By Anastasia Moloney

BOGOTA Thomson Reuters (NYSE: Foundation) – While a record number of U.S. States have attempted to limit abortion access this year, countries such as Argentina, Mexico, and Thailand are moving in the other direction, easing strict restrictions on the procedure.

The Guttmacher Institute reports that in America, there have been 106 restrictions to abortion across 19 states.

Most restrictive measures taken by Republican-led states include counseling mandatory, waiting 24 hours for a second visit to the clinic, and decreasing the time women have to end a pregnancy.

Campaigners assert that the United States is under severe attack on abortion rights. This comes after the 1973 Roe-v. Wade decision made abortion legal and constitutional in every country.

Elizabeth Nash is the principal policy associate at Guttmacher Institute for state affairs. She stated, “This” was the most disastrous year of U.S. legislation since Roev. Wade.

Nash stated, “But this was not a sudden occurrence – it has been years in preparation as part of an coordinated campaign to ban all abortion outright.”

Two major cases that may uphold abortion rights restrictions were heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which is conservatively dominated with a 6-3 majority.

These cases concern the US states of Mississippi, Texas and Texas. In September, a ban on near-total abortions was in effect. It prohibits terminations within the first six weeks.

Many countries around the world have updated their abortion laws by 2021. Some have even tightened.

A near-total ban on abortion in Poland has been in place since January. This led to nationwide protests.

Oct 2020: The Constitutional Court declared that abortions for fetal defects are illegal. It is now the only legal reason to terminate pregnancies.

ATTITUDES SHIFT

Some countries in Latin America have opened their borders to women, as the rights movement for women demands that attitudes change.

The conservative opposition persists in the predominantly Roman Catholic region. In Chile, initiatives to make it easier to terminate pregnancy have been blocked.

Chilean legislators rejected a November bill that allowed women to have abortions legally. The Colombian Constitutional Court has suspended an appeal that would have examined whether the procedure should be made illegal.

Colombia, like many other countries, allows abortion if the woman is in imminent danger or a pregnant woman is not viable. However, these restrictions face increasing challenges.

El Salvador is a country where abortion was banned completely in 1998. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights decided that El Salvador violated the rights of a Central American woman who had been imprisoned because of an abortion offense.

Manuela died after she was sentenced to a 30 year term for having an unnatural abortion.

A top court of regional rights ruled Manuela suffered an “obstetric emergency”, and ordered El Salvador reform its strict abortion laws.

In Latin America, there were major changes in 2021 that led to liberalizing the access of this procedure.

Mexico is the second largest Catholic country in the world. In September, the Supreme Court declared that the penalization of abortion was unconstitutional. This means that courts cannot prosecute cases involving abortion.

Arturo Zaldivar, President of the Supreme Court, praised the decision as “a watershed event” for all women and especially those most in need.

This followed Argentina’s groundbreaking decision in December 2020 to legalize abortion to let it continue into the 14th week.

Abortion rights organizations in Honduras hope that November’s election by Xiomara Cruz, the first female president of Honduras (which has a ban blanket on abortions), will lead to change.

Castro stated that she supports legalizing abortion for rape and risk to mother’s lives, as well as fetal malformation.

Thai lawmakers voted January 1 in favor of abortion being allowed for up to 12 weeks, with penalties for any terminations after that time.

A few weeks later, the Constitutional Court declared that all existing abortion laws were invalid.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide on important abortion cases in the next year. Abortion rights advocates believe more needs to be done to ensure that all women can have the procedure.

Nash stated that “Whether Roe is weakened by the Supreme Court or not, long-term solutions will be needed to ensure that an individual’s income is never the determining factor of their ability to obtain an abortion.”