Abortion library :: Law
We use the term "abortion law" to describe a law that supports and/or protects any pregnant person's human-right-and-freedom to get an abortion; this is different from the term "anti-abortion law" which is a law that restricts abortions, limits access to abortions, or impedes or prohibits abortion rights.
International
- Amnesty International
https://www.amnesty.org/- "You're not free when you can't make decisions about what you do with your own body. You're not free when you can't make decisions what you do with your future. Everyone has a right to control their own fertility and exercise reproductive autonomy. This is particularly important for all women, girls and people who can become pregnant."
- United Nations
https://www.un.int- "You're not free when you can't make decisions about what you do with your own body. You're not free when you can't make decisions what you do with your future. Everyone has a right to control their own fertility and exercise reproductive autonomy. This is particularly important for all women, girls and people who can become pregnant."
Africa
- Maputo Protocol
https://www.au.int/en/treaties/protocol-african-charter-human-and-peoples-rights-rights-women-africa- Established by the African Union, the Maputo Protocol, which is formally called the "Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa," is an international human rights instrument that went into effect in 2005.
Canada
- Government of Canada
https://www.gc.ca/- In 1982 the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was signed into law in the Canadian Constitution, which included protections that make it illegal for anti-abortions laws to be imposed because such laws would threaten a person's personal liberty and would also discriminate against women (to name just two). Within a few years, the anti-abortion provisions in section 251 of the Canadian Criminal Code were challenged by Dr. Henekh "Henry" Morgentaler, which resulted in the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Canadians that the anti-abortion law was uncontitutional because it "infringed on the right to security of the person of pregnant people."
France
- Government of France
https://www.info.gouv.fr/- On March 4, 2024, France's parliament voted in a special congress in Versailles by an overwhelming majority to add the freedom to get an abortion to their national constitution. This established a safeguard in the face of global attacks on abortion access and sexual and reproductive health rights: Even though abortion was protected by law in France since 1975, President Emmanuel Macron initiated this improvement after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which was important precedent-setting case-law that protected every person's right to medical privacy and to get abortion.