s. shahawy / abortion in the middle east and north africa, 47-56 DECEMBER 2019 VOLUME 21 NUMBER 2 Health and Human Rights Journal 47 e Unique Landscape of Abortion Law and Access in the Occupied Palestinian Territories sarrah shahawy Abstract Abortion remains a highly debated topic in women’s health in the Middle East and specifically in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), where it is illegal in most cases. Abortion access is challenging and complex due to laws, hospital policies, and the fragmented nature of the OPT and its health care system. is paper explores several barriers to accessing safe abortion care in the OPT, many of which are unique to living under occupation and at the interface of multiple legal systems. Legal restrictions on the provision of abortion services and the negative impact of the occupation on freedom of travel create a complex landscape in which Palestinian women are forced to navigate multiple legal and medical systems when seeking abortion services. Sarrah Shahawy, MD, is an obstetrics and gynecology resident physician at Northwestern University McGaw Medical Center, Chicago, USA. Please address correspondence to the author. Email: [email protected]. Competing interests: None declared. Copyright © 2019 Shahawy. is is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non- commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
The Unique Landscape of Abortion Law and Access in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Jul 05, 2023
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