Honourable Minister of Health,
Prof. Dr. Recep Akdag,
We, Members of the Nordic All-Party
Parliamentary Groups on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in our
respective Parliaments in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden want to express
our concern about the recent developments in regard to women’s sexual and
reproductive health and rights in Turkey.
We have been closely following the
debate on sexual and reproductive health and rights in the country, particularly
since some of us attended the Fifth International Parliamentarians
Conference (IPCI) in Istanbul dealing with
these issues in May this year. We want to thank the Turkish Parliament for the
successful conference and the interesting discussions taking part there. We also
want to take this opportunity to remind us all about the resolution that was
signed by all the Members of Parliament attending the IPCI conference stating
the importance of sexual and reproductive health and rights. We also want to
recall to attention the parliamentary resolution adopted unanimously by the
126th IPU Assembly in Kampala April 2012; “Access to health as a basic right:
The role of parliaments in addressing key challenges to securing the health of
women and children”. These achievements bring hope for future commitments to
women’s health and rights worldwide. It is therefore worrying if the Turkish
government proposes a bill to restrict access to abortion for Turkish women.
We note that abortions are legal in
Turkey during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. However, presently the Ministry
of Health is working on draft legislation that would allow to sentence women,
who undergo an abortion after the legal 10 weeks of pregnancy up to three years
in prison. The bill calls for the development of programmes to counsel against
abortion and free distribution of the morning-after pill. Jailing women on the
basis of abortion is unacceptable and should be seriously reconsidered.
Women’s right to safe and legal
abortion care is grounded in international and regional human rights standards.
European human rights standards do not support restrictions on access to safe
and legal abortion services. The 2008 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe’s Resolution on “Access to Safe and Legal Abortion” states clearly: “The
Assembly takes the view that abortion should not be banned within reasonable
gestational limits. A ban on abortions does not result in fewer abortions but
mainly leads to clandestine abortions, which are more traumatic and increase
maternal mortality and/or lead to abortion “tourism” which is costly, and delays
the timing of an abortion and results in social inequities. The lawfulness of
abortion does not have an effect on a woman’s need for an abortion, but only on
her access to a safe abortion.”
Nordic countries own experience has
shown that respecting and protecting people’s rights to their own sexuality and
providing accurate, age-specific, comprehensive sexuality education in and out
of schools, high-quality sexual health services with special attention paid to
youth- friendly services and providing a wide range of reasonably priced, easily
accessible contraceptive methods as well as access to safe abortion services
have led to good sexual health outcomes. We are therefore very concerned
about this proposed infringement on women’s sexual and reproductive rights and
we urge the Turkish government not to propose a bill that will be contrary to
the developments made in recent years concerning decreased maternal mortality
and morbidity and increased gender equality.
26 October 2012, Yours sincerely,
Members of Parliament from
Denmark: Karina Adsbøl, Danish People’s
Party, Liselotte Blixt, Danish People’s
Party, Kirsten Brosbøl, Social Democratic
Party, Benny Engelbrecht, Social
Democratic Party, Magnus Heunicke, Social Democratic
Party. Stine Maiken Brix, The Red - Green
Alliance, Johanne Schmidt Nielsen, The Red -
Green Alliance, Gitte Lillelund Bech, The Liberal
Party, Lone Loklindt, Social Liberal
Party
Members of Parliament from
Finland: Mari Kiviniemi, Finnish Centre
Party, Aila Paloniemi, Finnish Centre
Party. Anneli Saarikko, Finnish Centre
Party, Oras Tynkkynen, Green
Party, Jani Toivola, Green Party, Chair of
the Finnish All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population and
Development, Annika Lapintie, Left
Alliance, Eeva-Johanna Eloranta, Social
Democratic Party. Tarja Filatov, Social Democratic
Party, Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, Social
Democratic Party, Elisabeth Naucler, Swedish Party,
Åland constituency, Astrid Thors, Swedish
Party
Members of Parliament from
Norway: Stine Renate Håheim, Labour Party, Anna Ljunggren, Labour
Party, Sonja Mandt, Labour
Party, Truls Wickholm, Labour Party and
leader of the APPG,
Trine Skei Grande, Liberal
Party, Karin Andersen, Socialist Left
Party
Members of Parliament from
Sweden: Annika Qarlsson, Centre Party, Désirée Pethrus, Christian
Democratic Party, Hans Linde, Left
Party, Barbro Westerholm, Liberal
Party, Ulrika Karlsson, Moderate Party,
Chair of the Swedish All- Party Parliamentary Group on Sexual and Reproductive
Health and Righs och jag Carina Hägg, Social Democratic
Party
