Abortion Access Gains Backing as Human Right

Womens ENews

By Asjylyn Loder
WeNews correspondent

Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that lack of access to abortion violates a woman's human rights. Advocates see it as an important shift that may change how other mainstream human rights groups treat reproductive rights.



(WOMENSENEWS)--Human Rights Watch, one of the largest rights groups in the world, has thrown its weight behind a woman's right to choose, simultaneously releasing a report on Argentina recommending liberalized abortion laws there and filing a brief in support of a Colombian case trying to appeal that country's strict abortion ban.

The moves bolster challenges to abortion bans in Colombia and Argentina and raise the pressure on other rights groups that have so far skirted the issue.

"It's time," said Marianne Mollmann, Americas researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch. "I think it is important that international human rights groups get involved in reproductive rights issues in general and in the issue of access to abortion specifically."