Excerpt of International Bar Association article that quotes GJC President Akila Radhakrishnan.

Akila Radhakrishnan is President of the Global Justice Center, which develops legal strategies to establish and protect human rights and gender equity. She believes ‘The elevation of religious liberty is seriously problematic, especially given the way it’s been constructed to then supersede other fundamental rights’.

Radhakrishnan also has concerns about the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in late October, which gave the Court a 6-3 conservative majority. Although Justice Barrett swore to set aside political and personal preferences in her rulings, she is influenced by originalism. At her confirmation hearings, Justice Barrett reiterated that she believes the Constitution should be interpreted on the grounds that it was written: ‘I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. So that meaning doesn’t change over time’.

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Excerpt of The Guardian article that quotes GJC Legal Director Grant Shubin.

Grant Shubin, legal director of the Global Justice Center, said: “Every country who withheld its vote for this unnecessary and dangerous resolution should be applauded. The women, peace and security agenda is anchored in human rights and this resolution could have turned back the clock on 20 years of progress.

“Women in conflict-affected countries are suffering catastrophic impacts due to Covid-19. Any attack on this critical tool for advancing women’s health and rights is dangerous and we’re glad to see a diverse group of nations stand up for the agenda and its bold commitments to gender equality.”

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Excerpt of The Parliament article that quotes GJC President Akila Radhakrishnan.

Kumar emphasised that safe abortion care needs to be understood as a medical necessity, independent of the context and the reason for the abortion. Akila Radhakrishnan, President of the Global Justice Center in New York, said that in the past ten years of their work on abortion access in humanitarian settings, there has been both great progress as well as backlash.

“Pregnant persons are still routinely denied access to safe abortion services in humanitarian settings and proactive action grounded in fundamental rights under international law - including by powerful humanitarian donors like the European Commission - is vitally needed.”

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Description:

This webinar addresses the plight of survivors of sexual and gender-based violence and their access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) under EU humanitarian aid, in particular their access to safe abortion.

In 2015, former VP/HR Mogherini and former Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Mr Stylianides stated that “in cases where a pregnancy threatens a woman’s or girl’s life or causes unbearable suffering, international humanitarian law and/or international human rights law may justify offering a safe abortion rather than perpetuating what amounts to inhumane treatment”. The Commission has continuously reaffirmed this policy since then. However, the provision of abortion services on the ground by humanitarian health actors remains incomplete. This webinar will thus explore possible steps to ensure that the EU can continue to guarantee equality of care to survivors of armed conflict.

The EU Commissioner for Crisis Management will deliver a keynote speech and panelists will share the experiences of humanitarian organisations on the ground.

Speakers: 

Sophie in ‘t Veld (MEP), Renew Europe, Co-chair of MEPs for Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Petra de Sutter (MEP), Greens/EFA, Co-chair of MEPs for Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Janez Lenarčič - EU Commissioner for Crisis Management

Akila Radhakrishnan, President, Global Justice Center

Rajat Kohsla - Senior Director, Research, Advocacy and Policy, Amnesty International

Cyprien Masaka Lepepo, Deputy Reproductive Health Coordinator, International Rescue Committee DRC

Manisha Kumar - Head of the Task Force for Safe Abortion Care , Médecins Sans Frontières

Michael Koehler, Deputy Director General, DG ECHO, European Commission

Amidst new and renewed attacks on sexual and reproductive health and rights, it is more important than ever for humanitarian aid policies to explicitly include abortion services.

Excerpt of Women Under Siege op-ed by GJC Deputy Legal Director Grant Shubin.  

On Wednesday, April 23, 2019, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2467 during the Council’s annual Open Debate on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence. .

After months of German-led negotiations, passage of the Resolution ultimately came down to sexual and reproductive health (SRH)—specifically, whether the U.S. would veto its inclusion in the final text.

The U.S. justified its position by claiming that SRH is a euphemism for abortion services. Not only is this not true—SRH includes, among other things, contraception, safe abortion services, HIV prevention, and prenatal healthcare—but even if it were, abortion services for survivors of sexual violence save lives.

Unsafe abortion causes the deaths of 47,000 people each year and leaves another 5 million with some form of permanent or temporary disability. They may suffer complications, including hemorrhage, infection, perforation of the uterus, and damage to the genital tract or internal organs. In fact, the consequences of denying abortion services have been found to be so severe that it can amount to torture and other inhuman or degrading treatment.

