Abortion access is still a collective international struggle

By Muyenga Mugerwa-Sekawabe

Human rights struggles rarely fit neatly within national borders. A case may be brought in one country, while research and legal strategies developed elsewhere can provide valuable insights for litigation, advocacy and social mobilization in another country. For organizations working on issues of equality and equity, the value of a global network lies precisely in the opportunities it provides to share experience, and learn from different legal and political contexts, to ultimately strengthen one another’s strategies in support of human rights.

INCLO third-party intervention at the Brazilian Supreme Court 

Seven INCLO members came together to present an expert opinion based on their litigation experience in reproductive healthcare access from their respective countries.  Shared knowledge points out that Brazil’s case –where the struggle for abortion access demonstrates the gap between rights recognized in law and rights that can actually be exercised– is not isolated.

The legal action supported by the third-party intervention, ADPF 989, challenges the structural and institutional barriers that prevent people from accessing abortion in circumstances where it is already legally permitted. The case asks how these barriers can be defeated so that reproductive healthcare access becomes a reality.

The intervention provides the Court with a comparative perspective on how courts in other jurisdictions have addressed questions of access, autonomy, equality and reproductive healthcare. It does not suggest that approaches developed elsewhere can simply be transplanted into Brazil. Instead, it offers examples of judicial reasoning and approaches to rights protection that may help the Court consider how reproductive healthcare access can be protected in the Brazilian context.

Mapping the big picture. Fighting for Our Lives: Pathways to Abortion Rights Globally

On 22 January 2026, INCLO launched Fighting for Our Lives: Pathways to Abortion Rights Globally, bringing together experiences from 12 INCLO member countries across five regions. The publication examines how abortion rights have been advanced through legal reform and strategic litigation, as well as the advocacy and organizing that have supported these efforts, and the challenges that remain even after legal rights have been established.

The experiences documented in the publication are shaped by very different legal and political contexts. Argentina and Brazil offer lessons from a long struggle for legal reform and movement organizing. Kenya offers experience in constitutional litigation and the ongoing work required to make legal protections meaningful. The experiences of members in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Hungary, India, Ireland, Russia, South Africa and the United States offer further lessons about the different ways abortion rights can be won and defended.

The publication has also provided a basis for conversations within and beyond the INCLO network. Following its launch, local launches were held in Bogotá and New York in March, Buenos Aires in May, and Nairobi in October, bringing the experiences captured in the publication into local discussions among advocates, activists and lawyers working to advance reproductive healthcare access at a domestic level.

Different struggles, shared lessons

These exchanges are valuable precisely because we do not fight for rights in the same way everywhere. Legal systems and political environments differ. Movements have distinct histories, opportunities and constraints. Therefore, a litigation or advocacy strategy that succeeds in one country cannot simply be lifted and applied in another.

But that does not mean there is nothing to learn from one another.

Comparative experience can help us ask better questions: What worked? What did not? Which legal arguments proved persuasive? Which messages resonated with lawmakers and the wider public? What obstacles emerged after a legal victory? How were gains defended? And what might others do differently when confronting similar challenges?

The purpose of sharing these experiences is therefore not to prescribe a single pathway to reproductive healthcare access. It is to ensure that organizations do not have to fight every battle without the benefit of lessons from those who have fought similar ones before.

We may not fight the same way everywhere. But we can learn from how others have fought.

That is the value of a global human rights network: turning the experience of national struggles into knowledge that will help secure the next human rights victory elsewhere and everywhere.