ORAL STATEMENT
Humanists International
UN Human Rights Council, 60th session (8 September to 8 October 2025)
General Debate on Item 8: Follow-up and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action
Speaker: Mirane Vella
President,
The gap between the human rights commitments in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and the lived realities of people seeking to exercise their reproductive rights is stark. Access to safe, legal, and timely abortion is a matter of human dignity, health, and equality, yet in 2025 we continue to see systemic barriers that undermine these principles.
Abortions happen at similar rates regardless of the legal regime,[1] but unsafe or clandestine abortions continue to happen when it is criminalized, risking maternal mortality and injury. Measures short of criminalization should also be denounced, such as laws in Brazil requiring public hospitals to display anti-abortion signs.[2]
The United States has also willingly endangered the lives of women and girls around the world with its foreign aid cuts,[3] as well as domestically, as its patchwork legal system creates differentiated abortion access,[4] privileging those with the means to travel for abortions.[5]
Finally, SRHR (Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights) are increasingly weaponised in times of war, with attacks on hospitals and reproductive healthcare facilities,[6] as well as the use of rape as a weapon of war.[7]
We call on all states to act on their obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law, and to guarantee safe access to SRHR around the world, and to recognize that sexual and reproductive health is indivisible from other human rights.
Thank you.
[1] https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-worldwide
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/19/rio-de-janeiro-anti-abortion-signs
[3] https://www.guttmacher.org/2025/01/family-planning-impact-trump-foreign-assistance-freeze; https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Global-Gag-Rule_Fact-Sheet_1-27-25.pdf
[4] https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/choice-law-era-abortion-conflict
[5] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/13/health/abortion-bans-lead-to-births-infant-deaths/index.html; https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2025/guttmacher-institute-releases-data-state-residence-us-abortion-patients-traveling
[6] https://www.abortionstatement.org/
[7] https://humanists.international/2025/06/humanists-spotlight-role-of-religion-and-patriarchy-in-gender-based-violence-during-un-panel/
'International Safe Abortion Day 2025', Humanists International