Editor’s note. The following is excerpted from a post provided by PNCI–the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues.
During its recent session, the UN treaty monitoring body for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) told a number of countries that they must remove laws and policies regulating abortion including mandatory counseling and waiting periods.
All related documents can be found here.
Russia
CEDAW objected to Russia’s recent measures to provide counseling to women before they resort to abortion and to mandatory waiting periods. CEDAW referred to the policy measures as “barriers to access to safe abortion services” and called for their removal.
The policy measures were designed to reduce the abortion rate and were successful. The Russian Federation explained how in the period of 2010-2014, the total number of abortions dropped by 24.1 per cent (to 881,400 in 2013 from 1,161,700 in 2009) and the number of abortions per 1,000 women of fertile age declined to 24.5 in 2013 from 30.5 in 2009 (a decrease of 19.7 percent).
There was a 33.8% reduction in abortion among women with their first pregnancy; 27.4% reduction for abortion for unspecified reasons; 84.6% reduction for criminal abortions.
According to the report, the reduction in the number of abortions was the result of “systematic work done to prevent them” which included an increase in the number of “women’s counselling centres with medical and social assistance offices” to 856 in 2014 from 419 in 2011. 150,000 women were helped at the centers in 2014. …
The “Give me life!” campaign– “a large organizational effort to protect the reproductive health of the public and prevent abortion, particularly among adolescents”–is underway throughout the country with engagement from medical organizations, social welfare, education, youth and public organizations and representatives of various religious faiths and is believed to have helped reduce the number of children destroyed in abortion.
The objectives for the Framework for State Family Policy is also detailed in the report and includes “developing the life-protective function of the family and creating conditions for ensuring the health of family members, including with regard to the prevention of abortions.” Russia vowed to continue policies to lower the maternal mortality rate and reduce the number of abortions.
Slovakia
During review of Slovakia’s report, CEDAW was critical that abortion on request is not covered by public health insurance, that legal abortion is not available in four districts owing to conscientious objection, and objected to an amendment to the Healthcare Act in 2009 which “introduced a mandatory 48-hour waiting period, compulsory counselling and in case of girls under 18 years old, parental consent prior to abortion and the duty of doctors to report each case where a woman is seeking abortion to the National Health Information Centre with personal details”.
CEDAW recommends that Slovakia revise its legislation to ensure universal coverage by the public health insurance of all costs related to legal abortion, including abortion on request and revise the Healthcare Law as amended in 2009 and remove the requirement for mandatory counselling, remove “medically unnecessary waiting periods”, and remove third-party authorization (parental consent).
CEDAW seeks “unimpeded and effective access to legal abortion” for all women in the State party. It also wants mandatory referrals in case of conscientious objections by institutions and wants the information provided by health care professionals to abortion-minded women to be “science-and evidence-based and covers the risks of having or not having an abortion to ensure women’s full information and autonomous decision-making.”
Malawi [Southeast Africa]
Malawi was told to change its law to legalize abortion and to ensure “its legal and practical availability, without restrictive reporting requirements, at least in cases of threats to the life and/or health of the pregnant woman, rape, incest and serious impairment of the foetus”.
Portugal
The Committee objected to new abortion regulations in Portugal enacted through 2015 amendments to the Law on Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy of 2007. That mandated four separate consultations prior to abortion and fees for the abortion. CEDAW told Portugal to annul the new measures and “organize its health services so that the exercise of conscientious objection in such cases does not impede their effective access to reproductive health care services, including abortion.”
United Arab Emirates
CEDAW told United Arab Emirates that it “notes with concern” that abortion is criminalized “except in very limited cases, which do not include incest, rape and threats to the health of the pregnant woman” and urged the State party to “legalize abortion at least in cases of rape, incest, threats health of the pregnant woman” and to “remove punitive measures for women who undergo abortion.”
Timor-Leste [between Indonesia and Australia]
CEDAW found fault with article 141 of Timor-Leste’s Penal Code which it claims “further restricted women’s access to safe and legal abortions by stipulating that abortion is only legal when necessary to protect the life of the mother and that, in such cases, it must be authorised by a panel of three doctors, and by allowing other health professionals to lodge an objection to the proposed abortion.”
The Committee recommends that the State party: “Review article 141 of the Penal Code to legalize abortion in cases of rape, incest, threat to the health of the pregnant woman and serious impairment of the foetus, and remove the requirement of authorization by a panel of three doctors.”
PNCI notes that it was agreed at ICPD [1] that laws on abortion were to be determined by the national and local legislative process yet the members of CEDAW continue to pressure countries to abandon national laws and enact the non-binding pro-abortion ‘recommendations and observations’ they issue.
[1] The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which took place in Cairo, Egypt, in September 1994.