In South Africa, we have always really admired the fact that the right to abortion brings women into the streets in the U.S., that it's something that women agree about across political parties. That it's an election issue. We find that strength inspirational."

"In short, I think Roe v. Wade had an international impact, insofar as the decision came down in the most powerful country in the world, in that it recognized the need for women to have legal access to abortion. It made a major contribution to American women's health, but also contributed significantly to the international movement, both health and women's rights movements. Roe was a call made around the issue of choice by women's rights groups. And that was different from groups advocating for abortion rights with a population control orientation."

"Roe was a crucial part of women's rights activism in the Philippines because it happened right around the time when women's rights organizations began to sprout up in the country. It was a breakthrough for women; women had finally won a case. Filipino women's rights activists felt the strength and the support for women's rights in that decision. Roe v. Wade was also a groundbreaking decision because it was the first Supreme Court decision that affirmed the woman's right to terminate her pregnancy under her right to privacy and bodily autonomy. In that sense, it was widely talked about in the Philippines.

But despite this influence and recognition, the Philippines still has one of the most restrictive abortion laws-even penalizing the woman who undergoes abortion. Many women resort to clandestine, illegal and unsafe methods to terminate their pregnancies. Criminalizing non-therapeutic abortions has done nothing to decrease the number of women who obtain abortions; it has only served to make abortion unsafe and dangerous. Philippine law must be responsive and compassionate about women's realities and engender women's rights by providing access to safe and legal abortion."

"Illegal and unsafe abortion causes 50% of maternal mortality in Nepal because women do not have access to abortion, and women turn to unsafe methods. Roe offered a strong legal argument for protecting the health of women. The Forum for Women, Law and Development used the legal framework for abortion in the U.S. as an example to convince the government of Nepal to legalize abortion. We said, 'It is legalized in almost all the countries of the world, why then is abortion illegal in Nepal?'"

"I see Roe being chipped away at in the U.S., but it does not have any direct effect on Ireland. In Ireland, there is nothing really to chip away. There is such a rock-solid ban on abortion in all but life-threatening circumstances, and there are extremely tight regulations on the provision of abortion information. It is almost like going through the looking glass as far as reproductive rights laws. Ireland represents the worst case scenario from the American point of view. A provision equivalent to the Human Life Amendment was added to the Irish Constitution in 1983, giving the fetus and the pregnant woman an equal right to life. Here abortion is legal in life-threatening circumstances, but in practice it is not available. So regardless of their circumstances-severe illness, fetal abnormalities, rape or incest causing pregnancy-women are forced to travel abroad to access abortion services."

"First of all, American women should never take the right to have an abortion for granted. I was born in 1956, the year when Poland liberalized abortion, and so I grew up always thinking it would be legal. Then Poland restricted abortion in 1993. I couldn't believe that such a thing could happen. I think American women can learn from the experience of Polish women and should be wary. They should learn to watch and monitor what is happening. They need to defend this right-defend and protect it because it can't be taken for granted.

We've been using the arguments made in Roe, that women should have a right to choose abortion, in our campaigns to reestablish a liberal abortion law for Polish women. So, from this perspective, it is important that the U.S. has a liberal abortion law. The fact that American women have this right is helpful in our struggle, although we haven't won yet unfortunately. I'm sure that if Roe were overturned, it would have a huge impact on human rights movements all over the world."

"Roe has had a significant impact internationally. I think the fact that abortion is legal and relatively safe in the United States greatly increased the success of the UN conferences in Cairo and Beijing. The Cairo Conference was a victory for women in terms of concretely manifesting women's rights as human rights. The Cairo conference made a clear statement that reproductive rights were human rights, and gave a very strong signal that women had achieved recognition of the importance of reproductive issues in our daily lives.

I think the idea of what Roe has stood for-that a woman's right to control her body is fundamental-has been encouraging to women all over the world, who are now trying to incorporate similar ideas and values into their own legal systems. So even though Roe is under attack, it still symbolizes a stage of recognition that was reached. It's very symbolically important that it has lasted for 30 years. The fact that Roe is the center of a constant attack reminds me that this question of a woman's right to control her body is such a basic and fundamental issue for women's status."

