Abortion Access as a Human Right: Social Workers Leading Critical Conversations

Overview: Despite abortion access being a human right, access barriers negatively affect abortion seekers, particularly those from vulnerable groups, and connected systems globally. This presentation identifies disparities in abortion access and considers how social workers can lead critical conversations and serve as changemakers to promote abortion care and positive health outcomes.Proposal text: Access to safe, affordable abortion care is an important aspect of health and reproductive healthcare (Rebouché, 2016; Ross & Solinger, 2017) and is considered a fundamental human right (United Nations Human Rights Committee, 2018; United Nations, 2020). However, abortion care is riddled with access barriers globally.

Abortion care is limited by policies and consequential restrictions that are not evidence-based (World Health Organization, 2021). These policies include, but are not limited to, criminalization of abortion, mandatory waiting periods, “counseling” that shares biased information, physician and hospital admission rights restrictions, provider refusal, and gestational limits (Guttmacher Institute, 2021; World Health Organization, 2021).

Abortion seekers may experience financial, educational, vocational, or transportation problems in accessing services (Biggs, Upadhyay, McCulloch, & Foster, 2017; Ely et al., 2017; Robinson, Stotland, Russo, Lang, & Occhiogrosso, 2009; Sheldon, Ely, & Rouland, 2021). All of these restrictions affect the quality, availability, and accessibility of abortion services (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018) and result in an undue burden on abortion seekers (Corley, 2016) particularly for those from diverse or vulnerable groups (Ely & Dulmus, 2010).

Access issues contribute to the problem of unsafe abortion worldwide and poor health outcomes. An estimated 45% of abortions performed are considered unsafe, largely due to access challenges, with the majority (97%) being performed in developing countries (Ganatra et al., 2017). Furthermore, unsafe abortion contributes to poor health outcomes. For example, up to 13.2% of maternal deaths worldwide are attributed to unsafe abortion (Say et al., 2014). When quality healthcare services are denied and therefore unsafe, as is occurring globally with abortion care, human rights are being violated and gender-based violence is occurring (United Nations, 2020).

The current presentation will summarize access barriers in abortion care globally including how such a condition is a human rights issue. Following, how social workers can lead critical conversations and serve as changemakers to promote abortion care and positive health outcomes will be reviewed. As a field, social work is committed to reproductive choices and abortion care access (National Association of Social Workers, 2015). A focus on social work roles across the practice domains and system levels will be promoted. A consideration of social work engagement, assessment, intervention, evaluation; education; research; policy; and other areas will be provided.