Towards a rights-based approach for disabled women's access to abortion.

This article adds to the still limited scholarship on the impact of abortion laws and policies on people with disabilities and those with diminished capacity who seek abortion. We argue that neither the legal nor policy framework currently operating in England and Wales adequately incorporates and protects the rights of people with disabilities or those experiencing mental ill-health. Rather, the law and policy framework jeopardizes their reproductive agency.

The impact of third-party authorization requirements on abortion-related outcomes: a synthesis of legal and health evidence.

Objectives: This review synthesizes legal and health evidence to demonstrate the health and human rights impacts of third-party authorization requirements (TPAs) on abortion seekers.

Results: The synthesized evidence substantiates the pre-existing position in international human rights law that requirements that abortion be authorized by third parties like parents, spouses, committees, and courts create barriers to abortion, should not be introduced at all, or should be repealed where they exist.

Conclusions: The review establishes that rights-based regulation of abortion should not impose TPAs in any circumstances.

The Impact of 'conscientious objection' on abortion-related outcomes: A synthesis of legal and health evidence.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and international human rights bodies have long urged states to take steps to ensure that 'conscientious objection' does not undermine access to abortion in practice. This review uses an established methodology to identify and integrate evidence of the health and human rights impacts of the practice of conscientious objection/refusal. The evidence identified in this review suggests strongly that conscientious objection negatively affects the rights of abortion seekers and has negative implications for the rights of non-objecting health workers.

The impact of criminalisation on abortion-related outcomes: a synthesis of legal and health evidence.

Abortion is criminalised to at least some degree in most countries. International human rights bodies have recognised that criminalisation results in the provision of poor-quality healthcare goods and services, is associated with lack of registration and unavailability of essential medicines including mifepristone and misoprostol, obstructs the provision of abortion information, obstructs training for abortion provision, is associated with delayed and unsafe abortion, and does not achieve its apparent aims of ether protecting abortion seekers from unsafe abortion or preventing abortion. Human rights bodies recommend decriminalisation, which is generally associated with reduced stigma, improved quality of care, and improved access to safe abortion.

The impact of mandatory waiting periods on abortion-related outcomes: a synthesis of legal and health evidence.

This review follows an established methodology for integrating human rights to address knowledge gaps related to the health and non-health outcomes of mandatory waiting periods (MWPs) for access to abortion. MWP is a requirement imposed by law, policy, or practice, to wait a specified amount of time between requesting and receiving abortion care. Recognizing that MWPs "demean[] women as competent decision-makers", the World Health Organization recommends against MWPs.

The impact of provider restrictions on abortion-related outcomes: a synthesis of legal and health evidence.

Many components of abortion care in early pregnancy can safely be provided on an outpatient basis by mid-level providers or by pregnant people themselves. Yet, some states impose non-evidence-based provider restrictions, understood as legal or regulatory restrictions on who may provide or manage all or some aspects of abortion care. These restrictions are inconsistent with the World Health Organization's support for the optimization of the roles of various health workers, and do not usually reflect evidence-based determinations of who can provide abortion.