Total criminalisation of abortion is a threat to sexual and reproductive health in Brazil

BMJ 2025; 388 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r52
Published 10 January 2025
Michelle Fernandez, Luísa M M Fernandes, Melania M R de Amorim

In Brazil, a proposed constitutional amendment is currently being discussed in the National Congress, aiming to criminalise abortion in the country entirely. It stipulates prison sentences for women who undergo the procedure, ranging from 6 to 20 years, regardless of the circumstances. The proposal equates abortion with the crime of homicide. The suggested penalties for abortion are harsher than those currently imposed on rapists, who face a maximum of 10 years in prison. The proposed amendment would threaten the reproductive rights and health of women in Brazil, and directly affect their dignity and autonomy.

Continued: https://www.bmj.com/content/388/bmj.r52

Polish opposition presidential candidate “can’t currently see Ukraine in NATO” and opposes ending abortion ban

Jan 9, 2025
Notes from Poland

The presidential candidate supported by Poland’s main conservative opposition party has said that he currently “does not envision Ukraine in the EU or NATO”. He also pledged to veto any attempts by the government to end the current near-total ban on abortion or to introduce same-sex civil partnerships.

Karol Nawrocki’s remarks have prompted criticism from the prime minister, Donald Tusk, who says the opposition should be “ashamed” of his views on Ukraine. Meanwhile, Tusk’s candidate for the presidency, has described Nawrocki’s views on abortion as “medieval”.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/01/09/opposition-presidential-candidate-cant-currently-envision-ukraine-in-nato-and-opposes-ending-abortion-ban/

09.01.2025

‘I’ve seen women suffer’: Malawi’s religious leaders fight for legal abortions

Deaths from backstreet abortions have united pro-choice Christian and Muslim clerics around ending the strict ban

Sarah Johnson
Thu 9 Jan 2025

Throughout his ministry, the Rev Cliff Nyekanyeka has led funeral services for women who died after an illegal abortion in Malawi. He has visited hospitals where doctors have shown him the aftereffects of such procedures, including pictures of what he describes as “rotting uteruses”. And he has seen women struggling with unwanted pregnancies.

It is this lived experience that has led Nyekanyeka to advocate for a woman’s right to choose, and to campaign for change in a country with one of the world’s strictest abortion laws. In Malawi, women seeking an abortion can be imprisoned for up to seven years and anyone administering an abortion to a woman could face 14 years in prison; it is permitted only to save a woman’s life. The law was introduced by the British under colonial rule.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jan/09/women-malawi-religious-leaders-legal-abortion-ban-maternal-mortality-christian-muslim

Iran launches hotline to discourage abortions

Jan 9, 2025

Iran's health ministry has introduced a hotline aimed at dissuading citizens from having abortions as the theocratic system attempts to confront slowing population growth.

"Trained individuals help callers keep their pregnancies and decide against abortion," the head of the ministry's Center for Population Growth, Saber Jabari, said Thursday.

Continued: https://www.iranintl.com/en/202501099418

09.01.2025

Basij Medical Society

Center for Population Growth

hotline to discourage abortion

Reading the Warning Signs: How Trump’s Administration Could Crack Down on Abortion

Trump’s boasts about returning control over abortion to the states may well prove to be a stopgap measure en route to a blanket ban.

Jan 8, 2025
by Shoshanna Ehrlich

During the presidential campaign, Trump forcefully avowed he did not support a national abortion ban—a position consistent with two-thirds of the electorate—gloating instead that he was responsible for sending the issue back to the states where it belongs. He also distanced himself from the “virally unpopular” Project 2025—the far-right playbook for the next conservative administration.

However, warning signs suggest that Trump may have been pandering to the electorate on both scores. Notably, when his remarks on the campaign trail about a national ban are considered alongside his existing ties to Project 2025, his boast about returning control over abortion to the states may well prove to have been stopgap measure en route to a blanket ban … although perhaps by way of a back-channel strategy.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/01/08/trump-administration-doj-bondi-abortion-pill-comstock-act-mifepristone/

India – “Just Because Woman Below Average Intelligence…”: Court Questions Abortion Request

The bench had last week directed that the woman be examined by a medical board at the state-run JJ Hospital in Mumbai.

