An Assessment of Ethiopian Law of Abortion: A Human Rights Approach

Abstract

Abortion is an argumentative issue over years by those who favor its criminalization by stating that it is killing a life basing their arguments mainly on religion and moral grounds while on the other hand the rights of women to their autonomy, liberty and privacy is raised by the proponents of the right to abortion.

This paper deals assesses the status of the right to abortion in Ethiopia in light of the debates and the human rights of women as enshrined in the constitution as well as in international human rights instruments. I chose this title as there are women suffering from the prohibitions of the criminal code to abortion upon request and forced to go through illegal and unsafe abortions which endanger their health seriously which is even resulting the death of very many, as researches show.

In doing so the paper is classified into four sections the first dealing with the debates and the second is dealing with the status of human rights instruments towards the right to abortion and the third one analyses the Ethiopian law while the last section is left for conclusions and recommendations.