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Abortion laws vary widely among countries and territories, and have changed over time. Such laws range from abortion being freely available on request, to regulation or restrictions of various kinds, to outright prohibition in all circumstances. Many countries and territories that allow abortion have gestational limits for the procedure depending on the reason; with the majority being up to 12 weeks for abortion on request, up to 24 weeks for rape, incest, or socioeconomic reasons, and more for fetal impairment or risk to the woman's health or life. As of 2022, countries that legally allow abortion on request or for socioeconomic reasons comprise about 60% of the world's population.
Chile's abortion laws have undergone significant changes in recent years. Prior to 2017, Chile had one of the strictest abortion laws globally, prohibiting the practice altogether. However, since then, abortion has become legal in certain circumstances.
Abortion in Brazil is a crime, with penalties of 1 to 3 years of imprisonment for the pregnant woman, and 1 to 4 years of imprisonment for the doctor or any other person who performs the abortion on someone else. In three specific situations in Brazil, induced abortion is not punishable by law: in cases of risk to woman's life; when the pregnancy is the result of rape; and if the fetus is anencephalic. In these cases, the Brazilian government provides the abortion procedure free of charge through the Sistema Único de Saúde. This does not mean that the law regards abortion in these cases as a right, but only that women who receive abortions under these circumstances, and the doctors, will not be punished. The punishment for a woman who performs an abortion on herself or consents to an abortion performed by another outside these legal exceptions is one to three years of detention. The base penalty for a third party that performs an illegal abortion with the consent of the patient, ranges from one to four years of detention, with the possibility of increase by a third if the woman comes to any physical harm, and can be doubled if she dies. Criminal penalties fixed at four years or less can be converted to non-incarceration punishments, such as community service and compulsory donation to charity.
The Broad Front is a left-wing political coalition from Uruguay. It was the ruling party of Uruguay from 2005 to 2020 and has produced two presidents: José Mujica (2010–2015) and Tabaré Vázquez. Since 1999, it has been the largest party in Uruguay's General Assembly.
Elective Abortion in Argentina is legal in the first 14 weeks of gestation. The abortion law was liberalized after the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy Bill (Argentina) was passed by the National Congress in December 2020. According to the law, any woman can request the procedure at any public or private health facility. Doctors are legally bound to either perform it or, if they are conscientious objectors, refer the patient to another physician or health facility. Only four other Latin or South American countries have legalised abortion on request: Cuba in 1965, Guyana in 1995, Uruguay in 2012 and Colombia in 2022. According to polling in 2021, around 44% of Argentinians support the legalization of abortion on request; other polls showed 50–60% of Argentinians opposed the bill.
Timeline of women's legal rights (other than voting) represents formal changes and reforms regarding women's rights. The changes include actual law reforms as well as other formal changes, such as reforms through new interpretations of laws by precedents. The right to vote is exempted from the timeline: for that right, see Timeline of women's suffrage. The timeline excludes ideological changes and events within feminism and antifeminism; for that, see Timeline of feminism.
Since 2021, abortion is no longer a crime in Mexico, although its legalisation varies by state. On 7 September 2021, the Mexican Supreme Court unanimously ruled that penalising abortion is unconstitutional, setting an important precedent across the whole country. Before 2019, abortion had been severely restricted outside of Mexico City, where it was legalized on-request in 2007. As of June 2022, abortion is available on request to any woman during the first twelve weeks of a pregnancy in Mexico City and the states of Oaxaca, Hidalgo, Veracruz, Coahuila, Colima, Baja California, Sinaloa, Guerrero, Baja California Sur and Quintana Roo. However, even in states where abortion is legal, there continue to be women in pre-trial detention for murder due to the spontaneous miscarriage of a pregnancy induced by rape.
This is a timeline of reproductive rights legislation, a chronological list of laws and legal decisions affecting human reproductive rights. Reproductive rights are a sub-set of human rights pertaining to issues of reproduction and reproductive health. These rights may include some or all of the following: the right to legal or safe abortion, the right to birth control, the right to access quality reproductive healthcare, and the right to education and access in order to make reproductive choices free from coercion, discrimination, and violence. Reproductive rights may also include the right to receive education about contraception and sexually transmitted infections, and freedom from coerced sterilization, abortion, and contraception, and protection from practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM).
Abortion in India has been legal under various circumstances with the introduction of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Regulations, 2003 were issued under the Act to enable women to access safe and legal abortion services.
Abortion in Bolivia is illegal, except in the cases of rape, incest, or to protect the woman's health. This policy forms part of the Penal Code laid down in 1973, and has been in force since then. Due to the difficulty of receiving abortions—even if the abortion does fall under one of the exceptions to the law, judicial permission needs to be secured, which can take a very long time—many pregnant women end up having unsafe, clandestine abortions instead. According to the Bolivian Ministry of Health, almost all of the 67,000 abortions performed in Bolivia in 2011 were clandestine, with approximately half of the women who received them needing hospital care afterwards. This practice has been linked to the high maternal mortality rates in the country.
