RECOGNITION OF VIOLATIONS OF WOMEN’S HUMAN RIGHTS UNDER THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CONTEXT OF RESTRICTIVE ABORTION REGIMES

Abstract

This thesis considers the possibility that the European Court of Human Rights is developing a role in relation to the restriction of access to abortion services, and impairment of health-care provision linked to such restriction, in Poland and Ireland. Since such lack of access is strongly associated with forms of suffering for women that can readily be captured in terms of rights-violations, the European Court of Human Rights has a current and potential role in advancing recognition in certain circumstances of rights of access to abortion in line with the general European consensus. This thesis sets out to explore the extent to which Strasbourg has already given recognition to women’s reproductive choices in rights-based terms, and the potential, based on established Strasbourg principles, for it to take further steps in that direction in future. A range of potential rights-based claims will be considered but, clearly, such recognition could most readily occur under the respect for private and/or family life heads of Article 8 in terms of health and the freedom to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy; but also relevant are rights to be free from inhuman or degrading treatment under Article 3 and freedom from discrimination under Article 14.