Malawi Activists Lobby for Abortion Law Reforms

March 10, 2024
By Chimwemwe Padatha
Video: 2:48 minutes

In Malawi, 35,000 backstreet abortions were carried out in 2022 and 2023, according to its Ministry of Health. These unsafe procedures are just one reason support for abortion rights has increased in recent years. Chimwemwe Padatha has more from Lilongwe.

Continued: https://www.voanews.com/a/malawi-activists-lobby-for-abortion-law-reforms/7521799.html


‘Fleeing under the cover of darkness’: How Idaho’s abortion ban is changing pregnancy in the state

By Meg Tirrell and John Bonifield, CNN
Sat February 10, 2024
(with 5 minute video: Why women are afraid to be pregnant in this red state)

Jen and John Adkins never expected to have to send a package like this.

Unsteady on her feet after a medical procedure last spring, Jen emerged from a clinic with a box she needed to ship urgently. The clock was ticking; if they missed the FedEx cutoff, she and John recalled to CNN, they wouldn’t be able to get crucial test results that would affect the future of their family.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/10/health/idaho-abortion-laws/index.html


Maryland – A safe haven for late abortions

At a clinic in Maryland, desperate patients arrive from all over the country to terminate their pregnancies.

Photographs by Maggie Shannon
February 5, 2024

For several years, Morgan Nuzzo, a nurse-midwife, and her friend and colleague Diane Horvath, an ob-gyn, talked about opening a clinic that would provide abortions in all trimesters of pregnancy. In May, 2022, the draft opinion of the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade was leaked, infusing their plan with fresh urgency. The women had launched a GoFundMe campaign earlier that spring, noting that stand-alone clinics made up the majority of providers offering abortion after fifteen weeks, and that many of these had closed in recent years. Within weeks, Nuzzo and Horvath had raised more than a hundred thousand dollars; that summer, they started training employees for the new clinic, Partners in Abortion Care, in College Park, Maryland. They saw their first patient that October, and by the end of 2023 they had treated nearly five hundred. The youngest was eleven years old, the oldest fifty-three.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/12/a-safe-haven-for-late-abortions


Brittany Watts, Ohio woman charged with felony after miscarriage at home, describes shock of her arrest

by Jericka Duncan, Rachel Bailey, Cassandra Gauthier and Hilary Cook
January 26, 2024
Video interview: 10 minutes

When Brittany Watts woke up at her Warren, Ohio, home on Sept. 22, 2023, she knew she was miscarrying.

Her 22-week-old fetus had been declared nonviable by doctors several days prior. Bleeding and in pain, she spent a total of 19 hours in the hospital over a span of two days, begging to be induced.
But an ethics group at Mercy Health - St. Joseph Warren Hospital had concerns about Ohio's abortion laws and how they applied to Watts' case, ultimately resulting in hours of delayed care.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brittany-watts-the-ohio-woman-charged-with-a-felony-after-a-miscarriage-talks-shock-of-her-arrest/


Texas mother Kate Cox on the outcome of her legal fight for an abortion: “It was crushing”

By Tracy Smith
January 14, 2024
Video: 8:32 minutes

Lifelong Texans Kate and Justin Cox were already parents to a young girl and boy when they found out last August that Kate was pregnant again. "We have the two children that we absolutely adore, and yeah, the thought of having a third one added to the family was incredible," Justin said.

But a series of tests revealed the baby they were expecting, a girl, had trisomy 18, a genetic condition that causes severe developmental problems.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kate-cox-on-her-legal-fight-for-abortion-trisomy-18/


‘Women need to know it is no longer a crime’: Mexico’s abortion companions – in pictures

Photographs by Mahé Elipe
Stephania Corpi
Mon 23 Oct 2023

For decades, acompañantas, or companions, have operated in secrecy to provide support for women to safely access terminations in Mexico. After abortion was decriminalised by the Mexican supreme court in September, they are still playing a role in getting the information across, as well as supporting women in neighbouring countries with stricter regimes, including the US.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2023/oct/23/women-need-to-know-it-is-no-longer-a-mexicos-abortion-companions-in-pictures


‘We think about American, Polish, Hungarian women’: French protest to defend abortion rights

Issued on: 03/10/2023
France 24, Juliette MONTILLY
Video: 5:12 minutes

Strictly forbidden in some countries, severely restricted in others: abortion rights remain fragile around the world. At the rally organised in Paris by the collective "Abortion in Europe: Women Decide!" to mark International Safe Abortion Day, many people express their concern about the situation not only in the United States but also in Europe. “When we demonstrate tonight, we think about American women, we think about the Poles, we think about the Hungarians," explains lawyer Sandra Vizzavona, author of "Interruption".

Continued: https://www.france24.com/en/video/20231003-we-think-about-american-polish-hungarian-women-french-protest-to-defend-abortion-rights


Dear Supreme Court of Brazil, Use Your Power to Protect Women

Video by Eliza Capai (11:34 minutes)
Text by Joanna Erdman
Sep 26, 2023

Ms. Capai is a Brazilian filmmaker. This short film is adapted from her feature-length documentary “Incompatible With Life.” Ms. Erdman is a professor of health law and policy at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, state anti-abortion laws came into immediate effect, clinics closed the same day, and people desperately searched for care against the clock of pregnancy. That is to say, there is an urgency to injustice, much as the time for justice is always now.

These lessons are being tested in Brazil. Last week Brazil’s Supreme Court opened voting in a case to decriminalize abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. This would be a sea change in the country, as explored in the film above. Today Brazil prohibits abortion, with only narrow exceptions in cases of rape, risk to life and a fatal fetal condition known as anencephaly.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/26/opinion/abortion-brazil-supreme-court.html


Voices of three Wisconsin women who have had an abortion

A trio of Wisconsinites share their abortion stories, describe why they chose to end a pregnancy, and explain why they are speaking up at a time when the practice is once again illegal in the state.

By ZAC SCHULTZ, STEVEN POTTER | Here & Now
August 8, 2023
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Over three weeks, "Here & Now" is examining the new debate surrounding abortion, presenting the viewpoints of those who have utilized abortion, those who want to keep it illegal, and those in the medical community advocating for their patients.

Tosha Kowalski: I was 26. I had just gotten out of a relationship, a long relationship with somebody for four years. And that was actually the father.
Sara: I was a full-time student at UW-Eau Claire going for political science, really loving school. I was a single mom, I had a beautiful, amazing little son, working two jobs.

Continued: https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/voices-of-three-wisconsin-women-who-have-had-an-abortion/


USA – The link between a lack of reproductive rights and domestic violence

Jul 14, 2023
By Amna Nawaz, Shoshana Dubnow
Video: 5:11 minutes

Long before the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, researchers noticed a link between women having abortion access and a reduced risk of violence from men. In the wake of the court's decision, the opposite is happening and abortion restrictions have led to a significant uptick in intimate partner violence. Amna Nawaz discussed more with NewsHour health reporter Laura Santhanam.

Continued: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-link-between-a-lack-of-reproductive-rights-and-domestic-violence