This week, my “Human Rights Activism” class welcomed Verónica Cruz Sánchez, a human rights activist from Guanajuato, Mexico. With Las Libres, the group she helped found, Cruz works not only to stop domestic and sexual violence, but specifically and energetically to guarantee access to safe abortion as a human right for all women.
Key human rights groups are now pushing to get abortion recognized as part of the package of rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They argue this on several points, well summarized by Human Rights Watch:
Right to life
Restrictive abortion laws have a devastating impact on women’s right to life. Evidence suggests not only that restrictive abortion laws drive women to unsafe abortion, but that women die from the consequences of such abortions. Approximately 13 percent of maternal deaths worldwide are attributable to unsafe abortion—between 68,000 and 78,000 deaths annually. These deaths are largely preventable…
Rights to health and health care
Where there is a lack of legal and safe abortion services and pervasive barriers to contraceptives and other reproductive health services, there will be unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions. Both cause largely preventable physical and mental health problems for women. In addition, clandestine abortion clinics and providers have no incentive to be concerned with women’s health and lives when they provide their illegal services…
Rights to nondiscrimination and equality
Access to legal and safe abortion services is essential to the protection of women’s rights to nondiscrimination and equality. Women are in practice more likely than men to experience personal hardship as well as social disadvantage as a result of economic, career, and other life changes when they have children. Where women are compelled to continue unwanted pregnancies, such consequences forcibly put women at further disadvantage…
Right to security of person
The right to security of person, including the right to physical integrity, is central to the issue of abortion and human rights. When a pregnancy is unwanted, a legal requirement to continue the pregnancy may constitute a government intrusion on a women’s body in violation of this right…
Right to liberty
When women are sentenced to prison for having procured an abortion, this constitutes an assault on women’s right to liberty, because women essentially are jailed for seeking to fulfill their health needs. The right to liberty is also threatened when women are deterred from seeking medical care if they fear being reported to police authorities by doctors or other medical professionals who suspect unlawful behavior…
Right to privacy
Decisions about parenthood are deeply personal, and are precisely the type of interest that privacy rights should protect. A pregnant woman’s right to privacy entitles her to decide whether or not to undergo an abortion. No women should have to make this decision under threat of legal prosecution. The right to privacy is also threatened when health care providers release confidential patient information about women who seek abortions or post-abortion care.
Right to information
Under international human rights law, states have an obligation to provide complete and accurate information that is needed to protect and promote the right to health, including reproductive health. Where abortion is not punishable by law, such complete and accurate information includes information about safe abortion options…
Right to be free from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment
The U.N. Human Rights Committee has indicated that restrictions on access to safe and legal abortion may give rise to situations that constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. These situations include forcing a pregnant woman to carry an unwanted or health-threatening pregnancy to term. Evidence suggests that restrictions on abortion often lead to restrictions on post-abortion care. These restrictions can also be incompatible with the right to be free from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. This could, for example, be the case where post-abortion care is systematically denied, or where available pain medication is withheld. It could also be the case when women only have access to necessary post-abortion care if they testify in criminal proceedings…
Right to freedom of conscience and religion
Like abortion itself, religious faith is a highly personal issue. The human right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion cannot be limited under any circumstances, and applies to established and non-established religions, as well as to the right not to have a religion. Freedom of religion includes freedom from being compelled to comply with laws designed solely or principally to uphold doctrines of religious faith…
In class, Cruz was a passionate, articulate and fearless proponent of working to obtain the right to abortion for all women, as a fundamental part of the human rights struggle. Interestingly, she has never met opposition to this view in the United States from pro-life proponents. We guessed that this might be due to the fact that this constituency doesn’t pay much attention to what is happening beyond our borders.
Yet Cruz made a powerful argument that what happens in the US dramatically affects Mexico. If abortion is restricted here, those restrictions may prompt a move in Mexico to further restrict access to safe, legal abortion, already virtually non-existent in the country.
Interestingly, the city of Mexico has guaranteed safe, free abortions to any woman up to 12 weeks pregnant. Now, there is a fight in Mexico to compel all of the other states to protect this right, as part of a federal mandate to uphold the highest legal standard for all states equally.
Opposing the Mexico City law, however, is not only the Catholic Church, but also the government-sponsored National Human Rights Commission and the federal attorney general. They argue the right to life, also — but from the position of the fetus, not the woman.
So I guess we have to keep that question mark in asking if abortion is yet considered a “human right” — as I think it should be.