Belgium again debates removal of abortion from the Penal Code

Belgium again debates removal of abortion from the Penal Code

by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion
May 11, 2018

On 20 July 2016 we reported that a member of the Ecolo (Green) Party in Belgium had tabled a bill to remove abortion from the Penal Code so that it was no longer regarded as a criminal offence, and that this was not the first attempt to do so.

On 21 March 2017, we reported that there had been a rush of media stories announcing a campaign in Belgium that was variously calling for modernisation of the abortion law, decriminalisation of abortion, and complete removal of abortion from the Penal Code. And that there was a strong majority in support in the country. The necessity for some Belgian women to travel to other countries in Europe for second trimester abortion was especially condemned. Unfortunately, nothing happened.

Continued: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/belgium-belgium-again-debates-removal-of-abortion-from-the-penal-code/

11.05.2018

International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion

Belgium to debate removal of abortion from penal code

Belgium to debate removal of abortion from penal code
Opposition parties believed to be broadly in favour of decriminalisation

Daniel Boffey in Brussels
Wed 2 May 2018

Belgian MPs are taking a major step towards the decriminalisation of abortion after a parliamentary majority emerged in favour of following France and Luxembourg in treating the procedure as a woman’s right.

The federal parliament decided on Wednesday to start debating the removal of abortion from the penal code after a large survey of the public indicated its approval, and the minister of public health for the francophone Walloon region of Belgium offered her support.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/02/belgium-to-debate-removal-of-abortion-from-penal-code

02.05.2018

decriminalisation of abortion

Malaysai – Yes! SheDecides: Affirming women’s rights to their own body

Yes! SheDecides: Affirming women’s rights to their own body

Friday March 2, 2018

March 2 — A group of stakeholders and global representatives came together today to express their support for SheDecides — a movement that promotes, provides, protects and enhances the fundamental rights of every girl and woman to freely decide about their sexual lives.

The discussion, organised in conjunction with SheDecides’ first anniversary, saw participations of regional non-profit group Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (Arrow) and representatives from Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Finland, among others.

Continued: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/yes-shedecides-affirming-womens-rights-to-their-own-body

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

The Workers Party of Belgium (PTB) has introduced a bill to reform the abortion law

The Workers Party of Belgium (PTB) has introduced a bill to reform the abortion law

June 25, 2017
by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion

A number of other proposals for legislation have already been introduced by other opposition parties – sp.a, PS, Challenge and Ecolo-Groen – to remove abortion from the criminal law and to amend the law in a number of different ways. The PTB say they want to ensure that these proposals are addressed as quickly as possible within the Parliamentary Public Health Commission, in order to remove abortion finally and definitively from the Penal Code.

The PTB proposal was introduced on 12 June. It would extend the right to abortion up to 20 weeks after fertilisation, as in the Netherlands. It would also reduce the period of “reflection” between the request for an abortion and the abortion itself from 6 days to 48 hours. It would continue to allow conscientious objection.

They have dedicated the initiative to Lucie Van Crombrugge, feminist activist and a leader in the struggle for the complete decriminalisation of abortion – although she always argued for no restrictions.

Because of the current 12 week time limit, unless the woman has a medical reason for the abortion, and the 6 days for “reflection”, many Belgian women are too late and have to travel abroad, currently some 500 women per year, mainly to the Netherlands, which costs them hundreds of euros.

SOURCE: PTB, by Koen Hostyn, 16 June 2017 ; PHOTO: François Lenoir, Reuters

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Source: International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/the-workers-party-of-belgium-ptb-has-introduced-a-bill-to-reform-the-abortion-law/

25.06.2017

Parliamentary Public Health Commission

PTB

Workers Party of Belgium

Lucie Van Crombrugge, lifelong Belgian abortion rights activist, has died aged 72

Lucie Van Crombrugge, lifelong Belgian abortion rights activist, has died aged 72

June 9, 2017
by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion

by Nausikaä Martens
Kollektief Anticonceptie – Abortuscentrum Gent

Lucie Van Crombrugge was born in November 1944, the youngest of three children. She grew up happily and as a young girl attended a strict Catholic school. At university, she took a degree in history.

She married an engineer and the couple moved to the Democratic Republic of Congo for several years, where she had two daughters. Lucie looked after the household and the children there and continued to do so after their return to Belgium, as a conscious choice at the time to be a full-time mother. Soon a third child came. She became adept at anti-authoritarian parenting, as a very caring and loving mother who, in a democratic way, let her children decide what they wanted.

Continued at link: International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/lucie-van-crombrugge-lifelong-belgian-abortion-rights-activist-has-died-aged-72/

09.06.2017

International Federation of Professional Abortion and Contraception Associates

Kollecktief Contraceptie – Abortuscentrum Gent

Lucie Van Crombrugge

Vrouwen Overleg Komitee

To have the same right to abortion in Belgium as in France, is that too much to ask?

To have the same right to abortion in Belgium as in France, is that too much to ask?
by Safe Abortion
March 21, 2017

A sudden rush of media stories in February and March has announced a campaign in Belgium that is variously calling variously for modernisation of the abortion law, decriminalisation of abortion, and complete removal of abortion from the Penal Code, insisting that there is a strong majority in support in the country. The necessity for Belgian women to travel to other countries in Europe for second trimester abortion is especially condemned.

