Postdoctoral fellow at the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC, United States.
Senior postdoctoral fellow and program manager for human rights and democratization in Africa at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Health Hum Rights. 2023 Jun;25(1):171-183.
Self-managed abortion holds particular promise for revolutionizing people's access to quality reproductive care in Africa, where the burden of abortion-related mortality is the highest globally and where abortion remains criminalized, in violation of various internationally and regionally recognized human rights. Increasingly safe and effective, self-managed medication abortion is still subject to many restrictions, including criminal laws, across the continent. Drawing on recent evidence and human rights developments around self-managed abortion, this paper explores whether and to what extent Africa's regional legal framework builds a normative basis for the decriminalization of self-managed abortion. We conclude that the region's articulation of the rights to dignity, to freedom from cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, and to nondiscrimination, among others, provides strong grounds for decriminalization, both concerning individuals who need abortions and concerning the constellation of actors who enable self-management.
自主堕胎在改变非洲获得优质生殖保健服务方面具有特别的前景，因为非洲的堕胎死亡率是全球最高的，而堕胎在那里仍然是犯罪行为，违反了各种国际和区域公认的人权。越来越安全有效的自主药物流产仍然受到非洲大陆许多限制，包括刑法。本文借鉴最近关于自主堕胎的证据和人权发展，探讨非洲的区域法律框架是否以及在何种程度上为自主堕胎非刑罪化建立了规范基础。我们的结论是，该区域对尊严权、免受残忍、不人道和有辱人格待遇的自由权以及不歧视权等权利的阐述，为非刑罪化提供了有力的依据，既涉及需要堕胎的个人，也涉及使自主管理成为可能的一系列行为者。
