Laws against reproductive choice maim and kill millions of women around the world [View all]

[theHandpuppet]

Let's get this straight, shall we? There is no religious mandate, no law, no effort to shame that will eliminate the need for reproductive choice, which includes contraception and abortion. The lack of legal support, health care services and contraception will, however, maim and kill millions of women around the globe. Repressive laws hurt poor women most of all. Denying them their basic autonomy and reproductive choice will certainly do nothing towards lifting these women out of poverty.
Want a need for fewer abortions? Okay, support sex education and free contraception for all. But you cannot foolishly imagine that the need for abortion will disappear because the medical procedure is outlawed or sex education is not taught, or if women's health clinics are closed and laws passed that force them to give birth.
Women are worth more than their value as incubators. Want to stop the maiming and death of millions of women and girls? Want to help prevent unintended pregnancies?

Amnesty International
Women’s silent killer – rights missing from sexual and reproductive health policies worldwide http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/women-s-silent-killer-sexual-health-policies-found-lacking-worldwide-2013-02-13

WHO
World Health Organization
Note: the link below is to a pdf
Unsafe abortion: the preventable pandemic
http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/general/lancet_4.pdf

Please don't make me come to DU, of all places, to defend a woman's right to choose, nor tell me why I should not condemn any leader, religious or political, who seeks to oppress women by denying them not only equality as human beings but autonomy over their own bodies. Millions of lives are at stake. Women's lives.