"If Roe v. Wade were overturned in the United States, it would be a very bad signal for the rest of the world. And, here in Chile, we're talking pretty basic rights-we're talking about legalizing abortion in order to save the life of the woman. We are not even close to talking about the types of guarantees in Roe v. Wade. Conservative forces in Chile are very well organized, and they have been very successful in squelching any real public debate on the issue of abortion. If Roe were overturned, they would see it as a victory, and they would basically say, 'Look-even in developed countries, even in the U.S.-they've realized they made a mistake.'"

"Roe was and is the basis for any discussion about a woman's right to reproductive autonomy. It was a decision taken by the United States, a country whose policies often have a direct impact on policy development in Latin America. The Roe decision has been crucial to the work of reproductive rights advocates in Latin America. It was very important because it was the first step towards claiming the right to privacy and autonomy. After Roe v. Wade, the reproductive autonomy debate in Latin America progressed significantly among civil society, women's organizations, and in many other sectors, even in the media. Although this debate has not been reflected universally in the laws throughout Latin America, there have been court decisions and policies developed in some countries, like Brazil for example, that are based on the rights described in Roe v. Wade."

"A lot of women prefer to cross the border from Mexico to California to have abortions because they believe it's very easy to get a legal abortion in the States. In the collective imagination of Mexican people, abortion is and always will be legal in the United States. They have no notion of its fragility.

It scares me when I hear someone say in the United States there's a very good chance that Roe v. Wade could be overturned. It would be a terrible setback. Our politicians look to what's happening in the States as a model and, to some extent, even a barometer of public opinion. Even if many of them know that Republicans have a very conservative position on abortion, and that the Bush government has very backward positions on sexual and reproductive rights, they still see the Supreme Court as a very even place. So if this decision were eliminated, or changed, it would have a very negative impact in Mexico. It would give a lot of anti-reproductive rights advocates the chance to say, 'Look, I told you things can be changed.'"

Ms. Lamas, a journalist and anthropologist, is executive director and co-founder of the Grupo de Informació® ¥n Reproducció® …legida (GIRE), a leading non-governmental organization working toward reproductive freedom in Mexico. She is also director of Debate Feminista, a feminist journal, a professor of gender and politics at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico and a member of the Editorial Board for Reproductive Health Matters.

Catherine Albertyn, Africa (continued)

"If I had to define one thing about Roe, I would say that it's been inspirational to women across the world, certainly to women in South Africa. We've learned from it, both positively and negatively. I mean that constructively though, because clearly when you do something before anyone else, others will learn from your mistakes, as well as your successes. Reproductive rights advocates in South Africa learned from the U.S. abortion rights movement's mistakes as well as from its successes, as I hope people will learn both positively and negatively from us.

One of the differences between the South African and U.S. abortion rights movement was that we consciously chose the law reform route, rather than going through the courts to secure the right. We were aware of how precarious it might be to use the courts to establish the right to abortion. In that sense, Roe was a lesson, because we had seen people consistently trying to take Roe v. Wade back to court and chip away at the right. We spent a lot of time trying to keep the abortion issue out of the courts, so that we could first get a law in place, and we could get women's protection through a law that we could then defend in court. So, in a sense, we were reacting to what we thought was a problem in the U.S. We had also learnt about the problems of a decision based on the right to privacy. When we were working for the appropriate human rights model for abortion in South Africa, we wanted to ground it in the right to freedom, dignity and autonomy of the woman."

"In the 70s and 80s, the 'rights' approach was the dominant strategy to advocate for abortion rights. However, through the 90s we saw the development of a much more sophisticated capacity to strategize on the best approach for winning abortion access in different parts of the world. We're seeing some countries move quite far away from a rights discourse, not because those particular groups are against women's right to choose to have abortion, but because they recognize that a 'rights' perspective may not resonate loudly or clearly enough with those in power. So for example, in some countries, such as Guyana, you're seeing a very strong public health argument-built around the relationship between unsafe abortion and maternal mortality-being put forward as the reason to legalize abortion. In South Africa, while there was a rights argument, public health was also a very strong argument, and very effective in being able to show the cost to the public health services of people coming in with complications of abortion. Those in power in many countries are far away from accepting a woman's right to control her body, let alone to choose to have an abortion. But they may be concerned about maternal health, and therefore may be more sympathetic to approaching the whole abortion issue from a public health point of view. Then in other parts of the world, particularly Latin America, you're seeing people shape arguments more around citizenship. I think the whole international women's movement has become much more sophisticated, more able to recognize that the arguments that should be used depend on the political and historical context of the country. So in some places, the argument of the right to choose remains a very good one, and in others it doesn't."