The international community cannot become accustomed or complacent to the Trump administration’s use of domestic politics to hold international rights hostage. Because it is more than just words that are given up last minute on the floor of the Security Council—it’s women’s lives.

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GJC Vice-President, Akila Radhakrishnan, GJC Legal Fellow, Elena Sarver and GJC Staff Attorney, Grant Shubin published an article in Reproductive Health Matters.

Abstract:

Women and girls are increasingly the direct and targeted victims of armed conflict and studies show that they are disproportionately and differentially affected. However, humanitarian laws, policies, and protocols have yet to be meaningfully interpreted and adapted to respond to their specific needs, including to sexual and reproductive health services and rights. In particular, safe abortion services are routinely omitted from sexual and reproductive health services in humanitarian settings for a variety of reasons, including improper deference to national law, the disproportionate influence of restrictive funding policies, and the failure to treat abortion as medical care. However, properly construed, abortion services fall within the purview of the universal and non-derogable protections granted under international humanitarian and human rights law. This commentary considers the protections of international humanitarian law and explains how abortion services fall within a category of protected medical care. It then outlines contemporary challenges affecting the realisation of these rights. Finally, it proposes a unification of current approaches through the use of international humanitarian law to ensure comprehensive care for those affected by armed conflict.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -November 23, 2017

[NEW YORK and GOMA]– On Saturday, the world celebrates the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. In anticipation of this day, a global coalition of ninety civil society organizations calls on the European Commission to ensure that abortion, a medical procedure, is included in the medical care offered to women and girls, particularly in areas where rape is used as a weapon of war. 

On Population, Development and Reproductive Health inquiry on “Abortion in the Developing World and in the UK”

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This factsheet outlines IHL’s various provisions that protect abortion services for female victims of conflict.

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President Trump’s expanded Global Gag Rule is being implemented through standard provisions issued by all affected agencies and sub-agencies, including:

• USAID
• State Department; and
• HHS, including the NIH and CDC.

Except for some small non-material language, these regulations are substantially the same across agencies. To provide context, GJC has annotated USAID’s Standard Provisions for Non-US Non-Governmental Organizations (ADS 303), which is the primary vehicle through which this censorship is being effected. These regulations also include provisions which implement other US abortion restrictions on foreign assistance, including the Helms and Siljander Amendments, which restrict the activities of all recipients of US foreign assistance.

This annotation highlights, explains and contextualizes the laws and policies that restrict or place restrictions on U.S. funding of abortion or family planning services abroad.

Background: After the US Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade (which held that the U.S. Constitution protects a woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy), Congress began restricting abortion access through funding restrictions both domestically (Hyde Amendment) and abroad (the Helms Amendment). Over the years, the funding restrictions on foreign assistance have grown and now encompass all US foreign aid through their incorporation into annual appropriations acts, which are then implemented by agencies providing foreign aid, primarily USAD and the State Department. These congressional restrictions limit what can be done with US funds.

 In 1984, President Reagan expanded these restrictions on foreign NGOs through the “Mexico City Policy” (or Global Gag Rule) and began limiting with those organizations could do with their funds from any donor. The Gag Rule was rescinded by President Clinton, reinstated by President Bush, rescinded by President Obama and reinstated and expanded by President Trump.

Today, all entities receiving US foreign aid cannot speak about or provide abortions with US funds in any circumstances, including rape, life endangerment and incest. Furthermore, foreign NGOs receiving US global health assistance aid must now certify that they will not actively promote or provide abortion services as a method of family planning with funds from any donor and all NGOs receiving US global assistance funds cannot partner with or sub-grant to any foreign NGO that won’t certify the same. As a result, today, the United States is denying necessary and safe medical care to women and girls around the world in violation of their rights under international law.

This annotation seeks to demystify US abortion restrictions and map how and where they are put into place.  

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Join the Global Justice Center and CHANGE for a Twitter Relay on Friday, August 11, 2017, 1-2pm

Below you will find our social media toolkit with sample tweets and primary hashtags.

