DATE / 7 OCTOBER 2020
On 28 September, in honour of International Safe Abortion Day, Humanists International co-sponsored a joint statement at the UN on ongoing threats to sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) in light of COVID-19.
The statement was delivered during the General Debate of the 45th session of the Human Rights Council and was supported and signed by a total of 354 organizations and 643 individuals.
States are ignoring their duties to ensure abortion access during COVID-19
Canada's Abortion Caravan: Looking back at a historic reproductive rights movement
The House explores a landmark trek for abortion rights 50 years ago, and where the debate stands now
CBC Radio
Posted: May 09, 2020
Fifty years ago this weekend, hundreds of women from across Canada arrived in Ottawa to protest an abortion law passed by Pierre Elliott Trudeau's government in 1969.
They arrived in a convoy led by a Volkswagen van with a black coffin strapped to the roof. They argued that the existing law was too restrictive, forcing women to seek unregulated abortions by unqualified practioners that resulted in hundreds of deaths each year.
AN INTERNATIONAL CALL TO ACTION
TO: Women, Health Systems, Governments, UN Human Rights Bodies and WHO
27 March 2020
by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion
We Need a Rational Policy for Safe Abortion in Every Country NOW!
Every day, in every country of the world, women have abortions. Each year, globally, there are 56 million abortions, or an average of 154,000 abortions every single day. Some 45% of those abortions are still unsafe in spite of 100 years of national and international campaigns for safe, legal abortions.
In almost every country, even where abortions are safe, access to abortion is restricted by antediluvian, punitive and medically unnecessary laws and regulations. The only way many women manage to have abortions at all is if they or an abortion care provider breaks the law in some minor or major way – 25 million times each year if we count only the unsafe abortions. The serious effect of the COVID-19 virus on all our lives has put this absurdity into sharp relief.
Continued: https://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/newsletter-27-march-2020?e=372dd34034
Women perform in favor of abortion before Mexican cathedral
Published January 6, 2020
By the Associated Press
MEXICO CITY — A dozen women wearing green scarves lined up in front the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City’s central square on Sunday to call for legal and safe abortions throughout Mexico.
Abortion is highly restricted in the country of 120 million inhabitants, with the exception of the capital Mexico City and the southern state of Oaxaca, where the procedure is allowed up to 12 weeks of gestation.
To the sound of a metal spoon clanking against an iron frying pan, the women performed a variation of “A Rapist in Your Path” — the viral dance sequence concocted by the Chilean feminist collective La Tesis to protest violence against women. The moves are the same, but the words have changed; in this version, an “objector” stands in their path.
Continued: https://news.mb.com.ph/2020/01/06/women-perform-in-favor-of-abortion-before-mexican-cathedral/
Abortion After the Clinic
As Republican lawmakers try to legislate it out of existence, the future of reproductive healthcare may be at home.
By Irin Carmon
Nov 11, 2019
When Leana Wen introduced herself to America as the new president of Planned Parenthood last fall, she had a story she liked to tell — one that showed exactly why abortion access mattered. It was a sad tale of “a young woman lying on a stretcher, pulseless and unresponsive, because of a home abortion.” Wen, an emergency physician who had been plucked from Baltimore’s Health Department to take over the century-old institution, said the young woman had arrived at her ER in “a pool of blood” because “she didn’t have access to health care, so she had her cousin attempt an abortion on her at home. We did everything we could to resuscitate her, but she died.”
Wen was talking about a time when abortion was technically legal, yet the story rhymed with the pre-Roe era, when doctors and lawyers spoke of being radicalized by women filling their wards with blood and desperation, the same nightmare the familiar pro-choice rhetoric warns will soon be upon us. Behind the scenes, however, a vanguard of the abortion-rights movement implored Wen, directly and through intermediaries, to stop talking about “home abortion” in such dire terms.
Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2019/11/future-abortion-access-america.html
ARGENTINA – Newly elected president calls for legalisation of abortion before he is elected
by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion
Nov 1, 2019
“Two weeks before Argentina’s elections, a group of female congressional candidates addressed a euphoric crowd that had travelled from across the country to the town of La Plata for a 200,000-woman weekend of feminist strategy workshops and marches,” writes Foreign Policy. The elections this month included several “outspoken feminist candidates”, while protests against gender-based killing of women, national women’s strikes, and a “campaign that saw abortion nearly legalised in the National Congress last year” amount to what is being called “the revolution of the daughters”.
The administration of former president Macri expanded telephone hotline assistance for gender-based violence and free access to long-lasting birth control methods, built more than 240 new daycares, and established Argentina’s first daily television programme devoted to gender equality. After the Macri administration introduced a campaign to reduce unwanted teenage pregnancy, teen births in Argentina dropped 12% in two years.
Campaign launched to abolish old law which means abortion is still technically illegal in England, Scotland and Wales
Bronwen Weatherby
Oct 26, 2019
A campaign has been launched to abolish an old law which means abortion is still technically illegal in England, Scotland and Wales.
In the wake of decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland earlier this week, campaigners say England, Scotland and Wales now have "the most draconian abortion laws in the union".
Abortion campaigners protest ‘restrictions’ in legislation
Hundreds march through Dublin and call for introduction of safe zones around facilities
Sep 28, 2019
Shauna Bowers
Abortion rights activists marched through Dublin on Saturday to protest against the “restrictions” in the Ireland’s abortion legislation.
The theme of the 8th annual march, which was the first since Ireland legalised abortion in December last year, was “nobody left behind”.
Hundreds join abortion rights rally in Dublin
Saturday, 28 Sep 2019
Hundreds of people have taken part in an abortion rights march in Dublin.
Campaigners want the amount of time women must wait for a termination reduced.
At present women must wait for three days after a doctor certifies they are no more than 12 weeks' pregnant - characterised by the Government as a "cooling off" period.
Continued: https://www.rte.ie/news/dublin/2019/0928/1078837-abortion-march-in-dublin/
Thailand’s abortions are modern and safe. They’re also out of reach for most women (Video)
By Teirra Kamolvattanavith
Sep 26, 2019
The man on stage pulled a thin plastic tube out of a dragon fruit before a captivated audience. A little “blood” seeped out; the audience gasped. The man was a gynecologist, the dragon fruit was standing in for a uterus, and with the tube he was demonstrating vacuum-aspiration abortion.
“Abortion has been performed for thousands of year, but in the last century, we have new technology that’s made the process completely safe, like this equipment right here,” said Sunya Patrachai, an OB/GYN professor at the renowned Mahidol University, as he waved the tiny suction tube in the air. “Yet, only 30 percent of all doctors performing abortions in Thailand use this method.”.
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