IACHR Urges States to Protect the Reproductive Autonomy and Freedom of Women and Adolescent Girls

October 1, 2024

Washington, D.C. – In the context of World Contraception Day and International Safe Abortion Day, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) calls on States in the Americas to create the conditions required to ensure that women and adolescent girls may exercise their reproductive autonomy in its full diversity and without discrimination. This includes, among other measures, enabling access to information and healthcare services concerning contraception and safe abortion.

Recent data issued by the United Nations Population Fund show that almost half of all pregnancies on a global scale are unintended. While the reasons for this are varied and differ from one country to another, some common factors include high levels of unmet need for contraception, lack of access to comprehensive sex education, and a high incidence of sexual violence. These drivers are joined by hurdles that prevent access to safe abortions, including legal restrictions, social stigma, and inadequate healthcare infrastructure. In these circumstances, women's right to reproductive autonomy and freedom is being violated, something that particularly affects adolescent girls.

Lack of access to safe abortion (according to the parameters defined by the World Health Organization [WHO]) endangers women's lives, health, and personal integrity. Abortion in unsafe conditions is globally estimated to cause between 4.7% and 13.2% of all maternal deaths every year, as well as many diseases and disabilities. In Latin America and the Caribbean, there are approximately 8,400 maternal deaths every year, whose common causes include complications linked to unsafe abortions. Research shows that approximately half of all women and adolescent girls who undergo unsafe abortions suffer at least moderate complications.

The Inter-American Commission stresses that reproductive autonomy and freedom refer to the right to make decisions concerning one's own body, life plan, and sexual and reproductive health, without violence, coercion, or discrimination. The Inter-American Court has noted the connection between personal autonomy, reproductive freedom, and physical and psychological integrity, which means that the failure to ensure legal safeguards that take into consideration reproductive health may seriously undermine women's right to reproductive autonomy and freedom. The exercise of these rights requires access to reproductive health services, information, education, and adequate means to enable women to make free and informed decisions about whether they want to have children, how many, and/or when.

In this context, the IACHR calls on States in the Americas to adopt demographic policies aimed at ensuring women's reproductive autonomy and freedom and prioritizing access to reproductive health services and complete, true, and scientifically grounded information concerning sexuality, family planning, and modern contraception. Further, in keeping with the WHO abortion care guidelines of 2022 and the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994, the IACHR urges States to remove hurdles that prevent access to safe abortions, especially those involving legal restrictions, and to ensure the provision of post-abortion healthcare services in all cases, whatever the legal status of abortion in domestic legislation.

A principal, autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IACHR derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote respect for and to defend human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this area. The Commission is composed of seven independent members who are elected in an individual capacity by the OAS General Assembly and who do not represent their countries of origin or residence.

No. 235/24

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