Texas Forced This Woman to Give Birth to a Stillborn Son. She’s Suing

Tessa Stuart
Mon, May 22, 2023

After multiple miscarriages, Kiersten Hogan thought she would never be able to carry a pregnancy to term. She’d nearly given up hope when in June 2021 she learned she was pregnant. But at just 19 weeks — days after Texas’ Senate Bill 8 went into effect — Hogan woke up at 5 a.m. in excruciating pain. She called 911 and was instructed to unlock her front door and lay on the ground until EMTs arrived. “It was the longest 5 minutes of my life,” Hogan recalled on Monday.

Her water had broken. By the time she arrived at the hospital, she had lost too much amniotic fluid for her son to survive — but hospital staff didn’t tell her that. “They didn’t tell me much about my son’s chances of survival. But the one thing they did make clear repeatedly was that I should not leave,” a tearful Hogan said Monday. “I was told that if I tried to discharge myself, or seek care elsewhere, that I could be arrested for trying to kill my child. So of course, I stayed.”

Continued https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/texas-forced-woman-birth-stillborn-182841209.html

US woman left traumatised after Malta hospital refuses life-saving abortion

‘Desperate’ tourist who fell foul of country’s total ban fears for her life if complications set in while she waits for transfer to UK

Megan Clement and Weronika Strzyżyńska
Wed 22 Jun 2022

Doctors have denied an American woman on holiday in Malta a potentially life-saving abortion, despite saying her baby had a “zero chance” of survival after she was admitted to hospital with severe bleeding in her 16th week of pregnancy.

Despite an “extreme risk” of haemorrhage and infection, doctors at the Mater Dei hospital in Msida told Andrea Prudente that they would not perform a termination because of the country’s total ban on abortion.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jun/22/us-woman-left-traumatised-after-malta-hospital-refuses-life-saving-abortion

France extends abortion limit after year of parliamentary rows

Applause in national assembly as lawmakers vote to extend limit for ending pregnancy from 12 to 14 weeks

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Wed 23 Feb 2022

France has extended its time limit for abortion after an epic battle in parliament, amid anger that thousands of women had to travel abroad each year to terminate pregnancies in countries such as the Netherlands, Spain or England because of French restrictions.

There was applause in the French national assembly on Wednesday when lawmakers voted definitively to extend the legal limit for ending a pregnancy from 12 to 14 weeks. France’s new time frame is still lower than in some other European countries, including England at 24 weeks.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/23/france-extends-abortion-limit-after-year-of-parliamentary-rows

Being Denied an Abortion Has Lasting Impacts on Health and Finances

A landmark study of women seeking abortions shows the harms of being unable to end an unwanted pregnancy

By Mariana Lenharo, Scientific American
December 22, 2021

As the Supreme Court decides the future of abortion laws in the U.S., a key question to be considered is whether access to the procedure has positive or negative consequences for the people who get an abortion, and for society in general.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization concerns the constitutionality of a new Mississippi law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The case challenges the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, a precedent that protects abortion access before fetal viability—a point at around 24 weeks of gestation, when a fetus is considered able to survive outside the uterus.

Continued: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/being-denied-an-abortion-has-lasting-impacts-on-health-and-finances/

South Africa – A look at new abortion guidelines

Marion Stevens And Daphney Nozizwe Conco
Sep 28, 2021

International Safe Abortion Day marks a woman’s fundamental reproductive right to access safe, legal abortion.

The Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion has its origin in Latin America and the Caribbean where women’s groups have been mobilising to demand their governments decriminalise abortion, provide access to safe and affordable abortion services, and end stigma and discrimination against women who choose to have an abortion.

Continued: https://www.news24.com/citypress/voices/voices-a-look-at-new-abortion-guidelines-20210928

Italy’s futile abortion laws

Despite legislation, far-right politicians and religious organisations have entrenched ways to deny women their right to an abortion and shame those who do terminate a pregnancy.

By: Alex Čizmić
5 May 2021

There are laws that are enacted to bring about real-life change. There are others that are pushed through simply to give the illusion of progress. The latter seems to be the case in Italy with Law 194/78.

This legislation from 22 May 1978 decriminalises and regulates the procedure for accessing an abortion but, according to a report by the minister of health published in 2019 on the implementation of the law, conscientious objection among gynaecologists reached 68.4% on average with peaks of 100% in certain hospitals.

Continued: https://www.newframe.com/italys-futile-abortion-laws/

Abortion Is Now Legal in Argentina, but Opponents Are Making It Hard to Get

Anti-abortion activists are suing to block a new law allowing the procedure, and many doctors in conservative areas have declared themselves conscientious objectors.

By Daniel Politi, New York Times
March 7, 2021

BUENOS AIRES — For the first time in more
than a century, women in Argentina can legally get an abortion, but that
landmark shift in law may do them little good at hospitals like the one in
northern Jujuy Province where all but one obstetrician have a simple response:
No.

Abortion opponents are reeling after a
measure legalizing the procedure was signed into law in December, but they have
hardly given up. They have filed lawsuits arguing that the new law is
unconstitutional. And they have made sure doctors know that they can refuse to
terminate pregnancies, a message that is being embraced by many in rural areas.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/07/world/americas/argentina-abortion-opposition.html

Is Croatia going the way of Poland on reproductive rights?

In Croatia, lawmakers and activists have been debating abortion legislation for three decades. The church, conservative politicians and pro-life activists now want to see rules tightened as they have been in Poland.

26.12.2020
Author Siniša Bogdanić, Davor Batisweiler

Since 1991, when Yugoslavia fell apart and
Croatia became an independent state, conservative elements in the country have
been trying to overturn the liberal abortion law introduced in the communist
era. This legislation from 1978 allows Croatian women to have an abortion up to
the 10th week of pregnancy without having to give reasons or fulfill any
additional conditions. That is the theory. In practice, however, implementing
the law has been somewhat tricky, as it was amended in 2003 to give doctors the
right to refuse the operation on grounds of conscience.

Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/is-croatia-going-the-way-of-poland-on-reproductive-rights/a-56044929

Rape victim, 12, gives birth to twins in Argentina after she was denied an abortion

By Charlotte Mitchell
9 December 2020

A 12-year-old girl has given birth to twins in Argentina after being denied an abortion by local authorities despite having been raped.

Authorities in Jujuy forced the child to remain pregnant until the twins could be safely delivered by caesarean section.

Continued: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9033887/Rape-victim-12-gives-birth-twins-Argentina-denied-abortion.html

09.12.2020

Health Professionals for the Right to Decide

Poland’s mass protests for abortion rights: ‘This is war’

A proposal to ban most terminations has triggered the largest rallies post-communism Poland has witnessed.

By Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska
6 Nov 2020

Anna has been among the hundreds of thousands who recently marched through the streets of Warsaw, rallying for abortion rights amid the largest protests since the fall of communism.

“When the state fails to protect us, I’ll stand by my sister,” said some signs raised up amid the anger. “I think, I feel, I decide” and “This is war”, read others.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/11/6/polands-protests-against-abortion-ban-this-is-war