By Christina Zamba, Human Rights Lawyer and Deputy Director of Global Advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights
© Rolf Luginbuehl
Barriers to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services have always existed, but the Covid-19 pandemic has brought to light the dark reality of these barriers. The general population around the world now experiences what many marginalized people, such as adolescents, people with disabilities, people living in rural and humanitarian settings, and members of LGBTIQ communities have experienced — limited or no access to SRH services. While people belonging to these groups bear the brunt of the stigma and restrictions imposed by states’ responses to Covid-19,[1] Many in the general population are facing barriers such as mobility restrictions, lack of availability of providers and closed clinics for the first time.
Covid-19 clearly shows the weaknesses and inequities of our health systems around the world, including contraceptive production and supply chains, over-medicalization, health insurance restrictions, the vulnerability of health workers and more. The legal and political barriers to contraception and abortion services in various settings around the world powerfully demonstrate these weaknesses. And these weaknesses are exploited by those who have long sought to restrict access to SRH services, with potentially serious harm to health and human rights. Some countries are restricting the continuation of IVF treatment, no longer allowing doulas and partners to enter delivery rooms and restricting access to abortion. In the US some states are introducing measures to limit or ban access to abortion under the pretense that it is not an essential health service and therefore should not divert limited resources.[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7] While some countries are using the crisis as a means to encroach on privacy and confidentiality, elsewhere contraceptive production and supply chains are breaking due to physical isolation and movement restrictions, which could affect contraceptive availability worldwide.[8] While we will continue to face these challenges as we did before the pandemic, we also have an opportunity, in the midst of tragedy, for positive change.
Covid-19 opens the door of opportunity to create the change we have long advocated for – greater access to abortion and contraceptive services. Covid-19 shows us that the same places where we see limits are also places where we can create possibilities. Restrictive and criminal abortion laws, as well as unnecessary requirements such as licensing of multiple providers, mandatory waiting periods, mandatory clinic visits to obtain medical abortion, restrictions on telemedicine counseling, bans on mailing abortion drugs, criminal penalties for self-administered abortions, and prescriptions for childbirth, legal and political barriers that the Covid-19 is blatantly revealing what we have long known to be not only unnecessary but harmful.[9]
Under the false guise of medical necessity and supposedly acting in women’s best interests, these barriers are actually rooted in political ideologies, power dynamics between patient and provider, and harmful stereotypes about women being unable to make their own decisions about their health and futures. Removing such barriers will not only ensure optimal use of limited health care resources by freeing up human and financial capital, but will protect and promote health and human rights.[10],[11]
Advocacy in all forms and on all fronts will be necessary to bring about these and other changes and make them lasting and sustainable. Fostering a state of empowerment and participation, where people can be supported to make the right choices for themselves and those around them, not only helps contain the virus, but helps realize human rights. Creating fair systems that promote gender equality and non-discrimination—not policing—will help serve everyone, not just the disease itself, but the structures in which society is implicated. Structures that have long served only the few, not the many, are ripe for challenge. We can use the pandemic to show the inequities in our systems and work with a wide range of stakeholders, including legislators and policy makers, the judiciary and health workers, to introduce rights-based concepts and make the changes needed for fairer and more just societies.
[1] Kimberly Sears Allers, Covid 19 Restrictions on Birth and Breastfeeding: Disproportionately Harm Black and Indigenous WomenOur news, March 27, 2020
[2] Julia Hussein (2020) COVID-19: What Implications for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Globally?, Sexual and Reproductive Health Issues, DOI: 10.1080/26410397.2020.1746065
[3] Center for Reproductive Rights, Press Release, Center files emergency lawsuit in Texas to protect needed abortion access during pandemicMarch 26, 2020,
[4] Catherine Durand and Marianne Leach, Abortion en plein crise du Covid-19, la solitaire angoisse des femmesMarie Claire March 27, 2020
[5] UK abortion laws are changing briefly during the Covid outbreakThe Guardian, 24 March 2020,
[6] State control over women’s bodies is an unintended consequence of the coronavirus crisis, The Guardian, March 29, 2020,
[7] Position statement: Emergenza Covid-19 e assistenza rispettosa all a aertinita e nascita, March 24, 2020,
[8] Chris Purdy, Opinion: How will COVID-19 affect global access to contraceptives — and what can we do about it? Devex March 11, 2020
[9] World Health Organization, Safe abortion: technical and policy guidance for health systems(2012)
[10] Zara Ahmed and Adam Sonfield, Guttmacher Institute, Covid-19 outbreak: potential implications for sexual and reproductive health and rights.
[11] UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment 36 on the right to life, UN Doc. A/CCPR/C/GC/36, para 8 (2018)
Please note that blog posts are not peer-reviewed and do not necessarily reflect the views of SRHM as an organization.
