Global Abortion Rights: Scrapping Roe v. Wade makes the United States an outlier in the West

Some US allies have better access to abortion

This was usually in the company of other Western nations, as few developed countries ban or heavily restrict access to abortion. Of the 36 countries that the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs defines as developed economies, all but two – Poland and Malta – allow abortions on demand or for general health and socioeconomic reasons, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), which campaigns for better access to abortion and monitors laws around the world.

But the end of federal abortion protections will see parts of the United States join those ranks. Abortion rights will now be determined by US states unless Congress acts.

More than half of US states were certain or likely to ban abortion once Roe was overthrown, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

The bans have already gone into effect in several US states since the Supreme Court ruling.

Such laws go against a global wave that has seen many countries, including those on the doorstep of the United States, liberalize abortion laws in recent years.

“Never again will a woman or a person with the capacity to bear a child be criminally prosecuted,” Judge Luis Maria Aguilar said after the ruling. “Today, the threat of imprisonment and the stigma attached to people who freely decide to terminate their pregnancy are banished.”

The United States’ northern neighbor, Canada, is one of the few countries that allows abortion at any time during pregnancy. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has criticized moves by US states to make abortions harder to access, and on Friday condemned the move as “appalling”.

Abortions are available in hospitals and private clinics in Canada; in most cases, the procedure is covered by provincial government health insurance plans, which means they are essentially free. But the absence of a national abortion law in Canada has left access to services across the country uneven.

Most countries in the European Union – including those in the G7 – allow abortion with gestational limits, the most common being 12 weeks, according to watchdog charities including the CRR. Exceptions after this period are generally allowed on certain grounds, for example if the pregnancy or childbirth poses a risk to the health of the mother.

Opposition to the procedure is generally less widespread in these countries than in the United States.

And above all, it is rare to find developed countries where abortions are not performed in extreme cases, such as when the woman has been the victim of rape or incest.

But many of the current abortion bans in the United States contain no such exceptions.

Anti-abortion protests occasionally take place in countries like the UK, where some councils have responded by reducing protesters’ ability to interact with people entering clinics.

EU activists have also called for an easing of restrictions in their country; in Germany, for example, abortion is permitted up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, but those wishing the procedure are required to attend a mandatory counseling session, which is followed by a mandatory waiting period of three days. Doctors have also been prosecuted there for sharing details of the abortion services they offer, as any “advertising” of abortions is prohibited.

Japan, alongside countries such as Finland and India, provides for abortion in cases of rape or risk to the woman’s health, but also for broader socio-economic reasons.

Among comparable democracies in the United States, Australian laws are among the most similar. As in the United States, access to abortion varies in each Australian state and territory – and until recently some areas criminalized the procedure.

US joins group of regions making access to abortion more difficult

Nearly half of abortions worldwide are unsafe and 97% of unsafe abortions take place in developing countries, according to the WHO.

But the United States is not the only country where the right to abortion is under threat; in other, more socially conservative pockets of the world, populist and authoritarian governments have also taken steps to restrict access to the procedure.

The Polish government has made abortion a corner issue since coming to power in 2015, appealing to social conservatives in the predominantly Catholic nation but sparking massive protests in the country’s most liberal cities.

Slovakia has attempted to follow Poland’s example, but the country’s parliament has rejected several bills proposing restrictions on reproductive rights over the past two years.

Throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, abortion laws are generally strict. In Brazil, for example, the procedure is illegal except in certain circumstances, such as fetal malformations or if the abortion is the result of rape, according to HRW. Women and girls who terminate their pregnancies in other circumstances can face up to three years behind bars, according to HRW.

In Nicaragua and El Salvador, abortion is totally illegal in all circumstances and prison sentences in the latter country can be up to 40 years. “Such laws actually amount to torture, discrimination and the denial of some of the most basic human rights to life and dignity,” human rights group Amnesty International said last year. about El Salvador. In recent years, some decisions have been overturned there, with several women released from prison after serving part of their long sentences.

But other countries in the region have decided to allow abortion. Argentina’s Senate voted to legalize abortion for up to 14 weeks in December 2020, making the country the largest country in Latin America at the time to legalize the practice.

And Ecuador also recently moved to relax restrictions on abortion in cases of rape.