CEDAW General Comment No. 30: Women in Conflict Prevention and Post Conflict Situations 

This is the first time that the CEDAW Committee has explicitly indicated that States should provide safe abortion services as a component of their obligation to provide sexual and reproductive health care in a general recommendation. In other general recommendations, the Committee speaks more generally about the need to prevent maternal mortalities from unsafe abortion, calls on States to remove punitive provisions on abortion, and discusses the discriminatory effects of refusing to provide services only women need, without explicitly calling upon states to ensure access to safe abortion services. As such, we see this as a great advancement. The Committee says that States should: “Ensure that sexual and reproductive health care includes access to sexual and reproductive health and rights information; psychosocial support; family planning services, including emergency contraception; maternal health services, including antenatal care, skilled delivery services, prevention of vertical transmission and emergency obstetric care; safe abortion services; post-abortion care; prevention and treatment of HIV.”

UN Document: CEDAW/C/GC/30