Global access to abortion still highly unequal

PARIS: After the US Supreme Court on Friday made the country the first to withdraw abortion rights, here is a snapshot of highly unequal access to terminations around the world.

While some countries have a total ban others permit terminations under certain conditions. The conservative-dominated US court overturned the landmark 1973 "Roe v Wade" decision that has enshrined a woman’s right to a termination for half a century.

It said individual states can permit or restrict the procedure themselves. Along with women in Canada, Europe and Oceania, the United States had typically benefited from the world’s most liberal legislation on terminations.

However the abortion issue remains deeply divisive in the United States: laws severely restricting abortion have been passed already in 13 Republican-led US states, although they have until now been struck down for violating Roe v. Wade.

In neighbouring Canada, where in 1988 a top court ruling struck down restrictions on abortions, thousands of anti-abortion demonstrators held an annual rally in front of Canada’s Parliament in May. Over the past 25 years, more than 50 countries have changed their laws to facilitate access to abortion, in some cases recognising its essential role in protecting a woman’s life, her health and fundamental rights.

Abortion nevertheless remains illegal in some 20 countries, notably in Africa, where Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Guinea-Bissau, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal all maintain a ban.

Terminations also remain illegal in Honduras, Nicaragua, Suriname, Haiti and the Dominican Republic as well as the Philippines, Laos and Palau. In Europe, there remain outposts which continue to uphold a total ban, in Andorra, Malta and the Vatican State.

Elsewhere, El Salvador adopted in the 1990s draconian legislation which banned terminations in all circumstances even if the mother’s life were deemed at risk. Theoretically, abortions are punishable by up to eight years in prison but some judges see any termination as an "aggravated homicide" which can bring terms of 30-50 years in jail.