The withdrawal of abortion rights in the United States is mirrored in many other countries around the world, where the rise of pro-life movements has coincided with radical political or cultural changes. In other countries, abortion rights activists have successfully pushed for less restrictive laws as part of a broader fight for women`s rights. Abortion is completely legal in Russia up to the 12th week of pregnancy, as well as up to the 22nd week in cases of rape and at any time when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. Russia legalized abortion in 1920 for some reason, making it the first country to do so. Although a complete ban was reintroduced in 1936, this ban was lifted in 1955 and access to abortion has remained open ever since. In 2010, Russia led the world in the number of abortions per capita. In the United Kingdom, the Abortion Act of 1967 clarified and prescribed that abortion was legal for up to 28 weeks (later reduced to 24 weeks). Other countries soon followed, including Canada (1969), the United States (1973 in most states, according to Roe v. Wade – the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide), Tunisia and Denmark (1973), Austria (1974), France and Sweden (1975), New Zealand (1977), Italy (1978), the Netherlands (1984) and Belgium (1990).
However, these countries differ considerably in the circumstances under which abortion should be permitted. In 1975, the Federal Court of Justice struck down a law legalizing abortion because it contradicted constitutional human rights guarantees. In 1976, a law was passed allowing abortions up to 12 weeks. After the reunification of Germany, despite the legal status of abortion in the former GDR, a compromise was reached that considered most abortions legal until week 12, but this law was repealed by the Federal Constitutional Court and amended to allow the repeal of the sentence only in such cases without a declaration of legality. In Shari`a jurisdictions, abortion after the 120th day after conception (19 weeks after the LMP) is illegal, especially for those who follow the recommendations of the Hanafi Law School, while most Maliki Law School jurists “believe that the soul takes place at the time of conception, and they tend to ban abortion at any time [similar to the Roman Catholic Church]. The other schools have intermediate positions. […] The penalty for illegal abortion varies depending on the circumstances. According to Sharia law, it should be limited to a fine paid to the father or heirs of the fetus.
[13] In the first half of the 20th century, many countries had begun to liberalize abortion laws, at least when they were applied to protect women`s lives and, in some cases, at the woman`s request. Under Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet Union was the first modern state to legalize abortion on demand – the law was first introduced in 1920 in the Russian SFSR, in July 1921 in the Ukrainian SSR, and then throughout the country. [5] [6] The Bolsheviks regarded abortion as a social evil created by the capitalist system, which left women without the economic means to raise their children and forced them to perform abortions. The Soviet state initially maintained the Tsarist ban on abortion, which treated the practice as premeditated murder. However, abortion has been performed by Russian women for decades and its incidence has continued to rise due to the Russian Civil War, which has devastated the country economically and made it extremely difficult for many people to have children. The Soviet state realized that a ban on abortion would not stop the practice because women would continue to use the services of private opponents of abortion. In rural areas, these were often elderly women with no medical training, making their services very dangerous for women`s health. In November 1920, the Soviet regime legalized abortion in public hospitals. The state saw abortion as a temporary necessary evil that would disappear in the future communist society, which would be able to take care of all conceived children. [7] [page needed] In 1936, Joseph Stalin imposed abortion bans that limited them to medically recommended cases only in order to increase population growth after the enormous loss of life in World War I and the Russian Civil War. [8] [9] [6] In the 1930s, several countries (Poland, Turkey, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Mexico) legalized abortion in certain special cases (pregnancy following rape, endangerment of maternal health, fetal malformation).
In Japan, abortion was legalized in 1948 by the Eugenics Protection Law,[10] which was amended in May 1949 to allow abortion for economic reasons. [11] Abortion was legalized in Yugoslavia in 1952 (to some extent) and in 1955 in the Soviet Union upon request. Some Soviet allies (Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Romania) legalized abortion in the late 1950s under pressure from the Soviets. [How?] [12] According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the legality of abortion worldwide actually has little or no impact on abortion rates worldwide. Legal or not, abortions can, will and will take place. However, the legality of abortion affects the safety of these abortions. Women who do not have access to legal abortion often turn to illegal or “homemade” abortion options, which are typically much riskier, more dangerous, and less effective than legal options performed by professional doctors in a clinical setting. 3. In November 2020, an association of 20 Kenyan charities called on the Kenyan government to withdraw from the Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), a US-led international agreement designed to restrict access to abortion for girls and women around the world. GCD was signed by 33 countries on October 22, 2020. [546] In January 2021, an almost complete ban on abortion was introduced in Poland, allowing the procedure only in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother`s life is in danger.