Press Trust of India
Jan 08, 2025

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday questioned whether a woman with intellectual disability has no right to become a mother.

A division bench of Justices R V Ghuge and Rajesh Patil was hearing a petition filed by a 27-year-old woman's father, seeking permission for medical termination of her 21-week pregnancy on the ground that she was of a mentally unsound mind and unmarried. The man in his plea submitted that his daughter wanted to continue the pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/just-because-woman-below-average-intelligence-court-on-abortion-plea-7427279

08.01.2025

News

abortion coercion

Bombay High Court

Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act

Prachi Tatke

R V Ghuge

Rajesh Patil

reproductive coercion

More Iranian women forced into illegal abortions

Hundreds of thousands of women seek illegal abortions every year in Iran, defying strict family planning laws enforced by the Islamist regime.

Elina Farhadi
Jan 6, 2025

Although Iranian authorities have widely restricted access to abortion in an attempt to reverse demographic decline, more women are going outside the law to end unwanted pregnancies.

According to figures from the Iranian Ministry of Health reported by the Khabaronline news website in June 2024, over 600,000 illegal abortions are performed annually in Iran.

Experts say poverty, joblessness, and lack of social security are contributing factors forcing women to undergo an abortion despite serious risks.

Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/more-iranian-women-forced-into-illegal-abortions/a-71229081

Given Trump’s win, should Europeans help Americans travel for abortions?

I started the first abortion fund in Europe 15 years ago. Here’s how to support our American and European sisters

Mara Clarke
6 January 2025

Every time there’s news about abortion in the US, my notifications start pinging. In 2017 – “Will you start sending money to people in Texas who need abortions?” In 2019 – “Will you start helping people from Alabama travel for abortions?” When both the leak and the actual overturn of Roe v Wade happened, and when Donald Trump was elected – “Should we set up pathways for people from the US to travel to Europe for abortions?”

The people asking mean well. Like me, they want a world where anyone who needs an abortion can have one, preferably without having to cross state or international lines. Unlike me, most of these people haven’t spent over 20 years helping people failed by states, laws and healthcare systems have abortions.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/trump-us-abortion-ban-pregnant-travel-borders-europe/

06.01.2025

Commentary

abortion pills

Abortion Without Borders

Mara Clarke

National Network of Abortion Funds

Project 2025

self-managed abortion

Permanent contraception surged after Roe v Wade overturned, study finds

Young adults living in states likely to ban abortion obtained tubal sterilizations and vasectomies in months after ruling

Carter Sherman
Mon 6 Jan 2025

In the months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, permanent contraception in the form of tubal sterilizations and vasectomies surged among young adults living in states likely to ban abortion, new research released on Monday found.

Compared to May 2022, when the opinion overturning Roe leaked, August 2022 saw 95% more vasectomies and 70% more tubal sterilizations performed on people between the ages of 19 and 26, according to the study, which was conducted by researchers at the George Washington University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Michigan.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/06/permanent-contraception-abortion-roe-v-wade

06.01.2025

News

IQVIA

Julia Strasser

permanent contraception

Trump’s Return Invigorates Global Anti-Abortion Drive

Not everything termed ‘Geneva’ advances human rights

Jan 06, 2025
Asia Sentinel

The global movement to undermine and restrict access to safe abortion, which went relatively dormant during the Biden interregnum that began in 2020, looks likely to return along with Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency. Although the returning president shied away from the anti-abortion crusade as a political liability during his 2024 campaign and may well remain silent domestically, internationally it is likely to return in the form of the regressive Geneva Consensus Declaration.

The Declaration was introduced two weeks before Trump left office in 2020 by his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and adopted by 39 countries under the pretext of “promoting women’s health and strengthening the family.” The Biden administration immediately took the US out of the Declaration upon taking office. Having frustrated the anti-abortion forces in the US during his campaign, Trump is likely to make up to them on the international front, according to the medical anthropologist Lynn Morgan in a telephone conversation from Mount Holyoke College, a private women's liberal arts school in Massachusetts.

Continued: https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/trump-return-invigorate-global-anti-abortion-drive