Abortion law

Such laws range from abortion being freely available on request, to regulation or restrictions of various kinds, to outright prohibition in all circumstances.

[3][4] Abortion has existed since ancient times, with natural abortifacients being found amongst a wide variety of tribal people and in most written sources.

When it does appear, it is entailed in concerns about male property rights, preservation of social order, and the duty to produce fit citizens for the state or community.

Religious texts often contained severe condemnations of abortion, recommending penance but seldom enforcing secular punishment.

As a matter of common law in England and the United States, abortion was illegal anytime after quickening—when the movements of the fetus could first be felt by the woman.

Under the born alive rule, the fetus was not considered a "reasonable being" in rerum natura; and abortion was not treated as murder in English law.

It was difficult to obtain sufficient evidence to prosecute the women and abortion doctors, and judges and juries were often reluctant to convict.

Under Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet Union became the first modern state in legalizing abortions on request—the law was first introduced in the Russian SFSR in 1920, in the Ukrainian SSR in July 1921, and then in the whole country.

The Soviet state recognized that banning abortion would not stop the practice because women would continue using the services of private abortionists.

The state considered abortion as a temporary necessary evil, which would disappear in the future communist society, which would be able to provide for all the children conceived.

[10][11][8] In the 1930s, several countries (Poland, Turkey, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Mexico) legalized abortion in some special cases (pregnancy from rape, threat to mother's health, fetal malformation).

In 1975, the West German Supreme Court struck down a law legalizing abortion, holding that they contradict the constitution's human rights guarantees.

In jurisdictions governed under sharia law, abortion after the 120th day from conception (19 weeks from LMP) is illegal, especially for those who follow the recommendations of the Hanafi legal school, while most jurists of the Maliki legal school "believe that ensoulment occurs at the moment of conception, and they tend to forbid abortion at any point [similar to the Roman Catholic Church].

Similarly, countries where not all subnational jurisdictions have legalized abortion on request are not included, leading to the exclusion of Australia, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.

[41][42] Abortions are completely banned in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, and only allowed in certain restricted circumstances in most other Latin American nations.

According to a United Nations (UN) report with data gathered up to 2019,[44] abortion is allowed in 98% of countries in order to save a woman's life.

This category includes several countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Oceania, as well as Andorra and Malta in Europe.

"[570] Some of the countries of Central America, notably El Salvador, have also come to international attention due to very forceful enforcement of the laws, including the incarceration of a gang-rape victim for homicide when she gave birth to a stillborn son and was accused of attempting an illegal abortion.

The Inter-American Court has already ruled that El Salvador was responsible for the death of Manuela, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2008 for aggravated homicide after suffering an obstetric emergency that resulted in her losing her pregnancy.

Pregnancy can be measured from a number of convenient points, including the day of last menstruation, ovulation, fertilization, implantation and chemical detection.

[ga] However, not all legal systems use this measure for the purpose of abortion law; for example countries such as Belgium, France, and Luxembourg use the term "pregnancy" in the abortion law to refer to the time elapsed from the sexual act that led to conception, which is presumed to be 2 weeks after the end of the last menstrual period.

"Health of the mother" may mean something different in different areas: for example, prior to December 2018, Ireland allowed abortion only to save the mother's life, whereas abortion opponents in the United States argue health exceptions are used so broadly as to render a ban essentially meaningless.

Such legislation often seeks to guard abortion clinics against obstruction, vandalism, picketing, and other actions, or to protect patients and employees of such facilities from threats and harassment.

On 3 November 2020, an association of 20 Kenyan charities urged the government of Kenya to withdraw from the Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), a US-led international accord that sought to limit access to abortion for girls and women around the world.