A/HRC/32/44
(c)
Recognize women's right to be free from unwanted pregnancies and
ensure access to affordable and effective family planning measures. Noting that many
countries where women have the right to abortion on request supported by affordable
and effective family planning measures have the lowest abortion rates in the world,
States should allow women to terminate a pregnancy on request during the first
trimester or later in the specific cases listed above;
(d)
Discontinue the use of criminal law to punish woman for ending a
pregnancy and provide women and girls with medical treatment for miscarriage and
complications of unsafe termination of pregnancy;
(e)
Eliminate discriminatory barriers to access to legal termination of
pregnancy that not based on medical needs, such as waiting periods for
implementation of the decision to terminate a pregnancy, authorization requirements
for reproductive health clinics and staff, and unduly restrictive interpretations of legal
grounds for termination of pregnancy.
D.
Autonomous, affordable and effective access to health care
108. The Working Group recommends that States:
(a)
effective;
Ensure that access to health care is autonomous, affordable and
(b)
Address underlying factors which negate women’s autonomy in decisionmaking regarding their own lives, health or bodies, through education, provision of
information and monitoring mechanisms to ensure that their autonomy is respected at
all levels of the health-care system;
(c)
Invalidate conditioning of women’s and girls’ access to health care on
third-party authorization;
(d)
Provide training to health providers, including on gender equality and
non-discrimination, respect for women’s rights and dignity and recognition of
alternative medicine;
(e)
Provide non-discriminatory health insurance coverage for women,
without surcharges for coverage of their reproductive and sexual health;
(f)
Include contraception of choice, preventive care and treatment for
cervical and breast cancer, termination of pregnancy and maternity care in universal
health care or subsidize provision of these treatments and medicines to ensure that
they are affordable;
(g)
Restrict conscientious objection to the direct provider of the medical
intervention and allow conscientious objection only where an alternative can be found
for the patient to access treatment within the time needed for performance of the
procedure;
(h)
Exercise due diligence to ensure that the diverse actors and corporate
and individual health providers who provide health services or produce medications
do so in a non-discriminatory way and establish guidelines for the equal treatment of
women patients under their codes of conduct;
(i)
Provide age-appropriate, comprehensive and inclusive sexuality
education based on scientific evidence and human rights, for girls and boys, as part of
the mandatory school programmes. Sexuality education should give particular
attention to gender equality, sexuality, relationships, gender identity, including non-
22