CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Historically, abortion has been underpinned by controversy and it remains so. Moral consensus on abortion is hard to achieve. At the same time, in the age of human rights, organs of state, including legislatures and the judiciary, cannot point to the lack of political, moral and religious consensus on abortion to Justify thier failure to address the injustices women suffer on account of abortion.When national authorities fail to implement abortion laws to respect, protect, and fulfil women’s human rights, including reproductive rights, women have the right to protect thier reproductive health by exercising thier rights to effective access to legal abortion sservice.¹

 The incidence of abortion in Cameroon is well documented. African women bear a disproportionate burden of the risks of abortion. This is due to African states widespread and persistent failure to provide an enabling legal , regulatory, policy and programmatic environment to ensure that every woman who meets the eligible criteria  for legal abortion has unimpeded access to save and quality services. In addition , abortion laws and practices fail to regconise that abortion is inseperable part of women’s reproductive health as well as an important human rights concern. Many abortion laws are vaguely worded or have never been officially interpreted or implemented. Furthermore, women are frequently unable to access legal services even  in the jurusfiction where a legal right to abortion is clearly regconised. Because states have failed to fulfil women’s legal entitlement to abortion, the historical criminalisation of abortion has a chilling effect.  Criminalisation of abortion impedes the ability of women to obtain safe abortion services and defeats public health and human right. Healthcare providers are therefore deterred and indeed unable to provide lawful services, as their duty, for fear of criminal prosecution. Because states fail to provide legal abortion services, each year thousands of African women seek unsafe abortions with deleterious consequences for thier lives and health. In particular, poor women with little or no education and economic means and adolescents , are disproportionately adversely affected².

1.1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Before examining the origin of Human Rights Implications Of the CCriminalisatiom of Abortion in cameroon, it is worthy to Explain in brief the concept of Abortion. Abortion is the voluntary termination of a pregnancy. In 2022, nearly 50years after Roe v Wade changed the legal status of abortion by striking down a Texas law that criminalised abortion except as a means of saving the life of the pregnant person, the united States Supreme courts  in Dobbs V Jackson Women’s Health Organisation held that abortion is not a fundamental right under the US constitution, clearing the way for states to place laws that could not be challenged in courts.

The Roe V Wade case pittied individual privacy rights against states interest in regulating the due process clause of the Fourteenth amendment and the right to privacy mantained by the Ninth Amendment , the court ruled that an individuals personal autonomy and reproductive Rights extend to thier decision to terminate thier pregnancy . The court had determined that states interest in the fetus became relevant only at viability, the point at which the fetus could survive independently from the pregnant person. Government bans on abortion became limited to post viability interventions, while at no point could the state privilege the life of the fetus over that of the pregnant person. Pre- viability regulations of abortion by state was  limited by an individual right to choose to end thier pregnancy. Justice Blackmun’s trimester formular anchored the concept of viability and established a timetable according to which states could legally regulate abortion. Roe never permitted abortion in every instance but balanced states’ interest in the life of the fetus with individual privacy rights.

Doe V Bolton, 410 U.S 179, decided by the court on the same day as The established the debates over so called partial birth abortion merely shifted to the legislative branch when Congress passed the partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. Carhartt, one of only a handful of physicians Nationwide performing third trimester abortions, brought suit which claimed that the Act violated the personal liberty protections of the fifth Amendment by banning partial birth abortions without exceptions.³

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Whether abortion is illegal or not is a problem of itself. several attempts by legal scholars to give an adequate clarification which encompasses this human right principle has most often than not be in futility. Exsiting declarations, resolutions and universal sectorial treaties relate just too specific aspects to the facts in issue. Treaties such as universal declaration on human rights 1948, authorative bodies like, the Society of Gynecologists and Obstetricians of Cameroon (SOGOC), The National Bar Association, and the Cameroon Medical Council have been relatively silent in pushing towards adoption of more liberal laws. In Ethiopia for instance, the role of Eyjopian Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ESOG) was fundamental in rendering the law on abortion in the country more liberal in 2005.  It is possibly time for these organisations to speak up. The Catholic Church for instance is staunchly against any form of abortion . Forcing women to bear children with legal tenets, to die abstaining abortions, to seek for abortion services late in the pregnancy course, or spend rare resources in managing complications resulting from unsafe abortions is not only irrational from. the economic point of view, but also constitutes an unacceptable threat to the very reproductive autonomy of the woman.

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Based on the problems identified above a number of inescapable questions arises including ,

1 what accounts for the fact that despite it’s provisions under human right law the principle is rarely observed

2 what are the best measures aimed at improving the observance of the right in Cameroon

These are the some of the questions my research will attempt to answer

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The objective of this research shall be divided into two; Specific and general objective.

1.4.1 GENERAL OBJECTIVES

General objective will be looking at the following

1 my essay will provide a practical tool for practitioners charged with the implementation of human rights in the judicial domain in Cameroon

2. My essay will examine the laws governing the Criminalisatiom of abortion

3 my essay will depict norms provided in Cameroon laws

4 My essay will examine specific challenges to the actual implentation of abortion In Cameroon

5 My essay will propose measures that could be taken to curb the criminalisatiom in the litigations .

1.4.2 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

The specific will look at the extent to which Cameroon adheres to the principles and laws governing the much heralded human rights doctrine of abortion.