WILLEMSTAD – Abortion legislation in Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten should be reformed to better protect women, according to a new assessment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
The committee notes that abortion remains a criminal offense on all three islands, despite the fact that women continue to terminate pregnancies in practice. It is calling for the decriminalization of abortion and urges that the procedure be explicitly permitted at least in cases of rape, incest, danger to the life or health of the woman, and in situations involving serious fetal abnormalities. In addition, the committee stresses that access to safe and affordable abortion care must be guaranteed.
Previous demographic research shows that abortion has been taking place on the islands for many years, notwithstanding its criminal status. In Curaçao, a tolerance policy has been in place since 1999, under which general practitioners are allowed to perform abortions during the first trimester. Research into reproductive health indicates that the abortion rate on the island is around 38 terminations per 1,000 women, significantly higher than the rate in the Netherlands.
Studies suggest that the relatively high number of abortions is linked to limited or inconsistent use of contraception, the cost of contraceptive methods, and cultural factors related to sexuality and family formation. As a result, a long-standing situation has developed in which abortion is formally prohibited by law, yet effectively takes place within a framework of tolerance and medical discretion.
According to the UN committee, this legal grey area creates inequality and poses risks to women, particularly migrants and women with low incomes. The committee therefore calls on the Kingdom to reform legislation and improve access to reproductive healthcare in the Caribbean parts of the Kingdom, in order to ensure that women can obtain safe, legal and non-discriminatory reproductive services.