Women’s Rights NGO Hails Obama for Rescinding the Global Gag Rule on Abortion and Reject’s the Vatican’s Statement as Contrary to Women’s Rights

Attorney Clara Rita A. Padilla, Executive Director of EnGendeRights, hails U.S. President Obama’s act last Friday, January 23, in rescinding the Global Gag Rule. Under the policy, organizations that received USAID funding were prohibited from using their own funds to advocate for safe and legal abortion and provide for life-saving safe abortions services.

Atty. Padilla said, “The rescission works towards the advancement of free speech and puts a strong message forward that access to safe and legal abortion is a human right.”

“As Obama mentioned in his statement, ‘this will also work to promote safe motherhood, reduce maternal and infant mortality rates and increase educational and economic opportunities for women and girls,” Atty. Padilla continued.

Atty. Padilla added, “contrary to recent statement of the Vatican officials against the executive action, Obama’s action will spell the difference between life and death for almost half a million Filipino women every year who are driven to induce abortion with 79,000 admitted to hospitals for complications from unsafe abortion and 800 women who die.”[1]

The Vatican’s position on access to access to safe and legal abortion is contrary to international human rights law. The United Nations treaty monitoring bodies haverecognized access to safe and legal abortion as a matter of women’s rights to life, health, non-discrimination and dignity. Their position is based on principled interpretations of human rights norms, commitments contained in global consensus documents and evidence of the impact of unsafe abortion on women’s health.

During the August 2006 periodic review of the Philippines, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee), urged the government to “consider the problem of unsafe abortion as a matter of high priority” and “consider reviewing the laws relating to abortion with a view to removing punitive provisions imposed on women who undergo abortion and provide them with access to quality services for the management of complications arising from unsafe abortions and to reduce women’s maternal mortality rates in line with the Committee’s general recommendation 24 on women and health and the Beijing Platform for Action.”[2]

The CEDAW Committee has rightly noted that the lack of access to contraceptive methods and family planning services, as well as restrictive abortion laws, tend to coincide with the prevalence of unsafe abortions that contributes to high rates of maternal mortality.[3] The critical link between unsafe abortion and maternal mortality has also been a matter of concern for the Human Rights Committee (HRC) the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Committee (ESCRC) and the Children’s Rights Committee (CRC).[4] The HRC[5] ESCRC[6] CEDAW[7] and CRC[8] have consistently called upon states with criminal abortion laws to review their laws as a means to ensuring women’s basic human rights.

The figures around the world reveal that criminalizing abortion does not eliminate abortions; it only makes it dangerous for women who undergo clandestine and unsafe abortion. The social justice implications of restrictive abortion laws has been recognized in many predominantly Catholic countries around the world, including Spain,[9] Belgium, France, Italy, Poland,[10] and Hungary (whose constitution protects life from conception but permits abortion up to 12 weeks of gestation). Recent abortion liberalizations occurred in Colombia[11],Mexico City(legalized abortion in the first trimester without restriction in April 2007) and Portugal (allows abortion up to 10 weeks of pregnancy).

“All the above-mentioned predominantly Catholic countries belie the claim that restricting access to contraception and even safe and legal abortion in the Philippines is a matter of practice of the Catholic religion. It is simply fundamentalism and non- adherence to standards of medicine, science and law and clinging to our colonial past that detrimentally impacts women’s health and lives,” Atty. Padilla stressed.

Atty. Padilla explains, “Furthermore, in the Philippines the full range of contraceptive methods is unavailable, which directly contributed to the high rate of unwanted pregnancy and pushes women to resort to unsafe abortions that in many cases result in death. The obligation to provide access to information and family planning methods as a means of reducing abortion has been recognized by the CEDAW Committee[12] and the Beijing and Cairo Conferences consensus documents.”

“The Philippine government must respect women’s rights and in so doing comply with international law,” Atty. Padilla concluded.

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