JOURNAL OF LAW, MEDICINE AND ETHICS

This article summarizes a decision given by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, which was created to monitor CEDAW compliance by its member states. In the case, Alyne da Silva Pimentel Teixeira v. Brazil, the Committee held that the Brazilian government was accountable for a preventable maternal death, in breach of CEDAW. The article goes on to analyze the effects of the Alyne decision, which was groundbreaking in legitimizing the need for countries to implement and effectively monitor policies to prevent maternal mortality. The

This article emphasizes that the Southern Africa Development Community Countries (SADC) are all party to international human rights agreements that urge, in strong terms, the importance of access to abortion for the physical, mental and socio-economic well-being of women. In spite of this, the author argues that most SADC countries make abortion available only under the most onerous terms and with a plethora of administrative difficulties that, combined with the critical shortage of doctors, sometimes render even abortion that meets the strict criteria impossible in practice.