Criminal laws and other legal restrictions dis-empower women, who may be deterred from taking steps to protect their health, in order to avoid liability and out of fear of stigmatization. By restricting access to sexual and reproductive health-care goods,services and information these laws can also have a discriminatory effect, in that they disproportionately affect those in need of such resources, namely women. As a result, women and girls are punished both when they abide by these laws, and are thus subjected to poor physical and mental health outcomes, and when they do not, and thus face incarceration’ (ibid.,