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	The right of a woman to make autonomous decisions about her own body is a fundamental human right by OHCHR, UNFPA, Carter Center, PBS, agencies   June 2023   United States: Abortion bans put millions of women and girls at risk, UN experts say. (OHCHR)   Millions of women and girls across the United States have suffered an alarming deterioration in access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, following the US Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion in June 2022, UN experts said today.   As of January 2023, abortion has been banned in 14 States across the country, and the consequences of the Supreme Court decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organisation has reverberated throughout the entire legal and policy system, the experts said.   “The regressive position taken by the US Supreme Court in June 2022, by essentially dismantling 50 years of precedent protecting the right to abortion in the country, puts millions of women and girls at serious risk,” they said. The experts also pointed to violations of International Human Rights Law, as a result of the judgement.   Abortion bans in 14 States have made abortion services largely inaccessible and denied women and girls their fundamental human rights to comprehensive healthcare including sexual and reproductive health. The experts said the bans could lead to violations of women’s rights to privacy, bodily integrity and autonomy, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, equality and non-discrimination, and freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and gender-based violence.   “Women and girls in disadvantaged situations are disproportionately affected by these bans,” the experts said. They referred to women and girls from marginalised communities, racial and ethnic minorities, migrants, women and girls with disabilities, or living on low incomes, in abusive relationships or in rural areas.   The experts noted that existing exceptions, although narrow, have proved unworkable in practice. “The conditions of the exceptions often do not reflect medical diagnosis and sometimes exclude health-threatening conditions,” they said: “Even in cases where physicians determine that the abortion can go ahead, they may still find it difficult to assemble a full team given the reluctance of other health professionals.”   They warned that the Supreme Court decision also had a chilling effect on doctors and healthcare workers who may face legal consequences for their care decisions, including those regarding medically necessary or life-saving abortions or the removal of foetal tissue from women with incomplete miscarriages.   “We are particularly alarmed by the increasing reports of threats to the lives of abortion service providers across the country,” the experts said.   The threat of criminalisation in many States has discouraged women and girls from engaging with the health system and seeking prenatal care the experts said.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/06/united-states-abortion-bans-put-millions-women-and-girls-risk-un-experts-say http://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/planned-parenthood-ceo-says-blocking-it-from-medicaid-funding-is-devastating-to-patients http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/womens-reproductive-rights-center-stage-dnc-113017944 http://reproductiverights.org/abortion-on-ballot-2024 http://reproductiverights.org/maps/abortion-laws-by-state/ http://www.opendemocracy.net/en/trump-win-us-global-africa-women-girls-abortion/ http://www.ippf.org/news/our-statement-reinstatement-global-gag-rule http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases http://www.hrw.org/news/2023/04/18/human-rights-crisis-abortion-united-states-after-dobbs   http://reproductiverights.org/un-human-rights-abortion-girls-not-mothers-ninas-no-madres http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/06/peru-violated-child-rape-victims-rights-failing-guarantee-access-abortion http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jun/14/all-pregnant-women-are-in-danger-protests-in-poland-after-expectant-mother-dies-in-hospital http://www.ippf.org/   June 2022   UN experts denounce Supreme Court decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, urge action to mitigate consequences. (OHCHR)   UN human rights experts have denounced the decision by the US Supreme Court to strike down Roe v. Wade, a near half-century legal precedent that has protected women’s right to choose to have an abortion and called on President Joe Biden to take all necessary measures to mitigate its consequences.   Describing the decision as a shocking and dangerous rollback of human rights that will jeopardize women’s health and lives, the experts said: “What has happened in the United States today is a monumental setback for the rule of law and for gender equality. With the stroke of a pen and without sound legal reasoning, the US Supreme Court has stripped women and girls in the United States of legal protections necessary to ensure their ability to live with dignity.”   “The Court has completely disregarded the United States’ binding legal obligations under international law, including those stemming from its ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ever more regrettably at a time when many countries have, in what is a positive trend, liberalized their abortion laws to respect and uphold women’s human rights to life, health, equality and non-discrimination, privacy and freedom from violence and torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” they added.   The experts noted that whereas the restrictive new legal environment in the United States will not reduce an individual’s need for abortion, it is guaranteed to increase the number of women and girls seeking clandestine and unsafe abortions, particularly those belonging to racial minorities and living in poverty, and will fuel abortion stigma, leading to abuse of women in need of post-abortion care. “The intimidation and stigma that will be faced by pregnant women and girls in need of safe abortion services and abortion providers will create a nightmare scenario for those dealing with the uncertainty and trauma of an unplanned pregnancy,” they stated.   