China was the opposite. He completely freed him in 1970, but due to a deep demographic crisis, the country announced in 2021 a ban on abortions that were not performed for medical reasons. [12] [13] In turn, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has called on states to “decriminalize abortion so that girls can safely abort and be treated after an abortion, and to review their legislation to ensure that the best interests of pregnant adolescents are taken into account and that their views are always heard and respected in abortion decisions.” In numerous individual assessments of states` compliance with the treaty, called concluding remarks, the committee has explicitly called for the decriminalization of abortion “in all circumstances.” Canada, Guyana and French Guiana also have laws that allow free legal abortion. However, in some of these countries, abortion is allowed after the deadline if the woman has a valid reason, and experts say that in some of them, abortion is allowed until the fetus is viable, such as in the United States. When abortion is performed by a trained and disinfected health professional, it is one of the least risky medical procedures, let alone childbirth. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has also stressed that “many laws, policies and practices undermine autonomy and the right to equality and non-discrimination in the full enjoyment of the right to sexual and reproductive health, including the criminalization or restriction of abortion laws.” She also noted that abortion restrictions particularly affect women who live in poverty or have little or no formal education. In this context, six UN experts said in a joint press release in 2015 that in El Salvador, “the absolute ban on abortion affects poor women more.” There has been encouraging progress in Latin America and the Caribbean: between 2000 and 2017, four countries expanded the reasons why abortion is legal, while only one – Nicaragua – changed its criteria to ban it completely. In turn, recent discussions on the decriminalization of abortion in Argentina and Chile have fueled public debate, including arguments related to the negative effects of restrictive laws. In legally restrictive environments, clandestine abortions become safer because extremely dangerous methods are replaced by drugs. However, women in the region – and everywhere else – should have access to safe and legal abortion without encountering barriers or risk injury or death. It is undeniable that restrictive measures continue to harm the health and lives of women and girls in many ways. This needs to change.
In countries where such restrictions are imposed, legislation generally provides for a reduced list of exceptions to the criminalization of abortion. This may include that the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, that it is a serious and fatal malformation of the fetus, or that there is a danger to the life or health of the pregnant person. Only a small percentage of abortions are performed for these reasons, meaning that most women and girls living in countries with such legislation could be forced to resort to unsafe abortions, putting their health and lives at risk. The criminalization of abortion and restrictive abortion laws prevent health care providers from doing their job well and providing their patients with the best possible care, in accordance with good medical practice and professional ethical responsibility. If there are assumptions, there are persons and institutions other than women who must certify that the conditions are met. Doctors, judges, psychologists or a simple request for waiting time are among the most common. One of the biggest barriers to these groups` access to abortion services is lack of access to health care. In addition, people who do have access to health care may face stigma and bias when providing health services, as well as the presumption that they do not need access to information and services related to contraception and abortion. In some contexts, 28% of transgender and gender non-conforming people report being harassed in medical settings, and 19% say they are denied medical care altogether because of their transgender status, with an even higher percentage in communities of color. This is due to many interrelated factors such as poverty, race and the multiple discrimination associated with it. In a way, this is true, but not everything. In a few countries, is unrestricted abortion legal until the fetus is viable, the deadline set by Roe v.
The Wade decision, which was handed down 49 years ago. Due to advances in medicine, this limit is now 23 weeks. And only a dozen countries allow abortion for any reason beyond the 15th week of pregnancy, the upper limit of Mississippi law that the Supreme Court is considering, a decision that could overturn Roe`s decision. Deaths and injuries from unsafe abortions are preventable. However, these deaths are common in countries where access to abortion is restricted or banned altogether, as most women and girls who have to have an abortion because of an unwanted pregnancy do not have legal access to it. According to a recent Guttmacher Institute report, Abortion Globally 2017: Irregular Progress and Unequal Access, Latin America and the Caribbean is the region with the highest abortion rates and unintended pregnancies in the world, even though 97% of women live in countries with restrictive abortion laws aimed at preventing and punishing these procedures. Given the growing desire of women and couples to start smaller families, and given the high rates of unwanted pregnancies, abortion is a daily reality: about 6.5 million abortions take place each year in the Region; And the procedure is more common in married women than in single women.