Abortion bans in US put millions of women and girls at risk: UN experts

​​​​​​​Beyza Binnur Donmez

GENEVA (AA) - Abortion bans in the US have put millions of women and girls at risk, UN experts said Friday after the US Supreme Court decision overturned the constitutional right to abortion in June 2022.

Noting that abortion has been banned in 14 states in the country as of January 2023, the experts said: "The regressive position taken by the US Supreme Court in June 2022, by essentially dismantling 50 years of precedent protecting the right to abortion in the country, puts millions of women and girls at serious risk."

The abortion bans have made "abortion services largely inaccessible and denied women and girls their fundamental human rights to comprehensive healthcare, including sexual and reproductive health," they said.

They warned that such bans could lead "to violations of women’s rights to privacy, bodily integrity and autonomy, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, equality and non-discrimination, and freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and gender-based violence," they warned.

The experts noted that existing exceptions often "do not reflect medical diagnosis and sometimes exclude health-threatening conditions."

They also voiced alarm over the increasing reports of threats to the lives of abortion service providers across the country.

"We urge both the federal and state governments to take action to reverse the regressive rhetoric seeping through the legislative system and enact positive measures to ensure access to safe and legal abortion," the experts said.