They also expressed concern about the lack of clarity of the legal parameters of abortion post Roe v. Wade, which will now vary depending on where one resides, and the risk of prosecution. “We are deeply concerned about the plight of women who will be forced to leave their homes and travel to other states seeking safe abortion or who will be made to endure forced pregnancy and motherhood,” they said.   The experts called on the Biden administration to issue executive orders protecting access to safe abortion, provide funding to states for the provision of safe abortion services, and restricting measures aimed at limiting travel for abortion seekers and providers across state lines, among other mitigation measures.   They also reminded State legislatures that it is still within their power to protect abortion rights and access to abortion services at state level and called on them to act accordingly to protect women and girls and other persons who may become pregnant from serious violations of their human rights.   “The decision to continue a pregnancy or terminate it must fundamentally and primarily be a woman’s decision as it will shape her whole future personal life and family life. The right of a woman to make autonomous decisions about her own body and reproductive functions is at the very core of her fundamental right to equality, non-discrimination, health, and privacy,” they said.   What has happened in the United States today is a profound setback for the rule of law and for gender equality. The excessive use of the legislative process, executive power, and judicial authority over the years to restrict and criminalize abortion rather than to expand it and ensure equitable access to safe abortion services, signals a deeply troubling erosion of democratic values and process.   * UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/06/usa-un-experts-denounce-supreme-court-decision-strike-down-roe-v-wade-urge http://www.unfpa.org/press/unfpa-statement-global-implications-new-restrictions-access-abortion http://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/2022/carter-center-statement-on-roe-v-wade.html http://www.fordfoundation.org/news-and-stories/stories/posts/in-the-wake-of-roe-a-resurgent-fight-for-reproductive-justice/ http://www.globaljusticecenter.net/press-center/press-releases/1669-190-organizations-urge-un-special-rapporteurs-to-act-on-dobbs-v-jackson-supreme-court-decision http://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/08/want-rate-your-government-just-look-womens-rights http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01241-7/fulltext http://time.com/6189495/roe-overturn-women-leadership/ http://www.hhrjournal.org/2022/07/roe-overturned-lessons-from-latin-america/ http://www.fidh.org/en/international-advocacy/european-union/european-union-protection-abortion   May 2022   UN special rapporteur on the Right to Health, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng urges the US supreme court not to reverse abortion rights. (Guardian News)   The United Nations special rapporteur on the right to health, one of the international body’s most important human rights advocates, has urged the US supreme court not to end federal protections for abortion rights in America.   The comments from the special rapporteur, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, come after a leaked supreme court draft opinion showed a majority of the court’s conservative justices support overturning the nearly 50-year-old precedent in Roe v Wade.   The 1973 decision provided federal protections for abortion rights, and invalidated dozens of state abortion bans. It also became a beacon for the global feminist movement, which over the next five decades helped liberalize abortion laws across dozens of countries, including most recently in Latin America, and enshrine the right to abortion in international human rights law.   The right to abortion, “speaks directly to women and girls, who are often in many societies not seen as people”, Mofokeng said in an interview with the Guardian. The right to abortion speaks to who owns women’s bodies in society and, “who fully can decide – and benefit from that bodily autonomy”.   If the court were to end protections for abortion, at least 26 US states would be certain or likely to outlaw abortion, forcing women to travel hundreds of miles to the nearest clinic, self-manage abortions with medication and heighten the risk of prosecution, abuse and violence for both women and doctors.   “It sends chills down my spine to think that the court is being brought on to play – as a very powerful player – to decide on an issue of human rights that has jurisprudence, and has a basis in legal findings, that will actually lead to restriction of rights,” said Mofokeng.   Mofokeng was the lead expert in an amicus brief to the supreme court, sometimes called a “friend of the court” brief, in which she urged justices not to reverse US abortion rights on human rights grounds.   In both her brief and interview with the Guardian, she said a reversal of Roe v Wade would, “legitimize the use of morality and theological reasoning” to take away human rights, empower anti-rights activists globally, criminalize the practice of medicine, undermine the doctor-patient relationship and expose healthcare providers and patients to heightened abuse and violence.   “Whether you are in the United States, whether you are in Europe, whether you are in Latin America – it matters not where you are,” Mofokeng said. The rights at issue in the case, “are human rights, important human rights issues”.   “They deal with human rights principles of dignity, they deal with human rights principles of equality,” and “important issues of human rights of nondiscrimination”. Considering access to abortion as a human right helps people see, “why then the overturning would be catastrophic to those very principles of human rights”.   “They are part of the bigger global issue, where you have anti-abortion movements growing but also anti-abortion legislation being implemented more widely across the world,” Mofokeng said.   “The court will give legitimacy to an ever-growing anti-women’s rights movement in totality,” said Mofokeng. “People who are anti-women’s rights and anti-equality see abortion as a low hanging fruit.”   Her comments have been echoed by other international human rights groups such as the International Bar Association (Iba), the foremost association of international attorneys, and by Ipas, a US-based civil society organization that seeks to strengthen abortion rights.   