CCPR/C/GC/36 6. Deprivation of life involves intentional3 or otherwise foreseeable and preventable lifeterminating harm or injury, caused by an act or omission. It goes beyond injury to bodily or mental integrity or a threat thereto.4 7. States parties must respect the right to life. This entails the duty to refrain from engaging in conduct resulting in arbitrary deprivation of life. States parties must also ensure the right to life and exercise due diligence to protect the lives of individuals against deprivations caused by persons or entities whose conduct is not attributable to the State.5 The obligation of States parties to respect and ensure the right to life extends to reasonably foreseeable threats and life-threatening situations that can result in loss of life. States parties may be in violation of article 6 even if such threats and situations do not result in loss of life.6 8. Although States parties may adopt measures designed to regulate voluntary termination of pregnancy, those measures must not result in violation of the right to life of a pregnant woman or girl, or her other rights under the Covenant. Thus, restrictions on the ability of women or girls to seek abortion must not, inter alia, jeopardize their lives, subject them to physical or mental pain or suffering that violates article 7 of the Covenant, discriminate against them or arbitrarily interfere with their privacy. States parties must provide safe, legal and effective access to abortion where the life and health of the pregnant woman or girl is at risk, or where carrying a pregnancy to term would cause the pregnant woman or girl substantial pain or suffering, most notably where the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or where the pregnancy is not viable.7 In addition, States parties may not regulate pregnancy or abortion in all other cases in a manner that runs contrary to their duty to ensure that women and girls do not have to resort to unsafe abortions, and they should revise their abortion laws accordingly.8 For example, they should not take measures such as criminalizing pregnancy of unmarried women or applying criminal sanctions to women and girls who undergo abortion9 or to medical service providers who assist them in doing so, since taking such measures compels women and girls to resort to unsafe abortion. States parties should remove existing barriers10 to effective access by women and girls to safe and legal abortion, 11 including barriers caused as a result of the exercise of conscientious objection by individual medical providers,12 and should not introduce new barriers. States parties should also effectively protect the lives of women and girls against the mental and physical health risks associated with unsafe abortions. In particular, they should ensure access for women and men, and especially girls and boys, 13 to quality and evidence-based information and education on sexual and reproductive health 14 and to a wide range of affordable contraceptive methods,15 and prevent the stigmatization of women and girls who seek abortion. 16 States parties should ensure the availability of, and effective access to, quality prenatal and post-abortion health care for women and girls,17 in all circumstances and on a confidential basis.18 9. While acknowledging the central importance to human dignity of personal autonomy, States should take adequate measures, without violating their other Covenant obligations, to prevent suicides, especially among individuals in particularly vulnerable situations, 19 including individuals deprived of their liberty. States parties that allow medical professionals to provide medical treatment or the medical means to facilitate the termination of life of afflicted adults, such as the terminally ill, who experience severe physical or mental pain and suffering and wish to die with dignity, 20 must ensure the existence of robust legal and institutional safeguards to verify that medical professionals are complying with the free, informed, explicit and unambiguous decision of their patients, with a view to protecting patients from pressure and abuse.21 II. Prohibition against arbitrary deprivation of life 10. Although it inheres in every human being,22 the right to life is not absolute. While the Covenant does not enumerate the permissible grounds for deprivation of life, by requiring that deprivations of life must not be arbitrary, article 6 (1) implicitly recognizes that some deprivations of life may be non-arbitrary. For example, the use of lethal force in self-defence, under the conditions specified in paragraph 12 below, would not constitute an arbitrary deprivation of life. Even those exceptional measures leading to deprivations of life that are not arbitrary per se must be applied in a manner that is not arbitrary in fact. Such exceptional 2