Abortion in Colombia is freely available on request up to the 24th week of pregnancy, due to a ruling by the Constitutional Court on February 21, 2022. Later in pregnancy, it is only allowed in cases of risk of death to the mother, fetal malformation, or rape, according to a Constitutional Court ruling in 2006.
Abortion in Turkey has been legal on request since May 27, 1983. Abortion is legal up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, and in special circumstances the time threshold can be extended if there is danger to the woman's life or the life of the fetus. During the ten weeks, an abortion is allowed for the following reasons: the pregnancy threatens the woman's mental and/or physical health, the fetus would be physically or mentally impaired, if the conception occurred through rape or incest, and economic or social reasons. The woman's consent is required. If the woman is under the age of 18, then parental consent is required. If the woman is married, the consent of the husband is also required. Single women over the age of 18 can choose to have an abortion on their own.
The Dominican Republic is one of 24 countries in the world and one of six in Latin America that has a complete ban on abortion. This complete ban includes situations in which a pregnant person’s life is at risk.
Abortion laws in Portugal were liberalized on April 10, 2007, allowing an elective abortion to be provided if a woman's pregnancy has not exceeded its tenth week. There is a three-day waiting period for abortions. President Aníbal Cavaco Silva ratified the law allowing abortion, recommending nevertheless that measures should be taken to ensure abortion is the last resort. Despite the liberalization of the laws, as of a 2011 survey, many doctors were refusing to perform abortions – which they are allowed to do under a conscientious objection clause. Abortions at later stages are allowed for specific reasons, such as risk to woman's health reasons, rape and other sexual crimes, or fetal malformation; with restrictions increasing gradually at 12, 16 and 24 weeks.
Abortion in Spain is legal upon request up to 14 weeks of pregnancy, and at later stages for serious risk to the health of the woman or fetal defects.
Abortion-rights movements, also self-styled as pro-choice movements, advocate for the right to have legal access to induced abortion services including elective abortion. They seek to represent and support women who wish to terminate their pregnancy without fear of legal or social backlash. These movements are in direct opposition to anti-abortion movements.
A six-week abortion ban or early abortion ban, called a "heartbeat bill" or "fetal heartbeat bill" by proponents, is a form of abortion restriction legislation in the United States. These bans make abortion illegal as early as six weeks gestational age, which is when proponents claim that a "fetal heartbeat" can be detected. Medical and reproductive health experts, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, say that the reference to a fetal heartbeat is medically inaccurate and intentionally misleading because a conceptus is not called a fetus until after ten weeks of pregnancy, before which the proper term is an embryo, as well as that at six weeks the embryo has no heart, which at that stage is only a group of cells which will become a heart. Medical professionals advise that a true fetal heartbeat cannot be detected until around 17 to 20 weeks of gestation when the chambers of the heart have become sufficiently developed.
Abortion in Bhutan is only legal when the abortion is a result of rape, incest, to preserve the woman's mental health, or to save her life. Despite this, the United Nations report on abortion notes that the exact status of the country's abortion law is uncertain: "Because the state religion of Bhutan is Buddhism, which disapproves of abortion, it is probable that the procedure is allowed only to save the life of the pregnant woman."
Abortion in South Korea was decriminalized, effective 1 January 2021, by a 2019 order of the Constitutional Court of Korea.
The Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy Law was approved by the National Congress of Argentina in 2020, legalizing abortion in Argentina. The first draft of the bill was created in 2006 by the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion, which sought to have Congress consider it in seven different occasions, to no avail.
References
- ↑ "La ley y su implementación".
- ↑ "Uruguayan Ministers, Public Figures Join Internet Campaign to Legalize Abortion". Archived from the original on 2008-12-27. Retrieved 2008-12-27.
- ↑ "Abortion in Uruguay - Law in force". Archived from the original on 2009-01-02. Retrieved 2008-12-27.
- ↑ "Breaking News, World News and Video from al Jazeera".
- ↑ "Uruguay head vetoes abortion bill". 2008-11-14. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
- ↑ http://www.tt.com/csp/cms/sites/tt/Nachrichten/4055631-2/uruguays-senat-billigte-abtreibung-in-ersten-zw%C3%B6lf-wochen.csp [ dead link ]
- ↑ "Uruguay Senate votes to decriminalise abortion". BBC News. 2011-12-28. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
- 1 2 "Eliminating Maternal Deaths from Unsafe Abortion in Uruguay: The experience of Iniciativas Sanitarias". United Nations Population Fund. 2011-08-18. Retrieved 17 December 2012.
- ↑ "Eliminating Maternal Deaths from Unsafe Abortion in Uruguay". www.unfpa.org. Retrieved 2021-12-11.
- ↑ "Reserved diagnosis". Brecha. 8 March 2013.
- ↑ "Like giving birth". Brecha. 5 April 2013.
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