Why Brazil Should Decriminalize Abortion

Why Brazil Should Decriminalize Abortion

September 28, 2017
Published in Folha de S.Paulo
Margaret Wurth, Researcher, Children's Rights Division

I met “Mariana,” a 20-year-old woman in Paraíba state, almost a year ago in the waiting area of a public hospital. I was investigating access to reproductive health services for women and girls in northeastern Brazil, and Mariana was one of my first interviews. She told me she had an unplanned pregnancy, and gave birth, when she was 18.

“I cried a lot and I didn’t want it at all,” she said.

But abortion is a crime in Brazil, except in cases of rape, when the life of the woman is at risk, or the fetus has anencephaly—a fatal congenital brain disorder. I asked Mariana if she felt like she had any options other than continuing with the pregnancy. “No,” she said quietly, shaking her head.

Continued at source: Human Rights Watch: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/28/why-brazil-should-decriminalize-abortion


Ireland: Abortion committee chair says it would be ‘prudent’ to propose referendum that will pass

Abortion committee chair says it would be ‘prudent’ to propose referendum that will pass
FG ministers believe only more restrictive abortion regime will pass

Sep 28, 2017
Pat Leahy Political Editor

The chairwoman of the all-party committee on the eighth amendment Senator Catherine Noone has said that it would be “prudent” for the Government to propose a wording that can be successful in a referendum.

Ms Noone was speaking following an Irish Times report on Thursday that Fine Gael ministers believe the Citizens Assembly recommendations are unlikely to be passed, either in the Dáil or in a referendum.

Continued at source: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/abortion-committee-chair-says-it-would-be-prudent-to-propose-referendum-that-will-pass-1.3237046


September 28: Statements from International Leaders and Members’ Activities

Statements from International Leaders and Members' Activities

Sept 28, 2017

MARGE BERER, INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR WOMEN'S RIGHT TO SAFE ABORTION

International Safe Abortion Day, 28 September, follows closely on International Contraception Day, 26 September. These are two of the days in the calendar each year when we celebrate women's right to decide whether and when to have children. Today, we call on international and national leaders to acknowledge the importance of laws, policies, information and services for girls and women which support these rights – the right to use contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancy, and the right to safe abortion when it is too late for contraception. We remind them that provision of safe, legal abortion is essential to fulfilling the global commitment to the Sustainable Development Goal of universal access to sexual and reproductive health (Target 3.7)." We urge them to work with advocates for women's health and rights, parliamentarians, health care providers and others to make these rights a reality for all those who need them.

Continued at source: International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion: http://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/statements-from-international-leaders-and-members-activities-28-september-2017?e=3fa4c971b0


South Africa: It’s Time to End the Stigma and Silence Around Abortion

Africa: It's Time to End the Stigma and Silence Around Abortion

Sep 28, 2017
By Marion Stevens

International Safe Abortion Day - celebrated every year on September 28 - marks a woman's fundamental reproductive right to access safe, legal abortion. For many women all over the world, this right, along with the right to access modern contraception, is essential for their maternal health, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and well-being. It allows women and couples the right to decide freely if and when to have children.

Especially for the many women who have unsupportable pregnancies, abortion is a vital yet normal medical procedure during their reproductive lives. When performed properly, abortion procedures are safe and can saves women's lives. However, unlike other reproductive health services, abortion is enveloped by stigma and silence, which leads to many women in South Africa lacking access to this crucial health service.

Continued at source: All Africa: http://allafrica.com/stories/201709280584.html


UK: Teenage pregnancy: The choice that changed my life

Teenage pregnancy: The choice that changed my life
Emily-Jane Clark for Metro.co.uk
Thursday 28 Sep 2017

‘I can’t be pregnant,’ I said to the doctor who had just examined me.

‘But you are sexually active,’ he pointed out.

‘I wouldn’t say “active”.’ I explained. ‘I’m not sexing around all the time. Just, you know, when my parents are out or…what I mean is, I have a serious boyfriend and we only have sex sometimes. Well, actually it is more like making love.’

‘Yes… But you’re still pregnant.’

