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 >>
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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
Tatsächliche Gleichberechtigung statt Blumen
Und wir stehen solidarisch mit den Frauen in der ganzen Welt, die noch immer für Gleichberechtigung kämpfen! Continue reading >>20 July 2023
Advancing Reproductive Rights
Spain has reached a significant milestone in the area of abortion legislation with a new landmark ruling by the Spanish Constitutional Court. Following a long-awaited renewal in January 2023, the court now consists of a progressive majority. Thirteen years after the complaint was filed by 60 congressmen of the conservative party, the ruling finally upholds the constitutionality of Organic Law (LO 2/2010) on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy. Departing from the previous indications model, the law allows women to have publicly funded abortions on demand in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy and up to 22 weeks (and in some instances without time limit) in cases of embryopathy and risk to the health or life of the woman. Continue reading >>16 February 2023
Small Country, Big Hurdles
Liechtenstein is far away from a comprehensive decriminalisation of abortion. The termination of pregnancy is still regulated by the Criminal Code and the person who performs the abortion will be prosecuted. Only the pregnant person acts legally when terminating an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. But it took until 2015 for pregnant persons to be granted a (limited) right to self-determination, and there is still a lack of sufficient legal, medical and social support. In a difficult and psychologically stressful situation, pregnant persons must seek treatment abroad – not because they want to, but because they have to. Continue reading >>
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08 February 2023
Für eine Zeitenwende im Abtreibungsrecht
Am Ende des Symposiums wird sichtbar: Abtreibungen zu kriminalisieren bildet im Vergleich zu den ausgewählten Ländern nicht die Regel (I.). Das bedeutet allerdings nicht, dass eine Entkriminalisierung jegliche faktischen Zugangshürden aus dem Weg räumt. Der Blick ins Ausland lohnt sich deshalb auch unabhängig von der Frage der Entkriminalisierung, um potentielle Fallstricke für die Versorgungslage zu analysieren (II.). Die Entkriminalisierung des Schwangerschaftsabbruchs bereitet jedoch, so legt der Rechtsvergleich nahe, den Weg, um strukturelle Hindernisse abbauen zu können. Eine bedeutende Rolle können dabei aktivistische Bewegungen spielen (III.). Continue reading >>
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08 February 2023
A Turning Point in Abortion Law
This blog post concludes the symposium “Comparative Legal Perspectives on Abortion”. The symposium traced the regulation of abortion and accompanying activist movements in Argentina, Uruguay, Canada, Iceland, Northern Macedonia, Tunisia, South Africa, India, and South Korea. Now we want to turn our gaze from the outside back to the inside: What is to be gained for the German debate on abortion law? Continue reading >>
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07 February 2023
From Population Control to Reproductive Justice
On 11 April 2019, South Korea’s Constitutional Court ruled that the ban on abortion was unconstitutional. As a result, South Korea’s legislature had to revise its 66-year-old anti-abortion law by 31 December 2020. This historic decision was made possible in response to the advocacy of a number of feminist groups, doctors’ organizations, disability rights groups, youth activists, and religious groups in South Korea. Although the overall goal of reproductive justice movements was to change the law that threatened women’s health and lives through the criminalization of abortion, one of the main steps of the movements toward that goal was to challenge the previous framework of pro-choice versus pro-life. Continue reading >>
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