Abortion Within and Beyond Medico-Legal Frameworks
The World Health Organisation (2022) states that universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, including abortion, ‘is central to both individual and community health, as well as the realization of human rights.’ International human rights bodies such as the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women therefore recommend that governments decriminalise abortion and provide safe, timely, and legal access to services. The legalisation and provision of safe, evidence-based abortion services is important not only for avoiding unsafe abortion-related mortality, but for substantive, intersectional gender equality and the protection of many other rights.
