As another June 12th – Russia’s “National Day” – passed in Moscow, the Kremlin calculated how successful its efforts have been to encourage Russia’s women to have more babies. Worried about declining population numbers, the Russian government has introduced a host of measures designed to encourage procreation.
As we pass the seven billion mark, it’s easy to get caught up in numbers. But the only reason those numbers mean anything is because of the individual lives behind them. In order to make the most of this moment and all those to follow, we need to lead every conversation about numbers with rights.
Four years ago, in 2007, a Brazilian judge prosecuted 1,500 women for procuring abortions. That same year, a twenty-year-old woman, Ana María Acevedo, died in Argentina of cancer-related complications because her doctors refused to treat her; she was pregnant and an abortion might have saved her life.
The world reaches seven billion people at a time of renewed debates about demographic changes, individual human rights and women's rights specifically, attacks on basic reproductive health care, and accelerated environmental disruption.
When it comes down to it, these laws represent legal rape. If rape is the insertion of an object into the body of an unwilling person, then what else can you call laws insisting that a woman submit to pregnancy regardless of her age, the circumstances under which she became pregnant, her health, or her general well-being?
The UN Special Rapporteur's report calls for decriminalization of and the removal of legal barriers related to human rights abuses around abortion, conduct during pregnancy, contraception, family planning, and provision of sexual and reproductive health education and information.
