Timeline of women's legal rights (other than voting)

The timeline of women's legal rights (other than voting) represents formal changes and reforms regarding women's rights. The changes include actual law reforms, as well as other formal changes (e.g., reforms through new interpretations of laws by precedents). The right to vote is exempted from the timeline: for that right, see Timeline of women's suffrage. The timeline excludes ideological changes and events within feminism and antifeminism; for that, see Timeline of feminism.

Before the 21st century Before the 19th century 19th century 20th century

21st century In the 2000s 2001 Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe outlawed marital rape. Liechtenstein: Liechtenstein made marital rape illegal in 2001. United States: The Mexico City policy, which directed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to withhold USAID funds from NGOs that use non-USAID funds to engage in a wide range of activities—including providing advice, counseling or information regarding abortion, or lobbying a foreign government—to legalize or make abortion available, was reinstated by President George W. Bush, who implemented it through conditions in USAID grant awards, and subsequently extended the policy to "voluntary population planning" assistance provided by the Department of State. United States: Ferguson v. City of Charleston, , is a United States Supreme Court decision that found Medical University of South Carolina's policy regarding involuntary drug testing of pregnant women to violate the Fourth Amendment. The Court held that the search in question was unreasonable. United States: Nguyen v. INS, , was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the validity of laws relating to U.S. citizenship at birth for children born outside the United States, out of wedlock, to an American parent. The Court declined to overturn a more restrictive citizenship requirement applying to a foreign-born child of an American father and a non-American mother who was not married to the father, as opposed to a child born to an American mother under similar circumstances.Nguyen v. INS, . France: On 4 July, the nationwide ten-week limit on abortion was extended by two weeks. France: Minor girls no longer need mandatory parental consent for abortion. A pregnant girl in France under the age of 18 may ask for an abortion without consulting her parents first if she is accompanied to the clinic by an adult of her choice, who must not tell her parents or any third party about the abortion. China: China amended its marriage law so that abuse was considered grounds for divorce. United Kingdom: The Widowed Mother's Allowance, part of the United Kingdom system of Social Security benefits, was established under the National Insurance Act 1946 and abolished and replaced by Widowed Parent's Allowance. Tasmania, Australia: From 1925 until 2001, Tasmania's Criminal Code prohibited "unlawful abortion" without specifically stating what was lawful or vice versa. While it had never actually been prosecuted, it had been held that Victoria's Menhennitt ruling of 1969 and New South Wales' Levine ruling applied in Tasmanian law. In late 2001, the Criminal Code was clarified to state that an abortion must be carried out under a set of criteria resembling those of the South Australian requirements. Tasmania, Australia: Tasmania's Evidence Act prohibited publication of information identifying survivors of sexual assault since 2001. In practice, this prevented survivors from speaking publicly about their experiences.

2002 United States, California: In 2002, the California State Legislature passed a law that said: "The state may not deny or interfere with a woman's right to choose or obtain an abortion prior to viability of the fetus, or when the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman." Nepal: Abortion became legalized in March, under the 11th Amendment to the Civil Code. The legal services were successfully implemented on 25 December 2003. Prior to 2002, Nepal had strict anti-abortion laws which ensured not only the imprisonment of the pregnant women seeking abortion but also their family members. In fact, about 20% of women prisoners were imprisoned for abortion-related choices. Malaysia: As a Muslim country, Malaysia has a dual legal system with Muslims being subject to Sharia law. The National Fatwa Council issued a fatwa permitting abortion up to 120 days of gestation in cases when the woman's life is deemed to be in great danger or there is fetal impairment. Abortion on the grounds of rape or incest is still illegal. India: Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, Amendments, 2002 Switzerland: Abortion was legalized by popular vote after its criminal prohibition had ceased to be observed in practice for some time. United Kingdom: Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002 Benin: Abolition of the requirement that married women must have their husbands' permission to initiate judicial proceeding. Nepal: Married daughters under 35 can inherit property. United States, Florida: Sultaana Freeman filed a religious discrimination lawsuit against Florida when the state's Department of Highway Safety suspended her license when she refused to be re-photographed without her niqab. Her legal license was suspended without change in policy or law following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Her lawsuit argued that her religious beliefs required her to wear a veil "in front of strangers and unrelated males". It also stated that other states allowed photo-free licenses for religious reasons. Judge Janet C. Thorpe denied her lawsuit that year, and a state appeals court later upheld Thorpe's ruling.Opening Statement by Howard Marks for the Plaintiff; accessed 15 November 2014.Opinion of the Fifth District Court of Appeal ; accessed 15 November 2014. United States: In Apessos v. Memorial Press Group, a Massachusetts state court made a ruling forbidding employers from firing domestic violence survivors who need to take time off from work to obtain a court order of protection. Bangladesh: Bangladesh introduced the death penalty for acid attacks, the Acid Crime Control Act (ACCA), and the Acid Control Act (ACA). The ACCA and ACA are laws that strictly control the sale, use, storage, and international trade of acids. The acids are used in traditional trades carving marble nameplates, conch bangles, goldsmiths, tanneries, and other industries, which have largely failed to comply with the legislation. Salma Ali of the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers' Association derided these laws as ineffective. New Zealand: The Queen v Epifania Suluape (2002) NZCA 6, deals with a wife who pleaded provocation after she killed her husband with an axe when he proposed to leave her for another woman. There was some evidence of neglect, humiliation, and abuse but the court concluded that this was exaggerated. On appeal, the court was very conscious of the Samoan culture in New Zealand in restricting the power of the wife to act independently of her husband and reduced her sentence for manslaughter to five years. Serbia: Marital rape was criminalized in March; before that date rape was legally defined as forced sexual intercourse outside of marriage. Australia, Australian Capital Territory: References to abortion as a criminal offence were repealed by the Crimes (Abolition of Offence of Abortion) Act 2002.

