23 July 2025
Another Step in the Anti-Abortion Agenda
Trump’s recently passed “One Big, Beautiful Bill” bars Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood for one year. The provision is now temporarily blocked after Planned Parenthood filed suit. But it builds on, and must be read against, the backdrop of Medina v. Planned Parenthood, a recent and disastrous Supreme Court ruling initiated by South Carolina. The case starkly illustrates the Court’s continued alignment with an anti-abortion agenda advanced through state governments and forms part of a broader assault on civil rights. Not least, its entanglement with Medicaid signals a deeper campaign against the poor and access to healthcare. Continue reading >>
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21 July 2025
Decriminalising Abortion in England and Wales
On 17 June 2025, British MPs took an important step in decriminalising abortion against a backdrop of rising prosecutions for "later" abortion. Once the amended Crime and Policing Bill becomes law, people who voluntarily end their own pregnancies will be exempt from criminalisation. But, unless a further amendment is made, those good faith actors who provide abortion, or support others in getting access, remain at risk of criminal investigation. Five aspects of the recent legal changes are worth emphasising as lessons for a strategic perspective on defending, and even expanding, reproductive freedom. Continue reading >>
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19 July 2025
Reproductive Rights and the Climate Crisis
On July 3, 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) published its long-awaited Advisory Opinion 32/25 (AO-32/25). The Opinion responds to a 2023 request from Colombia and Chile, asking the IACtHR to clarify the scope of States’ obligations to address the climate emergency under international human rights law. While the decision marks a significant step toward recognizing the climate crisis as a human rights issue, this blog post aims to shed light on a critical omission in the IACtHR’s reasoning: the impact of environmental degradation and the climate emergency on sexual and reproductive health and rights. Continue reading >>
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19 June 2025
Forced Sterilizations on Trial
On May 22, 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held a hearing in Ramos Durand et al. v. Peru. This is only the second forced sterilization case before the Court (after I.V. v. Bolivia) and the first addressing a widespread, state-led policy of coercion like Peru’s. For the first time, the IACHR may explicitly characterize forced sterilizations as reproductive violence and thus as a form of gender-based violence, contributing to a broader and more inclusive understanding of reproductive rights violations within the regional human rights framework. Continue reading >>
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06 February 2025
A Dangerous Departure
Governments from Argentina to the United States to Hungary and beyond are engaging in concerted efforts to assail and undermine sexual and reproductive rights that have long been understood as gendered interpretations of fundamental rights under international law. In this context, the recent decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Beatriz v. El Salvador is a missed opportunity to consolidate the Court’s jurisprudence on sexual and reproductive health and rights and defend the legitimacy of international human rights law. Continue reading >>
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06 November 2024
Towards Universal Criminalisation
“Italy Criminalises Surrogacy from Abroad, a Blow to Gay and Infertile Couples.” This was the headline on the New York Times website following the approval of a law in Italy criminalising reproductive tourism. Giorgia Meloni had already introduced the bill, Act no. 824, in the last Parliament, and the current right-wing majority has now passed it. The news has gone around the world. Let us try to understand why. Continue reading >>13 October 2024
Legislating Reproductive Rights
In May, the Brazilian parliament introduced a bill that included a gestational age limit for performing abortions, even in cases where the pregnancy resulted from rape. In practice, the bill would criminalize women who were victims of sexual violence, especially young girls. The proposal triggered a strong reaction from civil society, which ultimately prompted parliament to withdraw the bill. The case illustrates how the Brazilian parliament has become a dangerous place for women’s sexual and reproductive rights – a situation that has worsened due to an institutional dispute between the parliament and the constitutional court. Continue reading >>
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17 April 2024
India’s Push-and-Pull on Reproductive Rights
For a piece mapping India’s push-and-pull on reproductive rights – the expanse of its protection and the edges it comes up against – history is a good place to start. Rights in the reproductive sphere are relatively new to India. While India enacted a seemingly liberal abortion legislation as early as 1971, concerns about women’s rights were hardly the drivers behind it. Women’s bodies were a means to achieve the State’s end of population control. It is difficult to justify if women were truly seen as rights-holders. Did this change in recent years? Continue reading >>
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09 March 2024
Enshrining Abortion Rights in the French Constitution
On International Women’s Day 2024, President Emmanuel Macron signed an amendment, that enshrines abortion rights in the French Constitution. Abortion is now a constitutionally “guaranteed freedom” for women in France: but constitutionally guaranteeing this freedom is also — if not even more — a call-out to the rest of the world. By constitutionalizing the right to abortion, French parliamentarians and government officials aimed to signal this commitment to the global community, with a particular emphasis on the United States. Continue reading >>08 March 2024