BMJ Opinion: Joanna Erdman: The global abortion policies database — legal knowledge as a health intervention
Joanna Erdman, MacBain chair in health and policy law at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, discusses the Global Abortion Policies Database and its potential role in abortion law. Erdman writes, “[The database is] an open-access repository of abortion laws, policies, standards, and guidelines for 197 countries. Designed to strengthen efforts to eliminate unsafe abortion, the database acknowledges and engages law and policy as a social determinant of safe abortion. … [T]he database endeavors to make accessible clear and accurate information on abortion law and policy, and thereby suggests that knowledge is perhaps the more critical determinant of safe abortion” (11/1).