Abortion and Contraception More Important Than Maternal Health?

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D. | April 23, 2012

Last Friday UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, gave a talk at an event organized by the Women’s International Forum titled: “Women’s Rights are Human Rights: The Work of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights”.

During the talk, Ms. Pillay, spoke of the creation of her office in 1993 as primarily a tool to help make human rights “actionable”, and of the growth of her office into the strategic center for the promotion of human rights within the UN system. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) with over 1000 employees, and an over $400M annual budget, is the logistical center of all UN human rights mechanisms. The substantive positions of the OHCHR influence UN treaty bodies, special procedure, and agencies and programs.

It is unfortunate that the OHCHR has chosen to focus its attention on contraception and abortion, instead of women’s health. This is what Ms. Pillay had to say with regards to “maternal health” on Friday:

[U]nderstanding maternal mortality as a human rights issue shines light on issues of discrimination against women and denial of their reproductive and sexual health rights. While interventions focused on the health aspects of maternal mortality may concentrate on the quality of care for pregnant women, a human rights analysis requires us to examine whether women have a choice in deciding to become pregnant in the first place, or the choice to seek the care that they require without having to obtain permission from male relatives.

Ms. Pillay is currently working on a policy guideline for governments on a “rights based approach” to maternal mortality and morbidity. If it is anything like the 2011 report prepared with the support of the OHCHR by the special rapporteur on the right to health, Anand Grover last fall, it will call for countries to abolish any and all restrictions on abortion.

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