Women's health and the right to abortion in the US: International human rights without borders

Seventy thousand women around the world die each year from illegal abortions. Illegal abortions disproportionately impact poor women globally. The U.S. protection of women's access to safe and comprehensive abortion care has been steadily eroded since 1973 and continues to be on tenuous ground, legally. The legal basis for women's access to abortion services is the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade (1973), which defined the issue as a privacy issue. However, we argue that safe, comprehensive and legal abortion in the U.S. should not be based on the concept of privacy, but instead should be based on the international human right to health and the rights of women to reproductive information and services. The concept of privacy has not withstood time due to restrictions on access to abortion through gag rules, cuts in government funding, limits on family planning education and parental notice requirements. International Human Rights Law provides guidance for health and abortion rights in the U.S. Although the current U.S. Administration is generally hostile to international and human rights law, that has not always been so. After World War II, the U.S. was critical in shaping international human rights law. For women's health rights we look to the UDHR, ICESCR and CEDAW. Uplift International is a Seattle-based NGO that is advocating the use of international human rights norms and standards to protect women's reproductive health, including abortion services. Essentially, this shifts the dialogue about abortion from a privacy issue to an issue about women's health rights.