As part of the main drivers of the BAM Group of Companies, this being the umbrella company within which Informative Newspaper operates, alongside sister brands Finite Magazine, Finite Lifestyle Club, Bam Promotions and Twin Talk, Informative Newspaper takes particular interest in social issues and causes created to advance the development of young girls and women and their participation in the global space.
To advance and cement the organization’s support for women and young girls, the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights is today, through this issue introduced. Its purpose is to advance knowledge and create further awareness on developments surrounding the said community sector and to help audiences stay updated on such, further guiding means of both action and reaction to these developments.
This week we discuss what parliamentarians can do to advance access to family planning and contraception
The right to safe abortion is now recognised as an integral part of reproductive rights and various provisions in regional and international human right instruments have been interpreted to include access to safe abortion. It is most strategic to advance the right to safe abortion progressively bearing in mind country-specific religious and moral beliefs and with continuous dialogue and consultation of religious and community leaders.
The role of parliamentarians in this respect is crucial as both their representative and leadership roles are at play in standard-setting and convincing communities to adopt a change of mind-sets, where necessary, in advancing the access to safe abortion agenda. They can also help to ensure that abortion is medically supervised and carried out by qualified personnel in hospital settings that provide emergency obstetric care.
Undertake advocacy research: Parliamentarians can initiate research into the negative consequences of unsafe abortions and commission research into economic costs of providing post-abortion care for unsafe and/or illegal abortions. Parliamentarians can investigate the barriers to access to legal abortion (even where it is restricted to limited circumstances), including lack of information about availability, inadequate training of health care workers, and costs. Parliamentarians can investigate unintended and unwanted pregnancy amongst marginalised and vulnerable women, including women living with HIV, and their need for abortion and post-abortion care.
Enact and strengthen protective laws: Parliamentarians can draft and enact laws promoting access to comprehensive SRHR, including abortion. They can ensure that laws:
• Decriminalise access to abortion, abortion related information and post-abortion care;
• Promote equal, non-discriminatory access to abortion where it is legal, even in limited circumstances;
• Provide clear guidance when abortion is available on limited grounds so that health care workers and women know when they are able to provide or access abortion;
• Promote access to unbiased and comprehensive pregnancy counselling;
• Promote equal, non-discriminatory access to contraception and contraceptive information and ensure that women are able to make informed decisions about contraception and give their informed consent before using any form of contraception;
• Promote access to contraception for marginalised and vulnerable women, including women living with HIV, sex workers and women who use drugs;
• Prohibit any form of coercion in access to contraception, including sterilisation;
• Do not criminalise methods of preventing pregnancy;
• Do not require spousal or parental consent to access contraception and contraceptive information or abortion, where it is available; and
• Promote respect for the right to medical confidentiality for women and girls.
Ensure accountability for implementation of commitments: Parliamentarians can undertake legal audits to assess whether laws and policies are consistent with international and regional human rights commitments. They can also call for accountability to and reporting on efforts to meet related international and regional human rights commitments. They can meet with the relevant parliamentary committees to share information and concerns about discriminatory laws and assess what changes are necessary to decriminalise abortion and provide access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care. They can meet with international and regional experts to discuss what law reform is necessary and advocate for legal and policy reform to ensure compliance. They can monitor and hold government ministries accountable for reporting on their progress towards amending discriminatory laws and enacting protective ones, and they can encourage civil society to monitor whether protective laws are being implemented. Where they find deficits, they can advocate for legal and policy reform to ensure compliance. They can monitor and hold government ministries accountable for reporting on their progress and achievements to achieve the SDGs.
Budget monitoring: Parliamentarians can advocate for adequate budgets to be allocated for measures to advance universal access to SRHR, including access to abortion, where it is legal, and post-abortion care. They can analyse budget allocations for SRH to assess that programmes will reach vulnerable and marginalised women. They can encourage various ministries (e.g. health, education and justice) to budget for relevant programmes and that human rights are fully integrated into abortion services and appropriately costed to ensure implementation.
Be an opinion leader and influencer: Parliamentarians can become opinion leaders on abortion as a key part of the right to SRHR. By speaking out, parliamentarians can help to destigmatise abortion and increase acceptability of abortion as a component of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care. They can attend events, deliver speeches and work with the media to frame access conversations about abortion as a human rights issues. They can use international or national human rights days, including the Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion (28 September) to increase awareness about the harms of unsafe abortions and the importance of universal access to contraception and they can promote the Continental Campaign to decriminalise abortion. They can also work within Parliament and in Parliamentary forums and networks, to raise awareness amongst fellow parliamentarians. They can share lessons learned at regional and global level with other parliamentarians.
Engage with civil society: Parliamentarians can engage with CSOs, health care workers and other groups working on women’s reproductive health to increase awareness, understanding and information about abortion and the harms of unsafe abortion. They can invite CSOs and the communities they work with, to provide expert information at parliamentary hearings about the challenges women and girls face in accessing safe abortions and the barriers to contraception. They can present the findings of these meetings and hearings to relevant government ministries. Parliamentarians can play an important role in ensuring that the voices of women, including women living with HIV, and the perspectives of families and communities affected by lack of access to abortion, are included in debates on the matter.
Represent their electorate: Parliamentarians should engage with and reflect the concerns of all their electorate. Parliamentarians can engage with key stakeholders within communities – women, health care workers, parents, traditional leaders and religious leaders, to increase awareness to about SRHR, including abortion. In particular, parliamentarians can ensure that they include the voices of girls and young women at the centre of these conversations.
Work with the media: Parliamentarians can work with the media to raise awareness and to encourage responsible reporting on abortion. They can encourage the media to write stories that sensitively convey the consequences of unintended pregnancy, that portray the choice to have an abortion accurately and without judgment and that provide relevant and reliable information about access to abortion and post abortion care. They can frame abortion as human rights issue and a public health imperative.
Next we discuss Cervical cancer screening and prevention
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