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Human Rights Law Review 2008 8(2):249-294; doi:10.1093/hrlr/ngn008
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© The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Abortion as a Human Right—International and Regional Standards

Christina Zampas* and Jaime M. Gher**

* Senior Regional Manager Legal Adviser for Europe, Center for Reproductive Rights–International Legal Program, 120 Wall Street, 14th Floor, New York, New York 10005.
** Attorney–Consultant, Center for Reproductive Rights–International Legal Program, 120 Wall Street, 14th Floor, New York, New York 10005.

This article focuses on the striking expansion of international and regional human rights standards and jurisprudence that support women's human right to abortion. It summarises pertinent developments within the United Nations, European, Inter-American and African human rights systems regarding abortion, as they relate to women's rights to life and health, in situations of rape, incest or foetal impairment, and for abortion based on social and economic reasons and on request. In doing so, the article touches on charged issues such as maternal mortality, prohibitions of therapeutic abortion as infringing on the right to be free from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and state procedural obligations to ensure women's right to access legal abortion. Finally, the article addresses the growing recognition by international human rights bodies that criminalisation of abortion leads women to obtain unsafe abortions, threatening their lives and health, and recent national-level developments in the field.


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