New UN Guidance Calling for Restraints on Conscientious Objection to Abortion Care

by Cynthia Soohoo and Jaime M. Gher

The United Nations Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls (WGDAWG) this summer issued important new guidance on how governments can comply with their obligations to ensure that individual refusals to provide health care services based on religion or conscience do not create a barrier to reproductive health services, including abortion services. The guidance responds to reports of widespread abuse of “conscience claims” that have undermined abortion access in many regions. As States now turn to the process of implementing the guidance, we offer an explainer on what it requires and why implementation is necessary for States to comply with their international legal obligations.

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