Shrestha

Sabin Shrestha

Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act

Legal Yet Limited: Abortion Rights in Nepal

Gaps in Access and Equity Pose Challenges to Reproductive Rights

Shivani Mishra, Associate, Women's Rights Division
June 13, 2022

Following the deaths of countless women who had undergone unsafe abortions, Nepal legalized the procedure in 2002. In 2018, Nepal’s government went further to protect women, enacting legislation that recognizes seeking abortion as a fundamental human right. But more needs to be done to expand safe abortion access across the country.

Nepal’s abortion law permits women to seek abortion for any reason up to 12 weeks of gestation, and up to 28 weeks in cases of rape or incest. Abortion is also legal up to 28 weeks of the pregnancy if a licensed medical practitioner identifies a risk to the woman’s mental or physical health or if the fetus is “likely to become non-viable.”

Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/13/legal-yet-limited-abortion-rights-nepal

13.06.2022

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Human Rights Watch

Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act

Nearly half of the pregnancies in Nepal are unintended, UN agency says

Half of the 1.2 million pregnancies in the country were unintended and nearly 359,000 ended in abortion in 2017.

Arjun Poudel
March 31, 2022

Nearly half of the pregnancies in Nepal are unintended and close to two-thirds of them ended in abortion, according to a recent report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The UNFPA’s “State of World Population 2022” report titled, “Seeing the Unseen”, says half of the 1.2 million pregnancies in 2017 in Nepal were unintended and nearly 359,000 were aborted.

Continued: https://kathmandupost.com/health/2022/03/31/nearly-half-of-the-pregnancies-in-nepal-are-unintended-un-agency-says

Nepal – Women still unable to enjoy reproductive health rights

Women still unable to enjoy reproductive health rights

Published: December 21, 2018

It has already been four months since the Parliament passed Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act, but due to lack of effective implementation many women across the country are not able to enjoy these rights.

The act has legalised abortion and it has the provision for free abortion service at all public health facilities. This law makes abortion legal for all cases up to 12 weeks’ of gestation on request, up to 28 weeks’ gestation in cases of rape or incest, and at any time if the pregnancy poses a danger to the woman’s life, or physical or mental health, or in case of foetal abnormality.

Continued: https://thehimalayantimes.com/kathmandu/women-still-unable-to-enjoy-reproductive-health-rights/

21.12.2018

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National Women Commission

Puskar Raj Nepal

Sabin Shrestha

Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act

Groundbreaking legislation protects women’s, girls’ and newborns’ health rights in Nepal

Groundbreaking legislation protects women’s, girls’ and newborns’ health rights in Nepal

Oct 29, 2018
By Stephanie Bowen, Director of Strategic Communication, White Ribbon Alliance

White Ribbon Alliance members across the world offer congratulations to our colleagues from the Safe Motherhood Network Federation Nepal (SMNF/WRA Nepal) on the passage of the Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act, 2018. This achievement is part of a larger effort to embed reproductive, maternal and newborn health and health rights into Nepal’s Constitution, accomplished in 2016, then strengthen the country’s laws to uphold these rights. After more than a decade of work, on October 15, 2018, Nepal’s House of Representatives unanimously passed the groundbreaking law, explicitly protecting the health and rights of women, girls, adolescents and newborns.

“Achieving this victory was far from simple or straightforward,” said Dr. Arzu Rena Deuba, Founder of SMNF/WRA Nepal “It took years of hard work and remaining focused on our goal of embedding quality, respectful maternal and reproductive healthcare for women and girls into Nepal’s constitution and its laws.”

Continued: https://medium.com/@WRAglobal/groundbreaking-legislation-protects-womens-girls-and-newborns-health-rights-in-nepal-52c901c2c509?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=5e57b7e9-ecd4-45a3-ba79-5af3822200e5