United Nations human rights monitors have strongly condemned the state of Texas for its new anti-abortion law, which they say violates international law by denying women control over their own bodies and endangering their lives.
In damning remarks to the Guardian, Melissa Upreti, the chair of the UN’s working group on discrimination against women and girls, slammed the new Texas law, SB 8, as “structural sex and gender-based discrimination at its worst”.
She warned that the legislation, which bans abortions at about six weeks, could force abortion providers underground and drive women to seek unsafe procedures that could prove fatal.
“This new law will make abortion unsafe and deadly, and create a whole new set of risks for women and girls. It is profoundly discriminatory and violates a number of rights guaranteed under international law,” the human rights lawyer from Nepal said.