L’avortement n’a pas sa place dans le Code pénal. Il s’agit d’une intervention médicale, et non d’un délit. Un fœtus n’est pas un enfant, mais une combinaison de cellules. Quant à la femme, c’est un être humain avec une vie et un corps. Et un droit à l’autodétermination. En ne dépénalisant pas l’avortement, le message que fait passer le législateur est qu’on ne peut pas faire confiance aux femmes lorsqu’il s’agit de décider ce qui est mieux pour elles-mêmes ou pour la société et que leurs actes doivent par conséquent être régis par une loi.

(Abortion has no place in the Penal Code. It is a medical intervention, and not a crime. A fetus is not an infant but a collection of cells. Whereas a women is a human being with a life and a body. And the right to self-determination. In not decriminalising abortion, the message that the legislature gives is that they do not trust women to decide what is best for themselves or for the society and that their actions must therefore be regulated by the law.)

En Belgique aussi, la société civile se mobilise pour le droit des femmes à décider. 46 ans après le «Manifeste des 343» en France, le Collectif belge des 350* publie son propre manifeste.

(A website asks “Why keep abortion in the Penal Code?” and says: In Belgium, too, civil society is mobilising for the right of women to decide. 46 years after the “Manifesto of the 343” in France, the Belgian Collective of the 350 publishes its own manifesto.)

The website of the Manifesto of the 350 has a whole page of signatures and a whole page of news articles on the issues, starting from 2015 but many of them in 2017, as the campaign seems to be growing.

The French Manifesto of the 343 was written by Simone de Beauvoir and published in 1971, signed by many prominent French women, advocating for reproductive rights and stating that they had had an abortion, thus opening themselves to criminal prosecution.

SOURCES: HuffingtonPost.Fr (en français), 12 March 2017 ; PTB.be, 3 March 2017 ; Manifeste des 350, (en français), March 2017 ; Levif.be (en français), 19 February 2017 ; PHOTO, by Simon Blackey, Flickr

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Source: International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/to-have-the-same-right-to-abortion-in-belgium-as-in-france-is-that-too-much-to-ask/

21.03.2017

decriminalisation of abortion

French Manifesto of the 343

She Decides!!! A global initiative to challenge the hegemony of the US government in funding family planning and abortion

FEATURE: She Decides!!! A global initiative to challenge the hegemony of the US government in funding family planning and abortion

March 10, 2017, by Safe Abortion

The story to date
On 22 January 2017, the Global Gag Rule was reinstated by Donald Trump the day after he took office. (See the Campaign newsletter report of 27 January which outlines the history of the Gag Rule, which goes back 32 years, the consequences it had for NGOs in the past and the current picture.)

Six short weeks later, on 3 March 2017, as reported in the PAI Washington Memo of 7 March, USAID had inserted a new section Mexico City Policy (March 2017) into the guidance governing USAID funding to NGOs outside of the USA that is "applicable to all awards that include family planning funds".

A notice to USAID headquarters and field staff stated that this new section will be inserted into all new USAID family planning assistance grants and cooperative agreements, and also into existing agreements “when such agreements are amended to add incremental funding”. Thus, it will not be applied to already existing grants, but only if new funding is added to them or for new grants. The notice emphasises that the Gag Rule does not apply to agreements with foreign governments or multilateral organizations, consistent with implementation during the previous Bush administration. However, the US government has other policies with similar restrictions for the governments and inter-governmental agencies it funds, such as UNFPA. And unlike the Gag Rule, which was rescinded under Clinton and Obama, these other policies have been operative non-stop for decades.

Continued at source: International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion: http://us12.campaign-archive1.com/?u=c02a095d6213ac4bd2aed2e81&id=bd2731fc6d&e=3fa4c971b0

Countries Donate Millions To Counter Trump’s Global Anti-Abortion Rule

Countries Donate Millions To Counter Trump’s Global Anti-Abortion Rule
Trump has banned U.S. funding to nonprofits that provide information about abortion.

By Sarah Ruiz-Grossman
03/03/2017

Countries are coming together to support women’s reproductive health, in the wake of President Donald Trump’s ban on United States funding for global nonprofits that provide information about abortion.

On Thursday, 57 countries as well as private donors gathered at a conference in Brussels, Belgium, and raised more than $190 million to support women’s health groups that will lose U.S. funding, reports the Associated Press.

Continued at source: Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/she-decides-trump-global-gag-rule_us_58b9a4bfe4b0d2821b4dd913

Doctors Without Borders Reiterates Critical Medical Need for Reproductive Health Services

Doctors Without Borders Reiterates Critical Medical Need for Reproductive Health Services

By Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) -

March 2, 2017

NEW YORK, MARCH 2, 2017—As the “She Decides” initiative formally kicks off in Brussels today, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is stressing the importance of access to reproductive health services like safe abortions, a critical medical need for women and girls across the world. This global initiative is in direct response to the reinstatement of the US government’s Mexico City Policy, which endangers the lives of women and could encourage unsafe abortions. Unsafe abortion is one of the five main causes of maternal mortality worldwide.

Continued at source: Yubanet: https://yubanet.com/world/doctors-without-borders-reiterates-critical-medical-need-for-reproductive-health-services/