Abortion and reproductive health rights

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits covered employers from discriminating against applicants, as well as current and former employees, based on race, gender, color, religion, or national origin. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (PDA) amended Title VII to include in its prohibition of gender discrimination a prohibition of discrimination based on pregnancy, which includes abortion and the use of contraception.

The Northern Ireland Court of Appeal reversed a trial court dismissal of an application by the Family Planning Association of Northern Ireland (FPANI) seeking a declaration that the Northern Ireland Minister for Health, Social Services and Public Safety acted unlawfully in failing to issue advice and/or guidance to women of child-bearing age and to clinicians in Northern Ireland on the availability and provision of termination of pregnancy services in Northern Ireland. 

The local court denied the petitioner’s motion to certify the approval of her female partner to conduct in vitro fertilization with a third person’s semen. The regional court denied the appeal. It held that the wording of the Austrian Reproductive Medicine Act (FMedG) aims to exclude same-sex parenthood. The Supreme Court decided to bring this question to the attention of the Austrian Constitutional Court. The Austrian Constitutional Court decided that certain sections of the FMedG were unconstitutional.

Here, in a unanimous judgment, the Court of Appeal reversed a decision by the High Court to dismiss a medical negligence claim raised by a woman who underwent a surgical procedure for the removal of her womb and experienced the leaking of urine after the procedure. Appellant had sought damages from medical negligence and lack of proper post-operative care. The Court’s holding clarifies the law on prescription and medical negligence, which are a prominent method through which women try to access the courts when their reproductive health rights are violated.

The Gender Equality Act promotes gender equality for men and women in all parts of society, and seeks to prohibit and provide redress for sex discrimination, harmful practices (including social, cultural, or religious practices that are physically or sexually harmful) and sexual harassment. Under the Act, persons (and the government) are prohibited from treating people less favorably than they would otherwise due to sex. The law defines and criminalizes sexual harassment, including workplace harassment.

Medically assisted reproduction is available only to married couples, or those in a registered partnership or cohabitation.

The Human Rights Committee held that Guatemala violated the ICCPR by forcing a 14-year-old rape survivor to continue a non-consensual pregnancy and assume motherhood, finding breaches of the right to life with dignity (Article 6), the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 7), privacy and reproductive autonomy (Articl

The plaintiffs challenged an 1879 Connecticut law, which banned the use of all drugs, medical devices, or other instruments necessary for contraception, by opening a birth control clinic in New Haven, Connecticut. The Supreme Court found that the First, Third, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments established a right of marital privacy against state contraception regulations. As a result, the Court held that the Connecticut law violated this constitutionally established right to privacy, so the law was struck down.

The Supreme Federal Court of Brazil (STF) revoked the pretrial detention order issued against staff and patients of a clinic that was alleged to have been performing clandestine abortions. The 2^ND Panel of STF found that criminal laws against abortion were unconstitutional with respect to the case in hand, and the criminalization of voluntary termination of pregnancy during the first three months was incompatible with the protection of multiple fundamental rights of women. The decision set an important precedent for the sexual and reproductive rights of women in Brazil.