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Law student wins fellowship

17 September 2008

PhD student Ronli Sifris
PhD student Ronli Sifris

Monash Law faculty PhD student Ronli Sifris has won a prestigious fellowship to deliver a conference paper arguing that countries that place legal restrictions on early-term abortion violate international laws protecting women's right to optimum health.

Ms Sifris has been awarded the inaugural Professor John Harber Phillips Fellowship and will travel to the Greek island of Samos next year to speak at the 12th Greek/Australian International Legal and Medical Conference.

A panel of legal and medical experts selected Ms Sifris for the fellowship on the basis of her Curriculum Vitae and a 1500 word abstract of her paper, Laws Prohibiting Abortion: A violation of the right to health?

The paper presents research showing that women living in countries with legal restrictions on abortion experience significantly increased incidence of serious health problems resulting from unsafe abortion practices.

"An estimated 5.3 million women each year suffer temporary or permanent disability resulting from unsafe abortion procedures," the paper states.

"The empirical evidence demonstrates that there is a direct correlation between laws relating to abortion and the safety of abortion procedures - the more restrictive the laws, the higher the incidence of unsafe abortion practices."

Ms Sifris' paper highlights that Article 12 of the United Nation's International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides for "the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health".

Ms Sifris argues that given the negative health consequences of legally restricting access to abortion, such restrictions constitute a violation of international law.

"Approximately 26 per cent of the world's population reside in countries where abortion is generally prohibited," her paper states.

"It is argued that the time has come for the international community to take a stance and to assert that restrictions on abortion violate the international legal right to health."