The Iba said overturning Roe v Wade would, “reverse one of the most important precedents in US history”, and represent a “backward step” when countries such as Argentina, Colombia and Mexico are protecting reproductive rights.   The president and CEO of Ipas, Anu Kumar, said “the US already has a tainted reputation on reproductive justice,” and that any reversal of Roe v Wade would energize, “anti-choice white supremacist organizations” globally.   Should Roe v Wade be overturned, the fact that Americans of color, low-income women, sexual minorities and the young will be disproportionately likely to be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, Mofokeng said underscores her concerns.   “Where will people stop? Will the next thing be about putting in jail or criminalizing people who treat drug users with dignity? Where will we draw the line? People who are already in a vulnerable situation should not be further marginalized by a law or political context, in fact it’s precisely those people who the law must ensure protection of rights,” she said.   Although outlawing abortion across more than half of states may violate UN treaties to which the US is party, including the convention against torture, it is unlikely the UN could hold the US accountable. That is because the US holds a powerful position within the UN, as a founding member.   However, even if the UN cannot hold the US accountable directly, it will probably have other impacts on US standing, especially the ability of the US to advocate for the rights of women and girls globally.   “When you then have the US supreme court making judgment that threatens the very human rights of people who are pregnant, when that court legitimizes attacks on healthcare workers, when that court legitimizes austerity and cuts to abortion clinics – you can see then how this is a global problem,” said Mofokeng.   http://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/14/dr-tlaleng-mofokeng-roe-v-wade-reversal-un http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/14/abortion-rights-protests-us-roe-v-wade http://www.ibanet.org/IBAHRI-expresses-concern-over-US-Supreme-Court-potential-curbing-of-the-right-to-abortion http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/05/usa-if-confirmed-supreme-court-decision-could-endanger-abortion-rights-around-the-world/   Sep. 2021   The most radical abortion law in the US has gone into effect, despite legal efforts to block it.   A near-total abortion ban in Texas empowers any private citizen to sue an abortion provider who violates the extremist law, opening the floodgates to harassing and frivolous lawsuits from anti-abortion vigilantes that could eventually shutter most clinics in the state. A number of Reublican States are now considering copying the Texas model.   Senate Bill 8, ushered through the Republican-dominated Texas legislature and signed into law by the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, in May, bars abortion once embryonic cardiac activity is detected, which is around six weeks, and offers no exceptions for rape or incest.   Texas is the first state to ban abortion this early in pregnancy since Roe v Wade, and last-minute efforts to halt it through an appeal to the US supreme court by Tuesday did not succeed.   While a dozen other states have passed similar so-called bills, they have all been blocked by the courts. The Texas version is novel in that it is intentionally designed to shield government officials from enforcement, and thus make legal challenges more difficult to secure. It instead incentivizes any private citizen in the US to bring civil suit against an abortion provider or anyone who “aids or abets” the procedure.   Top Democrats condemned the US supreme court over its silence on Texas’s extreme abortion law after it came into effect.   The so-called “Heartbeat Act”, which was signed into law by Greg Abbott, the state’s Republican governor, in May, bans abortions at six weeks and does not make exceptions for incest and rape. Furthermore, it empowers private citizens to sue any abortion provider who violates the law.   Democrats have criticized the supreme court for not taking up an appeal that would have at least temporarily blocked the law. In a statement released on Wednesday, President Joe Biden criticized the law, saying that it “blatantly violates the constitutional right established under Roe v Wade and upheld as precedent for nearly half a century”.   “The Texas law will significantly impair women’s access to the healthcare they need … And outrageously, it deputizes private citizens to bring lawsuits against anyone who they believe has helped another person get an abortion.”   In a statement, Carolyn Maloney, Democratic chair of the House oversight committee, said, “In refusing to intervene last night, the supreme court tipped the scales of justice in favor of one of the most draconian state abortion bans in history.”   Maloney accused the court of putting the health and safety of Texans, particularly those with lower income and people of color, in jeopardy.   Sep. 2021   Justice Sotomayor dissent on the US supreme court failing to block the extreme Texas abortion law:   'The court’s order is stunning. Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.   Last night, the court silently acquiesced in a state’s enactment of a law that flouts nearly 50 years of federal precedents. Today, the court belatedly explains that it declined to grant relief because of procedural complexities of the state’s own invention. Because the court’s failure to act rewards tactics designed to avoid judicial review and inflicts significant harm on the applicants and on women seeking abortions in Texas, I dissent.   In May 2021, the Texas legislature enacted SB8 (the act). The act, which took effect statewide at midnight on 1 September, makes it unlawful for physicians to perform abortions if they either detect cardiac activity in an embryo or fail to perform a test to detect such activity.   This equates to a near-categorical ban on abortions beginning six weeks after a woman’s last menstrual period, before many women realize they are pregnant, and months before fetal viability. According to the applicants, who are abortion providers and advocates in Texas, the act immediately prohibits care for at least 85% of Texas abortion patients and will force many abortion clinics to close.   