Statement from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

The 82nd session of CEDAW closed in Geneva on July 1, 2022, with a statement emphasizing the importance of protecting women’s reproductive rights.

CEDAW Statement

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) urges the United States of America to adhere to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in order to respect, protect, fulfil and promote the human rights of women and girls.

With 189 States parties, the CEDAW Convention is the only near-universal treaty that comprehensively protects women’s human rights, including their sexual and reproductive health rights. The United States of America is one of seven States worldwide that have not yet become party to the Convention.

The right to health under article 12 of the CEDAW Convention includes the right to bodily autonomy and encompasses women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive freedom. In addition, article 16 (e) protects women’s rights to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to the information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights.

The Committee recalls that unsafe abortion is a leading cause of maternal mortality and morbidity. It has repeatedly called on States parties to the CEDAW Convention to remove punitive measures for women who undergo abortion and to legalize abortion at least in cases of rape, incest, threats to the life or health of the pregnant woman and girls and severe foetal impairment.

Access to safe and legal abortion and to quality post-abortion care, especially in cases of complications resulting from unsafe abortions, helps to reduce maternal mortality rates, prevent adolescent and unwanted pregnancies and ensure women’s right to freely decide over their bodies.

In that regard, the Committee endorses the statement by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, that “access to reproductive rights is at the core of women and girls’ autonomy, and ability to make their own choices about their bodies and lives, free of discrimination, violence and coercion.

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