about ipas
newsroom
what we do
where we work
products
publications
contact

December 28, 2007
Richard Lord

2007 brought several important changes in the reproductive health landscape. In some countries, abortion laws were liberalized to protect women’s health, while in others, politicians and court officials debated laws and amendments that govern access to abortion. Two conferences in London drew record numbers of reproductive health advocates, researchers and providers — the Women Deliver Conference and the Global Safe Abortion Conference. Also during this year, The Lancet published the largest global study of abortion; which found that abortion rates around the world have declined; though unsafe abortion remains a serious threat to women’s lives, especially in developing nations.

Here’s a quick look at what happened around the globe in 2007:

* The Federal District of Mexico, which oversees laws for Mexico City and its environs, voted on April 24 that any termination of pregnancy before 12 weeks’ gestation will no longer be considered a crime; the new law defines abortion as termination of pregnancy after 12 weeks. The four previously existing indications for abortion — rape and incest, to protect a woman’s health and life, fetal malformations — are not penalized even after 12 weeks of pregnancy. The law also stipulates reduced sentences for women undergoing abortion after 12 weeks.

* Also in April, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a controversial law that bans a specific abortion procedure, dilatation and extraction. Federal judges in California, Nebraska and New York said the law was unconstitutional, and three appellate courts agreed. The Supreme Court accepted appeals from California and Nebraska, setting the stage for their 5-4 ruling saying that the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act enacted in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only female Supreme Court Judge, wrote in dissent that the ruling “tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.” It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how — not whether — to perform an abortion.

* Poland’s ruling coalition failed to muster a two-thirds majority in Parliament to amend the constitution by adding an anti-abortion phrase guaranteeing protection of human dignity “from the moment of conception.” The April decision was a defeat for Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. The measure would not have triggered changes to Poland's already restrictive abortion law, which allows termination of a pregnancy until the 12th week only if the mother's life is in danger, the fetus is irreparably damaged or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

* In May, Amnesty International (AI) amended its official policy to state that women who have been raped have the right to receive safe abortion services. Widney Brown, Senior Policy and Campaigns Director, also said that AI believes women whose health is threatened by pregnancy also should have the right to receive safe abortion services. The AI board agreed to the policy after two years of consultations with experts and the group’s more than 2.2 million members. Brown made it clear AI is not backing abortion as a “fundamental right” for women because that approach is not supported by international human-rights laws. However, AI is calling for decriminalization of abortion.

* In August, doctors in Australia called for mifepristone to be made nationally available. A group of medical specialists said the lack of mainstream availability of the drug means Australia is “years behind” other nations. RU486 was approved for use more than a year ago, but no drug company has offered to market it.

* The Global Safe Abortion conference, held in October in London, highlighted challenges and successes preventing and dealing with the consequences of unsafe abortion, one of the world’s leading causes of maternal death and injury. The Global Safe Abortion Conference was organized by Marie Stopes International (MSI), Ipas and the U.K.-based organization Abortion Rights, three non-governmental organizations that promote women’s reproductive health and rights.

* The Women Deliver conference, a major global conference dedicated to improving the health of women and children worldwide, also took place in London in October. The conference was organized by a committee that included Family Care International, the International Planned Parenthood Foundation, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO).

* The largest global study of abortion revealed that restricting abortions has little effect on the number of pregnancies terminated. Rather, it drives women to seek illegal, often unsafe abortions leading to an estimated 67,000 deaths a year. The study, published in the October 13, 2007 issue of The Lancet, found that although abortion rates worldwide have declined — a trend that corresponds with increased access to contraception — the incidence of unsafe abortion remains high, especially in developing parts of the world. On the whole, the decline was most dramatic in developed countries where abortion is, for the most part, safe and legally permitted.

* Uruguayan senators voted on November 6 to ease the country’s tough abortion laws, although the president has vowed to veto any legislation that seeks to decriminalize the procedure. Abortion is tightly restricted in mainly Roman Catholic Latin American. In Uruguay, women are only allowed to have an abortion if they were raped or if the pregnancy endangers their lives. This vote gives preliminary approval to a bill that would let women have an abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy on grounds including economic or social hardship or “circumstances linked to how the conception took place.” The bill’s chances of becoming law appear limited.

For more information, contact:
Kirsten Sherk
Senior Associate, Media Relations
e-mail: sherkk@ipas.org
phone: 919.960.5612
fax: 919.929.0258