Continued: http://metro.co.uk/2017/09/28/teenage-pregnancy-the-choice-that-changed-my-life-6939562/


Europe: Why we’re marching for reproductive rights

Why we’re marching for reproductive rights
28 September 2017

Today, on the International Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion, Friends of the Earth activists are taking to the streets in Brussels to demand women’s rights and bodily autonomy and the right to abortion for women across all European countries and around the world.

Sign the petition for reproductive rights in Europe

Abortion is still banned in Ireland and Malta, and highly restricted in Hungary and Poland. Elsewhere, even where access to abortion is legally guaranteed, it can still be denied in practice through the closure of abortion providers and funding cuts for expert staff. And in all countries the right to abortion is regularly threatened as right-wing reactionary politicians gain influence and use women’s rights as bargaining chips to win the support of conservative sectors of society.

Continued: Friends of the Earth Europe: http://www.foeeurope.org/women-rights-abortion-march-280917


USA: House Republicans Want To Ban Abortion After 20 Weeks

House Republicans Want To Ban Abortion After 20 Weeks
Andrea González-Ramírez
Sep 28, 2017

In the latest attack on reproductive rights, House Republicans plan to vote next week on a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks nationwide.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced that the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act will be brought to the floor for a vote on Tuesday, October 3. The legislation proposes banning abortion procedures after 20 weeks of gestation, except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life. At least 17 states already have some kind of 20-week ban, but the House bill would extend it nationwide.

Continued at source: The Refinery: http://www.refinery29.com/2017/09/174028/house-bill-banning-abortion-20-weeks


Protect Global Health, End the Gag Rule

Protect Global Health, End the Gag Rule
By: Kory Stuer
09/28/2017

The World Health Organization estimates that every eight minutes a woman in the developing world dies from an unsafe abortion. On January 23, 2017 President Donald Trump endangered even more women’ lives by reinstating the “Mexico City policy,” more commonly known as the global gag rule. First put in place under Ronald Reagan, the global gag rule has seesawed through the last thirty-three years; each time a Democratic president has come into office he has rescinded the policy, and each time a Republican has won the presidency he has reinstated it. Trump’s reinstatement of the policy expanded its impact further than ever before, applying it for the first time to all U.S. global health spending. Today, on International Safe Abortion Day, we must all call for an end to playing political games with health and lives and demand the permanent repeal of the global gag rule.

Continued at source: http://georgetownvoice.com/2017/09/28/protect-global-health-end-the-gag-rule/


Malawi: Time to Decriminalize Draconian Abortion Law

Malawi: Time to Decriminalize Draconian Abortion Law
Sept 28, 2017

Blantyre — As the world celebrates the International Safe Abortion Day on Thursday, 28 September, we, at the Centre for Solutions Journalism (CSJ) call on the Malawi government to decriminalise abortion, provide access to safe abortion services and end stigma and discrimination towards women who choose to terminate unintended pregnancies.

By decriminalizing abortion, Malawi will be fulfilling her obligation as a signatory of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Plan of Action) whose ultimate goal is for African Governments, civil society, the private sector, and all multi-sectoral development partners to work together in order to end preventable maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent deaths, expand contraceptive use, reduce levels of unsafe abortion, end child marriage and eradicate harmful traditional practices and eliminate all forms of violence and discrimination against women and girls.

Continued at source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201709280872.html


UK: Knowledge is power, so it’s time to talk honestly about abortion

Shona Craven: Knowledge is power, so it's time to talk honestly about abortion

28th September, 2017

YOU’VE only read the headline, but your hackles might already be up. What knowledge, exactly? What power? And how many paragraphs before the big reveal? For or against, “foetus” or “baby”, right or wrong. I don’t blame you. When people start talking about the reality of abortion, I get suspicious too.

It took a show at last month’s Edinburgh Fringe to make me realise how little I actually knew about this subject. Sure, like any good feminist I knew the basics of the Abortion Act 1967, passed 50 years ago next month. I knew about the pickets, the posters, the religious extremists lobbying to retain laws branded cruel and degrading by the UN. But I remained largely ignorant when it came to the messy, bloody, psychological and emotional reality of this procedure.

Continued at source: http://www.thenational.scot/comment/15565150.Shona_Craven__Access_to_safe_abortion_must_be_accepted_as_a_human_right__no_ifs_or_buts/