Reproductive health care situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The law legalizing abortion and implementing family planning, passed in former Yugoslavia in 1952, is still in effect in the newly created state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This law has helped eliminate illegal, i.e. criminal, abortions, but existing arrangements providing family planning and promoting reproductive and sexual health are not effective enough, because too few people know enough about the rights to individual choice in family planning. The primary objective for the next twenty years is to educate the people--women, men and the young--about their rights to reproductive choice and sexual health, and about how to exercise those rights as fully and effectively as possible. Legal and financial assistance from WHO will be welcome, because the post-war Bosnian society and state lack funds for such initiatives.