Misogyny in discussions about legal abortion in Brazil

In Rio de Janeiro, a bill guaranteeing humane treatment of women seeking an abortion procedure was defeated

Luciana Boiteux, Translated by: Ana Paula Rocha
13 March 2024

We welcomed March with France's parliament approving the right to abortion in the country's constitution: 780 votes in favor and 72 against. A few days earlier, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, a bill aimed at guaranteeing the humane treatment of women seeking legal abortion – that is, what is already provided for in Brazil’s Penal Code – was defeated: 32 votes against and only eight in favor.

The bill, proposed by Marielle Franco, had been awaiting a vote since 2017, and aimed to municipalize a program that already existed as a technical standard of the Ministry of Health.

Continued: https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2024/03/13/misogyny-in-discussions-about-legal-abortion-in-brazil


How To Get An Abortion In Iceland

Published March 11, 2024
Words by Catharine Fulton (The útlendingur’s ongoing guide to getting shit done)

Much like wrangling your annual tax return or figuring out how to register your kid for extra-curriculars, navigating the health care system in Iceland can be tricky and frustrating and, sometimes, rage inducing.

But if there is ever a time when you don’t need the extra stress of research or trial and error it’s when you find yourself pregnant. If you are a pregnant person planning on carrying a foetus to term, then your first stop should be your neighbourhood Heilsugæslan, where you will be paired with a midwife to oversee your care. Nota bene: you are in control, so if you don’t like the care you receive from your assigned midwife, it is your right to request another midwife to take over your care.

Continued: https://grapevine.is/mag/articles/2024/03/11/how-to-get-an-abortion/


France’s Macron wants to make abortion a right at EU level

Reuters
March 8, 2024

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that he wants the European Union to guarantee the right to an abortion in its Charter of Fundamental Rights.

…"We're going to lead this fight in our continent, in our Europe, where reactionary forces are attacking women's rights before attacking the rights of minorities," he told the crowd attending the ceremony in Paris, in front of the Justice Ministry. "This is why I want to enshrine that guaranteed freedom to abortion in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union."

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-macron-wants-make-abortion-right-eu-level-2024-03-08/


Jersey – Fifth in survey back gender selection abortion

March 6, 2024
Freddie Miller, Jonathan Morris

Just over a fifth of people who took part in a Government of Jersey survey think abortions should be permitted on the island for gender selection purposes.

The government is updating the island's 1997 terminations law and from its consultation on changes 597 responses were analysed.

Of those who responded 82% were women, 67% were aged 25 to 54 and 47% said they had personal experience of termination.

Continued:  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce7xng2gyz9o


Disabled Texans face more barriers to accessing abortion

Few organizations track the number of disabled individuals trying to access abortion, but abortion providers and groups that help assist Texans obtain out-of-state abortions say they are falling through the cracks.

BY NEELAM BOHRA, Texas Tribune
FEB. 20, 2024

When disabled Texans used to visit abortion clinics, staffers would remember them. They may have needed in-clinic accommodations or American Sign Language Interpreters, and they appeared infrequently. Still, they came.

But more than a year since performing abortions became illegal in the state of Texas, disabled people have become a “missing population” at the clinics still providing abortions out of state, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion provider.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/20/texas-abortion-disabled/


Mental health emerges as a dividing line in abortion rights initiatives planned for state ballots

Abortion rights advocates are trying to get initiatives to protect reproductive health on the ballot in several states this year

By CHRISTINE FERNANDO, Associated Press
February 13, 2024

CHICAGO -- The weeks after Kaniya Harris found out she was pregnant were among the hardest in her life.

Final exams were fast approaching for the college junior. Her doctors told her she had an ovarian cyst, and the risk of ectopic pregnancy was high. The wait times for abortion clinics near her city of Bethesda, Maryland, seemed impossibly long. And she couldn’t visit her family in Kentucky because of the state’s abortion ban.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/mental-health-emerges-dividing-line-abortion-rights-initiatives-107191518


States That Restrict Abortion Have Higher Rates of Intimate Partner Homicide

“[T]here’s an epidemic of preventable violence that disproportionately affects vulnerable populations,” one study finds.

By Zane McNeill , TRUTHOUT
February 13, 2024

According to a new study published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons (JACS), pregnant women who live in states that restrict abortion are more likely to experience intimate partner homicide. Researchers also found that the risk of intimate partner homicide is higher for young women under the age of 30, Black women, and women with lower education levels.

“This study reveals that in the United States, there’s an epidemic of preventable violence that disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, including peripartum people,” said Grace Keegan, lead author of the study and third-year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/states-that-restrict-abortion-have-higher-rates-of-intimate-partner-homicide/


USA – Don’t Just Defend Abortion Rights. Play Offense Over Them.

Abortion rights has proven time and again to be a winning issue for Democrats

Ilyse Hogue
February 8, 2024

President Joe Biden is staking his reelection and the future of this country on an American love for democracy. Marking the third anniversary of the January 6 insurrection near the Revolutionary War encampment at Valley Forge, he cautioned his audience, “We’re living in an era where a determined minority is doing everything in its power to try to destroy our democracy for their own agenda.”

When we think of democracy, what most often pops to mind are structural elements like voting rights, equal representation, and effective checks and balances. And certainly, Democrats should pound away on those crucial elements of a functional system. But it’s also the case that they have no better proof point for the president’s claim than the Republican obsession with eliminating legal abortion in twenty-first-century America.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/178436/abortion-rights-defend-choice-play-offense


In Poland, I Saw What a Second Trump Term Could Do to America

by Michelle Goldberg
Photographs by Rafal Milach
Feb. 6, 2024

Adam Bodnar, Poland’s new justice minister, recently explained to me the immense challenge of rebuilding liberal democracy in his country after an eight-year slide toward authoritarianism. Imagine, he said, that Donald Trump had won the last election and been in power for two terms instead of one. “What would be the damage?” he asked.

After only four years of Trump, President Biden inherited a furiously divided nation, its courts seeded with right-wing apparatchiks and the nature of reality itself in deep dispute. But as even MAGA die-hards will acknowledge, Trump often failed to bend the state to his will, which is why his allies have a plan to do things differently next time, purging civil servants and replacing them with loyalists. Poland is a country that has just gone through something like what Trumpists hope to impose on us in a second term. Its institutions have been hollowed out. Many experienced technocrats and neutral judges have been replaced by lackeys and ideologues.

Continue: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/opinion/abortion-ban-poland-democracy.html


Supreme Court mifepristone case will affect millions. Don’t base ruling off junk science.

Access to safe and effective medications like mifepristone should be based on rigorous scientific research and the medical community consensus – not the fringe opinions of a few extremists.

Julia Kaye
Jan 31, 2024

Overturning Roe v. Wade was just the beginning.

In Idaho v. United States, the question is whether states can disregard longstanding federal protections and bar doctors from providing abortions to patients experiencing medical emergencies.

The second case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. Food and Drug Administration, targets access to mifepristone, a safe and effective medication used in most abortions in this country and for miscarriage management. Since its FDA approval a quarter century ago, mifepristone has been safely used by more than 5 million people.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2024/01/31/supreme-court-abortion-pill-mifepristone-junk-science/72370445007/