International Humanist and Ethical Union
48th Session of the UN Human Rights Council (13 September 2021 to 08 October 2021)
General Debate Item 8
In the Vienna Declaration States explicitly agreed to prioritize the realization of women’s human rights, including the right to health care and the widest range of family planning services.[1]
28 years later and these rights are routinely violated, including through the denial, criminalization and stigmatization of access to safe and legal abortion.
Indeed, just over a month ago, the state of Texas in the USA introduced a law banning most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy despite a constitutional right to the procedure. Earlier in the year, we saw Poland introduce a near-total ban on abortion. Total bans on abortion also exist elsewhere, including in Malta, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. A further 52 countries have conscience clauses,[2] the unregulated use of which results in discrimination and denial of abortion services.[3]
Last Tuesday marked International Safe Abortion Day. Access to safe abortion is a human right. Clearly, it is not one that is being globally realized.
We call on states to fulfil their duty to respect this right with urgency. Including by: eliminating all barriers to the provision of abortion services that lead women to resort to unsafe abortions; removing all legal provisions, including criminal laws, which penalize women who have undergone abortion or medical practitioners who offer these services; and regulating conscience clauses to guarantee that they never restrict access to abortion and reproductive health care.[4]
Anything less equates a clear betrayal of the commitments made in Vienna, and constitutes a systemic violation of the right to dignity, health, non-discrimination, freedom from inhumane-treatment and bodily autonomy.
Endotes
[1] Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, para 41, https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/vienna.aspx
[2] https://abortion-policies.srhr.org/?mapq=q29c
[3] https://fot.humanists.international/countries/europe-southern-europe/croatia/
[4] General comment No. 22 (2016) on the right to sexual and reproductive health (article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights); Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 28; Report to the Human Rights Council of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, 2008, A/HRC/7/11, para. 55.
'Countries must respect the right to safe abortion for all', Humanists International