Clara A. Padilla, Asia (continued)

"It became evident even decades later that Roe's influence extends far beyond the U.S. borders when, in 1994, the countries that attended the International Conference on Population and Development committed to make abortion safe and accessible for women wherever abortion is legal. In 1999, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women recommended that legislation criminalizing abortion should be amended to remove punitive provisions imposed on women who undergo abortion. Clearly, the Roe decision made an impact on the international community."

Julie Kay, Europe (continued)

"Abortion is, however, very accessible for women who have the money and the ability to travel over to England-more than 6,500 women from Ireland do each year. So there is not an illegal abortion industry in Ireland. We don't see back-alley abortions that jeopardize women's health in that way.

The situation in Ireland has made it clear that one way or another, women will access abortion services regardless of whether abortion is safe or legal. Whether it takes a tremendous amount of scurrying around and raising funds, you know a large percentage of women will access abortion. Others, however, will be forced to carry the pregnancy to term or attempt to self-abort.

Abortion being illegal also harms women by leading to later abortions under more difficult circumstances. Moreover, the illegal status of abortion and the ban on abortion information perpetuates a climate of shame and secrecy, despite the fact that there have been an estimated hundred thousand women who have traveled abroad from Ireland for abortions. Abortion is still something people don't talk about because of the enormous stigma attached to it for women. It's something that's done, but women don't talk about it."

Charlotte Bunch, North America (continued)

"I was active in the women's liberation movement in the late 60s and early 70s at the time Roe was decided. I was not working directly on the legalization of abortion, but I was part of the collective organization Washington D.C. Women's Liberation, which did counsel women about abortion. Washington was one of the places where abortion was legal at the time, and so we had lots of women coming to Washington from around the United States for abortions. When the Roe decision came down, I remember thinking we wouldn't have to do this work any more. We thought it would be so much easier for women everywhere. I had the feeling at the time that it was just great, and women would be able to get abortions when they needed them and it seemed like an enormous and unexpected victory.

The differences between now and then are enormous. When Roe was first decided we naively assumed that this was a victory that couldn't be taken away. I don't think we imagined the kind of right-wing opposition that would build up. It's not that we thought everybody would agree, but rather that the Supreme Court decision was something that would be irreversible, and therefore this would come to be seen as an important right, and then women could choose to do what they wanted about abortion. We were very naﶥ about the opposition. We thought the people who opposed it would continue to speak out against abortion, but we were pro-choice and so if people didn't want to have abortions, they shouldn't have them. It wasn't seen as something that would become a major political battle.

Roe's 30th anniversary is an occasion to talk about what the right to choose abortion legally really means, to think about how peoples' lives would be different without it. It is important to remember what it was like for women and men who had to face the challenges in an era when abortion was illegal and virtually inaccessible. Most women in the U.S. don't believe that these rights will be taken away. I think part of the problem is that the average woman in the U.S. knows that the right to choose abortion is controversial, but can't believe that it would ever be taken away. Younger women in particular don't have any concept of the real danger that this right could be taken away. Several books have been put out in the last few years to try to convey what it was like before Roe v. Wade, but I know with the students that I teach that they just can't imagine that they could lose this right."

Susana Chiarotti, Latin America (continued)

"In Uruguay, they are using part of the argument of Roe v. Wade in the debate over legalizing abortion. Supreme courts in Latin America often quote decisions taken by the U.S. Supreme Court. So if the Roe decision were overturned, it could have a very negative effect and could undermine a lot of the work we are doing to decriminalize abortion."