Amnesty International and Women's Human Rights

In April 2007, Amnesty International (AI) adopted a policy on selected aspects of abortion. This policy has been adopted at the international level of the movement and therefore has global application. This policy, along with our wider policy on sexual and reproductive rights, was decided upon after extensive internal and external consultations. These policies have been adopted because of concerns about:

• the consequences of widespread sexual violence against women and girls;
• the failure of virtually all states to prevent sexual violence or provide an adequate remedy for victims and survivors of sexual violence;
• the grave impact that discrimination and lack of access to health care information and services, including reproductive health information and services, has on women and girls; and
• the serious threats that pregnancy without access to safe and appropriate health care services can pose to a woman’s life and health.

AI has long promoted the rights of women and men to make informed choices about sex and reproduction free from coercion, discrimination and violence. AI also has long opposed coercive population control measures such as forced sterilization and forced abortion. AI’s policy on selected aspects of abortion, which is consistent with these other policy positions, is rooted in an analysis of state obligations as defined under international human rights law. AI is committed to addressing those human rights violations that lead to unwanted pregnancies, violations such as:

• sexual violence, particularly in situations of armed conflict;
• arbitrary or unreasonable restrictions on a person’s exercise of the full range of her or his sexual and reproductive rights;
• restrictions on access to sexual and reproductive health information or services due to discriminatory laws, policies, and practices; and
• limited or no access to the resources and factors that support sexual and reproductive health.

Above all else, AI is committed to taking action to stop the human rights violations that result in women’s unequal status, making it impossible for many women to control the terms and conditions of their sexual interactions with men. It is this inequality that is at the heart of the widespread violence experienced by women and girls around the world.

AI’s policy on selected aspects of abortion calls on all states to:

• Provide women and men with comprehensive sexual and reproductive health information and services.
• Repeal laws under which women can be charged and imprisoned for seeking or having an abortion or health care professionals are or can be charged and imprisoned for providing abortion services or information about such services. State regulation of access to abortion is appropriate, including with respect to gestational limits and regulating abortions which are tied to the sex or disability status of the foetus Such regulation of access, however, must not result in imprisonment on any of these grounds. More generalized health care regulations, such as ensuring practitioners are licensed and protection against medical malpractice should continue to be enforced, including through criminal penalties where appropriate. In no circumstances should women face criminal law sanctions.
• Provide all women who experience complications from abortion with access to appropriate medical services regardless of whether they obtained the abortion legally or illegally under national law.
• Ensure that any woman, who has become pregnant as a result of sexual violence, including incest, has access to safe and legal abortion services.
• Ensure that when a pregnancy poses a risk to a woman’s life or a grave risk to her health, she has access to safe, legal abortion services.

AI takes no position on whether a woman facing a risk to her life or health or who has become pregnant as a result of sexual violence should have an abortion. Amnesty is seeking to ensure that abortion services in such cases are safe and accessible to these women so as to prevent the grave human rights violations that could occur if women were denied this option.

Amnesty’s action work on selected aspects of abortion will only be undertaken when an appropriate research base has been developed and it is determined by those involved in the research that national and/or international action is required.

Background

Since the launch in 2004 of its global campaign to Stop Violence Against Women, AI has exposed widespread injustices, including a myriad of forms of sexual violence that can lead to unwanted pregnancies. Many women in these circumstances are doubly stigmatized: first as victims of sexual violence and then for being pregnant. In many countries, women who wish to end unwanted pregnancies resulting from sexual violence have no other option but to resort to unsafe abortions, endangering their lives. For some women, the grim choice is between the risk of an unsafe, illegal abortion and the possibility of imprisonment or being stigmatized for being the victim of sexual violence resulting in a pregnancy. In many countries, women whose lives are endangered by pregnancy are unable to access legal abortion services. Consequently, women who have had an illegal abortion and face medical complications are unable to access life-saving treatment they need from medical service providers without risking criminal prosecution and imprisonment.