Global: Amnesty International launches new campaign for abortion rights

Amnesty International is launching a new campaign calling for people around the world to help everyone see public support for abortion rights.

Over the past 30 years, great strides have been made in the fight for abortion rights, with laws changing for the better in more than 60 countries. However, there is still much to achieve, while progress remains under threat.

From Argentina and Benin to Ireland and France, visionary human rights defenders have secured major advances in the formal recognition of abortion rights. The anti-Taliban women's protests in Afghanistan, the #MahsaAmini protests in Iran, and the #GreenWave protests in Latin America are also evidence of extraordinary activist courage in claiming sexual and reproductive rights.

However, today the world is also witnessing growing efforts to thwart this progress, to undo hard-won gains and to advance in their place policies and laws that will deny millions of their sexual and reproductive rights.

Amnesty International's 1000 Ways to Support Abortion Rights campaign, which launches today across the organisation's social media channels, offers engaging and impactful ways for everyone to join efforts around the globe to resist the erosion of rights and to protect the right to abortion.

In countries such as Ghana, Poland, Venezuela, and the US, doctors, nurses, educators, and lawyers who advocate for abortion rights and provide essential, life-saving services are themselves threatened with fear, humiliation, stigmatization, and prosecution. unfair. However, they are defending our universal rights to dignity in the most intimate realms of sex and reproduction: we owe them our vocal support and visible solidarity, said Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnes Callamard.

Amnesty's Abortion Rights Campaign provides a platform to help people everywhere to clearly and publicly express support for abortion rights in whatever way works best for them

Secretary General of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard

Amnesty's campaign for abortion rights provides a platform to help people everywhere to clearly and publicly express support for abortion rights in whatever way works best for them: a TikTok collaboration with loved ones, a poll with a around friends, signing a public petition. Simple, action-oriented ways that, when taken together, will help raise the public profile of widespread but often diminished global support for abortion rights. By standing together visibly, we can make it much more difficult for those in power to ignore our demands.

Two years ago, on June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wadewhich had previously guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion.

In the face of reinforced anti-abortion public narratives and anti-abortion policies and legislation gaining ground in some countries, we must stand up. For the sake of those who need abortion care and those who provide abortion care, in often hateful contexts, our solidarity and support must become tangible, unambiguous and visible, Agnes Callamard said..

Over the past year, Amnesty International has published several reports focusing on abortion rights globally, including the decriminalization of abortion in Morocco, barriers to abortion access in Northern Ireland and the need to recognize and protect those who advocate the right to abortion. Recently, the organization published a briefing detailing how reproductive health and rights organizations have reported this their abortion-related content has been removed or flagged as sensitive contentwhile some have even been temporarily suspended from platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

Notes to editors:

• The 1000 Ways to Support Abortion Rights campaign will share engaging and unique ways for individuals to show their support for abortion rights and will launch on 24 June, across Amnesty's social channels.
• Amnesty's social channels can be found here: X, Facebook, Instagram, TIK Tok.