The UN recently issued a report that declares that countries that restrict access to either abortion or contraception are violating a woman’s human rights. The report also declares it Officially Messed Up when a woman is prosecuted for taking illegal drugs or drinking during her pregnancy, because it’s her body and the state has no right to it. The Pope, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rick Perry now agree: The UN sucks.
The report, authored by Arnand Grover, reasons that because sexual and reproductive health are part of a woman’s overall health and people have a right to health, women therefore have a right to access to abortion and contraception.
Its logic isn’t complicated, but its implications may be. About a quarter of the world’s population of women live in countries where abortion is illegal or heavily restricted, and those restrictions are in place due to religious or moral beliefs. In issuing this report, the UN effectively challenges the morality of not only red state America’s zygote zealots, but also of the governments of The Philippines, Chile, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Malta, Nicaragua, or Uruguay, where abortion is completely outlawed in all cases (and Vatican City, but when’s the last time anyone’s been pregnant there? Pregnant with anything besides rage, I mean). Anticipating this, the report reads,
Public morality cannot serve as a justification for enactment or enforcement of laws that may result in human rights violations, including those intended to regulate sexual and reproductive conduct and decisionmaking. Although securing particular public health outcomes is a legitimate State aim, measures taken to achieve this must be both evidence-based and proportionate to ensure respect of human rights. When criminal laws and legal restrictions used to regulate public health are neither evidence-based nor proportionate, States should refrain from using them to regulate sexual and reproductive health, as they not only violate the right to health of affected individuals, but also contradict their own public health justification.
Paging Mississippi.