Protecting healthcare workers advocating for safe abortion: Amnesty International abortion defenders report launch
Amnesty International has released a new global report, An Unstoppable Movement: A global call to recognize and protect those who defend the right to safe abortions, highlighting the attacks, intimidation and criminalisation healthcare workers and activists face for supporting the right of women and girls to access abortions.
Based on more than 40 personal interviews and supported by several organisations including FIGO, the report reveals the harrowing experiences of healthcare workers, activists and advocates around the world who face abuse, arrest, prosecution and imprisonment for their work.
Abortion is essential healthcare. Yet, as healthcare providers we are routinely faced by discrimination and violence for simply doing our jobs...Restrictive abortion laws and attitudes cause harm. They create hostile environments that feed abortion-related stigma that smears healthcare providers and those that seek abortion care as criminals. We all know colleagues, unfortunately, who have battled with stigma, career blocking, intimidation, physical attack, imprisonment, and even in the most extreme cases health care providers have been murdered.
Prof Anne-Beatrice Kihara, President of FIGO
Hostiles environments are prevalent including in countries where abortion is partially allowed by law. This is having a chilling, silencing and stigmatising effect on all those defending access to abortion, as they live in constant fear of being attacked and prosecuted for providing abortion care, whether it is legal or not. It is also creating major barriers for women, girls and people who need abortion care – particularly those who are most marginalised.
The right to abortion is not an opinion. It is a matter of international standards and international legal norms. It is a right underpinned by many human rights, including the rights to physical and mental integrity, the right to health and the right not to be unlawfully and arbitrarily killed through the withdrawal of safe services. It is essential for the dignity of all women and girls, and of everyone who can become pregnant. Those who defend and enable exercise of that right deserve our respect and protection.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
This Amnesty International report links to the Defending Frontline SRHR Defenders campaign launched in April 2022, a joint initiative by FIGO, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the International Confederation of Midwives, Ipas Partners for Reproductive Justice, and MSI Reproductive Choices.
FIGO stands in solidarity with healthcare workers and activists advocating for essential reproductive rights and calls for urgent action to address the hostile environments threatening them.