2003 United States, New Hampshire: In June, the New Hampshire Parental Notification Prior to Abortion Act, "an act requiring parental notification before abortions may be performed on unemancipated minors," was narrowly passed by the New Hampshire General Court.Introduced as House Bill 763-FN. The act passed with a vote of 12–11 in the New Hampshire Senate and 187-181 in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. This law was repealed in 2007, making rehearing at the district court level moot."Planned Parenthood to have attorney's fees paid" , Seacoastonline.com. United States: Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, 537 U.S. 393 (2003), is a United States Supreme Court case involving whether abortion providers could receive damages from protesters under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, . National Organization for Women (NOW) obtained class status for women seeking the use of women's health clinics and began its court battle against Joseph Scheidler and PLAN et al. in 1986. In this particular case, the court's opinion was that extortion did not apply to the defendants' actions because they did not obtain any property from the respondents (NOW and the class of women). Australia: The rights and responsibilities of pregnant and potentially pregnant workers in the workplace were clarified by the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Pregnancy and Work) Act 2003. Bosnia and Herzegovina: Before a new Criminal Code came into force in 2003, the law on rape contained a statutory exemption for marriage, and read: "Whoever coerces a female not his wife into sexual intercourse by force or threat of imminent attack upon her life or body or the life or body of a person close to her, shall be sentenced to a prison term of one to ten years". United Kingdom: the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 (applies to England and Wales and Northern Ireland) Canada: Trociuk v British Columbia (AG), 1 S.C.R. 835 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on section 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms where a father successfully challenged a provision in the British Columbia Vital Statistics Act, which gave a mother complete control over the identity of the father on a child's birth certificate, on the basis that it violated his equality rights. Benin: A 2003 law bans all forms of female genital mutilation (FGM). Benin: Under Benin's abortion law passed in that year, a woman can only terminate her pregnancy if her life is deemed to be at great risk, if the pregnancy is a result of incest or rape, or if the foetus has a particularly serious medical condition.ICMA – Laws on Abortion – Benin Chișinău, Moldova: International Consortium for Medical Abortion (ICMA). 2003 A select list of experts were allowed to examine a pregnancy to determine whether the only option for saving the woman's life is to induce abortion. Niger: A law banning FGM was passed by the government.PRIORITIES IN CHILD SURVIVAL, EDUCATION AND PROTECTION – Niger UNICEF (2007) United States: Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs, 538 U.S. 721 (2003), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was "narrowly targeted" at "sex-based overgeneralization" and was thus a "valid exercise of [congressional] power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment."See Nev. Dep't of Human Res. v. Hibbs, 538 U.S. 721, 726–27 & n.1 (2003) United States: The Indiana Supreme Court recognized the medical malpractice tort of "wrongful pregnancy" when a woman became pregnant after a failed sterilization procedure. The court decided that the damages may include the cost of the pregnancy but may not include the ordinary cost of raising the child, as the benefits of rearing the child could not be calculated.