The Decriminalization of Abortion: A Human Rights Imperative

Reproductive rights are human rights, and they include the right to safe, accessible, and legal abortions. Over 40 million abortions take place each year. In most developed countries and in many developing countries, abortion is legal on demand until the 12th or 14th week of pregnancy, and abortion is legal beyond that timeframe when there is a threat to the woman’s life or health, or fetal impairment, or when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. Nevertheless, the majority of women of childbearing age live in countries where abortion is much more restricted, and nearly 20% of women ages 15 through 44 live in countries where abortion is not permitted at all or is only permitted when necessary to save the woman’s life.

Criminalizing abortion drives the market for abortions underground, leading to an increase in clandestine, unsafe abortions. Unsafe abortions are defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as procedures for terminating unintended pregnancies carried out either by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimal medical standards, or both. In fact, the WHO categorizes all illegally performed abortions as “unsafe,” in part due to the unlikelihood that a woman experiencing post-abortion complications will seek and receive timely medical care in such an environment. The WHO estimates that 22 million abortions are performed unsafely each year.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health describes the prevalence of abortion criminalization worldwide as follows:

In States where abortion is criminalized, particular grounds for seeking an abortion may be exempt from criminalization. In the most severe cases, however, abortion is completely criminalized without exception — a situation that exists in only a handful of States — or allowed only to save the life of the woman. Approximately 25 per cent of the world’s population lives under legal regimes that prohibit all abortions except for those following rape or incest, as well as those necessary to save a woman’s life. Slightly less restrictive legal regimes permit abortion on a number of physical health, mental health and socio-economic grounds, such as poverty and number of children. Finally, abortion is unrestricted on any grounds in 56 States, though limits still exist with respect to how late in pregnancy an abortion will be permitted. 

The criminalization of abortion – either by punishing the women who choose to have abortions or by punishing the service providers that perform them – violates women’s reproductive rights, leads to devastating health consequences, and has a disproportionately grave impact on the most vulnerable women in the world. It is therefore of vital importance that countries with restrictive abortion laws change those laws and make legal abortion a real, accessible option for all women.