The act is clearly unconstitutional under existing precedents. The respondents do not even try to argue otherwise. Nor could they: no federal appellate court has upheld such a comprehensive prohibition on abortions before viability under current law.   The Texas legislature was well aware of this binding precedent. To circumvent it, the legislature took the extraordinary step of enlisting private citizens to do what the state could not.   The act authorizes any private citizen to file a lawsuit against any person who provides an abortion in violation of the act, “aids or abets” such an abortion (including by paying for it) regardless of whether they know the abortion is prohibited under the act, or even intends to engage in such conduct.   Courts are required to enjoin the defendant from engaging in these actions in the future and to award the private-citizen plaintiff at least $10,000 in “statutory damages” for each forbidden abortion performed or aided by the defendant.   In effect, the Texas legislature has deputized the state’s citizens as bounty hunters, offering them cash prizes for civilly prosecuting their neighbors’ medical procedures.   The legislature fashioned this scheme because federal constitutional challenges to state laws ordinarily are brought against state officers who are in charge of enforcing. By prohibiting state officers from enforcing the act directly and relying instead on citizen bounty hunters, the legislature sought to make it more complicated for federal courts to enjoin the act on a statewide basis.   Taken together, the act is a breathtaking act of defiance – of the constitution, of this court’s precedents, and of the rights of women seeking abortions throughout Texas. But over six weeks after the applicants filed suit to prevent the act from taking effect, a fifth circuit panel abruptly stayed all proceedings before the district court and vacated a preliminary injunction hearing that was scheduled to begin on Monday. The applicants requested emergency relief from this court, but the court said nothing. The act took effect at midnight last night'.   http://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/texas-law-banning-most-abortions-in-the-state-takes-effect-with-high-court-mum http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/supreme-court-likely-overturn-roe-v-wade-leaked-draft-5-abortion-documentaries http://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/majority-of-americans-dont-want-roe-overturned http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/roe-v-wade http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/06/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases/ http://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/03/what-roe-v-wade-means-human-rights http://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/05/how-data-targets-people-seeking-abortion http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/07/un-experts-condemn-texas-anti-abortion-law http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/11/poland-attempt-to-equate-abortion-with-killing-must-be-rejected/
	The Long Shadow of the Climate Crisis for Women and Girls by ActionAid International   Nov. 2022   A new report by human rights charity ActionAid has revealed the long-term extent of climate disasters on women and girls as vulnerable countries with no access to loss and damage funding are pushed further into debt.   ‘The Long Shadow of the Climate Crisis: Why a new funding facility must address loss and damage’ demonstrates how women and girls are even more affected by climate disasters than previously recognised in UN climate discourse, with their lives being impacted for years, decades and even generations to come.   The financial toll of climate emergencies like floods, cyclones and drought is causing devastation and pushing nations even deeper into debt. Instead of being offered debt relief after a climate disaster, countries are often forced to draw finances from the public purse, diverting funds from public services, and adopting punishing austerity measures in order to repay their creditors.   During climate disasters, women and girls are disproportionately affected by hunger, displacement, debt and violence. Then, in the aftermath of disasters, when national budgets are severely strained, they are impacted more by reductions in public service provision such as education and healthcare, and public sector job cuts. These cuts also mean women and girls are expected to fill the gap in care provision with their own unpaid time and work, affecting their education and ability to earn incomes.   Government cuts in essential public services to cover the costs of recovery from climate disasters and to repay debt, results in millions of people losing their rights, their opportunities for development, and key lifelines out of misery.   Teresa Anderson, Global Lead for Climate Justice and lead author on the report, said: “This report shows for the first time just how far-reaching and long-lasting the consequences of not having a financing facility to address loss and damage are on women and girls at the sharp edge of the climate crisis.   “In the aftermath of disasters there’s a window of opportunity to help communities bridge crises, recover and rebuild. But if no help is forthcoming, countries are likely to fall into spiralling poverty. Cuts to the public purse mean that critical lifelines out of hardship, such as investment in education, healthcare and climate adaptation – are all lost to the communities that need them most.   “Governments must stop dragging their feet and address the glaring gap of loss and damage finance at COP27."   The report also highlights the impact of the climate-induced drought across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia which is leaving communities at the mercy of the global food crisis, with fatal consequences.   http://actionaid.org/news/2022/lack-loss-and-damage-funding-climate-disasters-will-damage-women-and-girls-rights-years http://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-how-climate-change-disproportionately-affects-womens-health/ http://reliefweb.int/report/world/gender-equality-and-climate-change Visit the related web page
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