Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Deborah Billings, PhD¹, Leila Hessini¹, and Julie Solo². (1) Research and Evaluation, Ipas, 300 Market Street, Suite 200, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, 9193381437, billingsd@ipas.org, (2) Independent researcher, 316 5th Street, #2, Brooklyn, NY 11215

Every minute a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes, many due to unsafe abortion. Twenty million, or almost half of all abortions that take place every year, are done unsafely. Although in recent years health and women's advocacy organizations have been engaged in legal reform efforts to modify restrictive abortion laws, many countries still enforce harsh restrictions on abortion, keeping it clandestine, dangerous, and expensive. Despite the fact that all but a few countries permit abortion in at least some circumstances, such as after rape or incest or to preserve a women's health, these services are rarely available.

UN conferences and international human rights treaties are being used to document the negative impact of unsafe abortions, mobilize communities to support women's reproductive rights, and encourage governments to decriminalize laws that punish women for undergoing illegal abortions. When women don't have access to safe, affordable abortion services, their most basic human rights are violated. These include: the right to equality, life, health, security of person, freedom of opinion and expression, and freedom from discrimination, among others.

This international panel will provide examples of how human rights standards are being used to make safe abortion a reality in women's lives. Presentations will include experiences integrating human rights principles in medical and nursing school curricula, outreach efforts to de-stigmatize abortion at a community level, documenting the economic costs of unsafe abortions, and implementation of new abortion legislation.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. Identify key human rights principles linked to access to safe abortion and postabortion care
• 2. List examples of how human rights principles are being used to promote reproductive rights and access to safe abortion care
• 3. Apply human rights principles to panel participants’ respective areas of work

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation