R.J. Cook’s research while affiliated with University of Toronto and other places

It is increasingly implausible to speak of a purely domestic abortion law, as the legal debates around the world draw on precedents and influences of different national and regional contexts. While the United States and Western Europe may have been the vanguard of abortion law reform in the latter half of the twentieth century, Central and South America are proving to be laboratories of thought and innovation in the twenty-first century, as are particular countries in Africa and Asia. Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective offers a fresh look at significant transnational legal developments in recent years, examining key judicial decisions, constitutional texts, and regulatory reforms of abortion law in order to envision ways ahead. The chapters investigate issues of access, rights, and justice, as well as social constructions of women, sexuality, and pregnancy, through different legal procedures and regimes. They address the promises and risks of using legal procedure to achieve reproductive justice from different national, regional, and international vantage points; how public and courtroom debates are framed within medical, religious, and human rights arguments; the meaning of different narratives that recur in abortion litigation and language; and how respect for women and prenatal life is expressed in various legal regimes. By exploring how legal actors advocate, regulate, and adjudicate the issue of abortion, this timely volume seeks to build on existing developments to bring about change of a larger order.

Sinopsis Examen de las cuestiones legales y éticas, en la experiencia internacional, del manejo del embarazo con un feto anencefálico dentro del contexto del aborto o parto inducido. Resumen Alrededor de un tercio de los fetos anencefálicos nacen vivos, pero no son conscientes o viables y fallecen rápidamente. Este defecto del tubo neural puede reducirse a través de la ingesta alimenticia de folatos, y detectarse prenatalmente por medio de una ecografía u otros medios. Muchas legislaciones permiten el aborto bajo esta indicación o en virtud de los efectos que el embarazo, o la posibilidad de parto, puedan producir sobre la salud física o mental de una mujer. Sin embargo, el aborto se encuentra restringido en algunos sistemas jurídicos, particularmente en Sudamérica. Para evitar la responsabilidad penal, los facultativos no interrumpen un embarazo, mediante el parto o aborto inducidos, sin autorización judicial previa. Los tribunales de justicia argentinos han desarrollado criterios para resolver estos casos; sin embargo, la respuesta de las cortes brasileras no ha sido tan clara. Algunas preocupaciones éticas respecto del aborto tardío, es decir después del punto de viabilidad fetal, se ven superadas debido a que los fetos anencefálicos no son viables. Diversos códigos profesionales o institucionales proveen directrices en relación al manejo de embarazos anencefálicos.

Reproductive rights refer to the composite of human rights that address matters of sexual and reproductive health. Reproductive rights are protected through the application of human rights in guidelines, national laws, constitutions, and regional and international treaties. While reproductive rights are instrumental to achieving population, health, and development goals, they are also important in themselves as human rights intended to protect the inherent dignity of the individual. Reproductive rights consist of three broad categories of rights: (1) rights to reproductive self-determination, (2) rights to sexual and reproductive health services, information, and education, and (3) rights to equality and nondiscrimination.

National and international courts and tribunals are increasingly ruling that although states may aim to deter unlawful abortion by criminal penalties, they bear a parallel duty to inform physicians and patients of when abortion is lawful. The fear is that women are unjustly denied safe medical procedures to which they are legally entitled, because without such information physicians are deterred from involvement. With particular attention to the European Court of Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Committee, the Constitutional Court of Colombia, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal, and the US Supreme Court, decisions are explained that show the responsibility of states to make rights to legal abortion transparent. Litigants are persuading judges to apply rights to reproductive health and human rights to require states' explanations of when abortion is lawful, and governments are increasingly inspired to publicize regulations or guidelines on when abortion will attract neither police nor prosecutors' scrutiny.

Individuals' reproductive choices are private matters, but sexual conduct and pregnancy impose significant public health burdens. Ethical principles of public health are distinguishable from principles applied in modern bioethics. Bioethical principles have been developed at the clinical or microethical level, affecting relations among individuals, whereas pubic health ethics applies at the population-based or macroethical level. Resolution of issues, for instance of consent to healthcare interventions and preservation of privacy, is different in public health practice from in clinical medicine. Public health aspects of human reproduction concern reduction of maternal mortality and morbidity, particularly in resource-poor countries, and the contribution to high rates of each of unsafe abortion, most prevalent where abortion laws are restrictive. Further aspects of public health ethics concern limited access to contraceptive services, the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, causes of infertility, especially due to STIs, and responses to each of these concerns.