Rewire: How a U.N. Committee’s Ruling on Abortion in Ireland Holds Countries Accountable
Jamie J. Hagen, a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts Boston, explores how a case in Ireland in which a woman appealed to the U.N. arguing that being denied access to a safe and affordable abortion was a violation of her human rights, “has created a roadmap for advocates to call out the prohibition and criminalization of abortion by any country as a violation of human rights. … Advocates in other countries, including the United States and Poland, have sought to protect access to abortion as a human right in different ways through the Human Rights Committee. They have used the U.N. committee periodic review of whether or not the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is being upheld within a nation as a forum for addressing violations to reproductive health care. However, the reach of the human rights norms established by the U.N. depends on the willingness of a particular country to work within the bounds of established international human rights frameworks…” (1/27).