IReland – Abortion services: New counselling hotline goes live

Abortion services: New counselling hotline goes live
My Options will provide the names of GPs and hospitals offering abortion services

Mon, Dec 31, 2018
Ronan McGreevy

Abortion services have been introduced in the Republic of Ireland on Tuesday following a landslide vote in favour of liberalising the country’s laws.

As of midnight terminations have become available free of charge, GPs and family planning services as well as hospitals across the country.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/abortion-services-new-counselling-hotline-goes-live-1.3745084


Timeline: The history of abortion in Ireland

Timeline: The history of abortion in Ireland
Ireland voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment in May of this year.

Dec 30. 2018

The amendment, which gave equal status to the life of the mother and the life of the unborn, was added to the Constitution in 1983. Some people had been campaigning for its removal from Bunreacht na hÉireann since then, while others fiercely defended it.

The country voted by 66.4% to 33.6% to remove the amendment, with over two million votes cast.

Continued: https://www.thejournal.ie/abortion-in-ireland-4382738-Dec2018/


USA – 4 Devious Ways States Chipped Away At Abortion Rights In 2018

4 Devious Ways States Chipped Away At Abortion Rights In 2018
The past year's restrictions were particularly extreme.

By Catherine Pearson, HuffPost US
12/29/2018

Every year, anti-abortion legislators and legislatures chip away at reproductive rights, and 2018 brought a wave of extreme restrictions from lawmakers determined to topple Roe v. Wade. This year, as of Dec. 11, 22 abortion restrictions were passed nationwide — a number that will likely edge up to 24 by the time 2019 begins.

On the surface, that number looks pretty good. It’s the fewest abortion restrictions passed in a single year in more than a decade, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which studies and promotes reproductive health policy. And for the first time in recent years, the number of proactive reproductive health policies — measures that make it easier for women to access abortion services and birth control, for example — outpaced the number of restrictions.

Continued: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/states-abortion-rights-erosion-2018_us_5c1be156e4b0407e907886b8?ec_carp=5444351490008681624


USA – Here Are the Worst Abortion Restrictions Conservative State Lawmakers Passed This Year

Here Are the Worst Abortion Restrictions Conservative State Lawmakers Passed This Year
If you think the attacks on reproductive rights this year were a mess, just wait until 2019.

Dec 29, 2018
Brie Shea

Conservative state lawmakers passed a surge of unconstitutional pre-viability abortion bans this year in an effort to tee up a challenge to Roe v. Wade. These included everything from bans on the safest, most common form of second-trimester abortion to laws that would outright re-criminalize abortion. So far, the federal courts have proven to be the necessary firewall preventing conservatives from enshrining these restrictions into law. But Republicans spent most of 2018 vigorously packing the federal courts with judges they believe to be ready and willing to roll back abortion rights as far as possible—so that barrier might not hold in 2019.

Here’s a sample of some of the worst anti-choice restrictions passed in the states this year.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2018/12/29/here-are-the-worst-abortion-restrictions-conservative-state-lawmakers-passed-this-year/


Abortion vote fails, but debate ignites a nation

Abortion vote fails, but debate ignites a nation
In a year when women’s rights and gender violence once again took centre stage in Argentina, perhaps no other subject divided the nation more than the bill to legalise elective abortion that arrived in Congress this year.

James Grainger
Dec 29, 2018

The landmark piece of legislation – Argentina currently allows abortion only in cases of rape or risks to a woman’s health – motivated both sides, prompting demonstrations, huge crowds and the ubiquitous sight of green (pro) and blue (against) headscarves being affixed to people’s clothes, bags and bodies throughout the year. Politicians were forced to declare their allegiances too, giving voters a rare glimpse of lawmakers’ true colours.

Continued: http://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/abortion-vote-fails-but-debate-ignites-a-nation.phtml


Ireland – Abortion: 162 GPs enough to end need to travel abroad – Harris

Abortion: 162 GPs enough to end need to travel abroad – Harris
Thirty doctors signed up do not want HSE to give their details out to avoid being targeted

Dec 29, 2018
Colm Keena, Jennifer Bray, Patsy McGarry

The 162 doctors signed up to provide abortion services in the State will “be enough” to ensure that women do not have to go abroad to terminate a pregnancy after January 1st, Minister for Health Simon Harris has said.

An uneven geographic spread of services will be available from Tuesday, when GPs can begin prescribing the abortion pill to women up to nine weeks into a pregnancy and hospitals can provide terminations up to 12 weeks. However, there are two counties where no GP has signed up to the service.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/abortion-162-gps-enough-to-end-need-to-travel-abroad-harris-1.3743390


Ireland – HSE will need extra 155 staff to provide abortion services in Ireland next year

HSE will need extra 155 staff to provide abortion services in Ireland next year
The free abortion services will create an additional strain on the service, according to the HSE

By Aakanksha Surve
28 DEC 2018

An extra 155 staff will be needed for the HSE to provide abortion services next year, it has been revealed.

The free abortion services will create an additional strain on the service, according to the latest HSE strategy.

Continued: https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/health-news/hse-abortion-services-ireland-2019-13785494


Ireland – Health Minister to ban protests at abortion providers

Health Minister to ban protests at abortion providers

Friday, December 28, 2018
By Elaine Loughlin

The Government hopes to fast-track the introduction of safe access zones to prevent protests outside hospitals and clinics that provide abortion services.

Health Minister Simon Harris had hoped to pass legislation to ban such demonstrations in tandem with the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill, which will come into force from January 1.

Continued: https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/health-minister-to-ban-protests-at-abortion-providers-894311.html


USA – A Woman’s Rights

More and more laws are treating a fetus as a person, and a woman as less of one, as states charge pregnant women with crimes...

Opinion
A Woman’s Rights
By The Editorial Board
Photographs by Damon Winter

DEC. 28, 2018

You might be surprised to learn that in the United States a woman coping with the heartbreak of losing her pregnancy might also find herself facing jail time. Say she got in a car accident in New York or gave birth to a stillborn in Indiana: In such cases, women have been charged with manslaughter.

In fact, a fetus need not die for the state to charge a pregnant woman with a crime. Women who fell down the stairs, who ate a poppy seed bagel and failed a drug test or who took legal drugs during pregnancy — drugs prescribed by their doctors — all have been accused of endangering their children.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/28/opinion/pregnancy-women-pro-life-abortion.html


How Bangladesh Made Abortion Safer

How Bangladesh Made Abortion Safer
The government’s effort to help Rohingya victims of wartime rape has lessons for the world.

By Patrick Adams
Dec. 28, 2018

No one knows how many Rohingya became pregnant as a result of rape by the Myanmar military. No one knows how many babies were born to survivors of sexual violence living among the 750,000 Rohingya in camps in Bangladesh.

The systematic sexual violence against the Rohingya reminded many in Bangladesh of their own painful history: During Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971, the Pakistani military and local collaborators killed about 300,000 civilians and raped and tortured as many as 400,000 women and girls.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/opinion/rohingya-bangladesh-abortion.html