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GJC President Janet Benshoof and former GJC intern Martin Fowler wrote an op-ed in Norwegian Magazine Bistandsaktuelt urging Norway to acknowledge that abortion access is part of the nondiscriminatory medical care to which war rape victims are entitled.

Read in Norwegian

Read in English

Sexual violence in today’s armed conflicts is systematically used against civilians to demoralize, destroy, terrorize, and even change the ethnic compositions of entire communities. For instance, the ongoing Syrian civil war has seen an estimated 50,000 rapes. Women there describe being drugged, blindfolded, and raped in groups. In Iraq, ISIS has systematically abducted girls and women, held them in captivity, and repeatedly subjected them sexual violence including rape and sexual slavery. In Darfur, Sudan, where sexual violence has been used as a tactic of war for over 12 years, a 2015 attack in Tabit included the mass rape of over 200 women and girls in the span of three days. Finally, in Nigeria, Boko Haram openly targets young girls for kidnappings, forced marriage, rape, sexual slavery and other forms of gender-based violence.

Today, thousands of girls and women raped and impregnated in armed conflict are routinely denied abortions with devastating consequences. A girl or woman who is a victim of war rape and is denied an abortion when she wants one often has three options: (1) undergoing an unsafe abortion; (2) carrying to term an unwanted pregnancy; or (3) committing suicide. The denial of abortion services to these victims is both illegal and inhumane. 

In the context of armed conflict, the rights of war victims are protected under international humanitarian law. Specifically, victims of war rape are part of a special class of people called “wounded and sick in armed conflict.” This status means they are entitled to comprehensive and non-discriminatory medical care provided solely on the basis of their condition. Failing to provide–or denying–a medical service needed only by one gender (i.e. abortion) violates these absolute rights.

Abortion as protected medical care under international humanitarian law has increasingly been recognized by states, international policy makers, and legal experts on international humanitarian law. This document complies language and citations of laws, policies, authoritative declarations of public officials, and legal treatises, that affirm abortion as protected medical care for girls and women raped in war under IHL.

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GJC's President, Janet Benshoof wrote a piece for Ms. on Trump's $8.8 billion expansion of the Gag Rule and the fight against US abortion restrictions. 

Read here

Listen to GJC's legal experts discuss the implications of Trump's expanded Global Gag Rule. Find us on iTunes and Soundcloud.

Listen to GJC's legal experts discuss the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Find us on iTunes and Soundcloud.

A Hindrance on Abortions to Rape Victims

by Eva Marie Wüst Vestergaard

US abortion restrictions constrain abortion speech and services around the world. Under a Trump administration, it is likely these restrictions will be expanded, causing confusion for providers and harming women raped in war.

For the past six years, the Global Justice Center has worked to lift the US abortion ban on foreign aid. The Helms Amendment stipulates that US funding cannot be used for any kind of abortion speech and services. However, this does not constrain foreign organizations from using other funding for abortion activities as long as their funding is segregated. This latitude is not well known and in the aftermath of the US election, it is now also imperilled.

The Mexico City Policy or the Global Gag Rule (GGR), imposed by Reagan, requires that foreign organizations receiving US funds for family planning activities cannot perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning. Foreign organizations under GGR are allowed to spend other funding for abortion speech and services in the cases of rape, incest, or if the “mother’s life would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term”, as these are not methods of family planning.

The GGR has continuously been rescinded under democratic presidencies and reinstated under republican presidencies. It was rescinded by President Obama eight years ago and will most likely be reinstated by Trump. When the GGR is reinstated it produces a “chilling effect” on providers of abortion services around the world.

The chilling effect refers to the fact that US abortion restrictions are so complicated and incomprehensible that providers avoid any activity on abortion as a preventive measure to avoid the risk of losing funding. It is, for example, a common misconception that the Helms amendment is a total ban on abortion speech and services, whilst the ban only covers US funding, not alternative segregated funding.

Should a reinstatement of the GGR become a reality, foreign organizations may be likely to disregard abortion services in spite of having autonomy to provide them to rape victims and other cases that are not defined as family planning. Therefore, it is vital to be fully informed of what these restrictions entail, be wary of misconceptions, and eliminate the chilling effect that hinders raped women’s right to abortion around the world.

GJC President Janet Benshoof and Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal co-wrote an article in the Huffington Post about women's right to abortion access in conflict zones. 

Click here to read the full article.