‘Women are capable of doing this’: the doctor defying local laws to provide safe abortions by sea or mail

Dr Rebecca Gomperts made waves providing abortion in international waters around the world. Now she’s prepared to help American women

Moira Donegan
Sun 12 Dec 2021

It’s Sunday morning, less than a week after the US supreme court signaled that it was ready to pave the way for new restrictions on abortion rights in the US, and I’m on the phone with a Dutch abortion provider who has watched the proceedings from half a world away.

Dr Rebecca Gomperts tells me that she’s shocked with the situation in Texas, which recently enacted a near total ban on legal abortion – not because the state government passed the law, but because doctors in the state are largely complying with it.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/12/rebecca-gomperts-doctor-defying-laws-abortions

Biden administration asks Supreme Court to dismiss abortion counseling case

By Ariane de Vogue and Caroline Kelly, CNN
Fri March 12, 2021

Washington (CNN) The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court late Friday to dismiss a dispute over a Trump era rule barring federally funded health care providers in the Title X family planning program from referring patients for abortions.

In a petition to the court filed after hours
on Friday, Acting Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said the parties had
agreed to dismiss the case that the justices had agreed to hear last month.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/12/politics/biden-administration-supreme-court-dismiss-abortion-counseling-case/index.html

Indonesia criticized for signing anti-abortion convention

Ardila Syakriah and Dian Septiari, Jakarta
Sat, October 31 2020

A coalition of Indonesian women rights groups have lambasted the government for signing an anti-abortion convention rolled out by the United States, saying the government cosponsored it without proper public consultation.

The coalition deemed the signing of the convention unconstitutional and harmful to the sexual and reproductive health of Indonesian women because it might lead to more unsafe abortion practices and subsequently, more maternal deaths.

Continued: https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2020/10/30/indonesia-criticized-for-signing-anti-abortion-convention.html

Poland, Saudi Arabia and 29 others join US-led anti-abortion declaration on women’s rights

OCT 23, 2020

Poland, Saudi Arabia and 29 other countries have joined the United States in signing a declaration on women’s health that denies the right to abortion, promotes “the family as foundational to society”, and emphasises “each nation’s sovereign right” to implement its own policies in these areas.

The document – officially titled the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family – is seen as a rebuke to United Nations human rights bodies that have sought to protect access to abortion, notes the Washington Post.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/10/23/poland-saudi-arabia-and-29-others-join-us-led-anti-abortion-declaration-on-womens-rights/

U.S. signs international declaration challenging right to abortion and upholding ‘role of the family’

By Miriam Berger
Oct. 22, 2020

The United States joined Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia and Uganda on Thursday to co-sponsor a nonbinding international antiabortion declaration, in a rebuke of United Nations human rights bodies that have sought to protect abortion access.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar participated in the virtual signing ceremony. The Geneva Consensus Declaration aims to promote women’s health, “defends the unborn and reiterates the vital importance of the family,” Pompeo said at the ceremony.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/10/22/trump-geneva-consensus-abortion-family/

USA – Limiting Scientific Research is Another Front in the War on Abortion

10/6/2020
by MICHELLE ONELLO

The recent death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg puts reproductive rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade in grave jeopardy. As part of its war on abortion, the Trump administration has banned scientists from using human fetal tissue (HFT) donated from terminated pregnancies in medical research.

The ban on HFT research is not only another attack on reproductive freedoms; it is limiting crucial medical advances, putting lives in danger and demonstrating the vast collateral damage unleashed by the war on abortion. Reproductive rights advocates must seize upon this dangerous politicization of medical research to forge new allies and further broaden advocacy coalitions.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2020/10/06/reproductive-freedom-hft-human-fetal-tissue-abortion-trump-hhs-alex-azar/

The Trump administration’s war on abortion rights is worse than you think

BY MICHELLE ONELLO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
09/22/20

The Trump administration has been executing a coordinated attack on what it sees as a critical public health issue. Unfortunately, the offensive is not targeting the COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected over six million people and claimed almost 200,000 lives in the US. Instead, the campaign has its sights set on women’s sexual health and reproductive rights, especially abortion. With the recent death of Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg threatening the fate of Roe v. Wade, the security of abortion rights has never been more precarious.

The administration’s brazen anti-abortion agenda includes not only well-publicized executive actions such as the expansions of the global and domestic gag rules, “conscience” exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, and the packing of courts with anti-abortion judges.

Continued: https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/517664-the-trump-administration-war-on-abortion-rights-is-worse-than-you-think

International abortion rule led to lapsed health aid in some African countries, report shows

By Caroline Kelly, CNN
Thu August 20, 2020

(CNN) A State Department review of the Trump administration's policy to bar funding for foreign nonprofits that perform or promote abortions found it has also affected efforts to treat tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS and to deliver nutritional assistance, among other programs, and has had significant impact in sub-Saharan Africa.

The review, published Tuesday, looks at the impact of the Trump administration's 2017 decision to reinstate the "Mexico City Policy" -- which had previously impacted only family planning assistance -- and extend it to all applicable US global health funding under the "Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance" policy.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/20/politics/abortion-global-rule-usaid-state-department/index.html

Trump fetal tissue ethics board urges rejection of nearly all research proposals

By Amy Goldstein
August 18, 2020

A new advisory board, created to review the ethics of proposed fetal tissue research grants, is urging the Trump administration to block government funding for nearly all of the applications — essentially seeking to ban support for most such scientific work.

The recommendation that the National Institutes of Health withhold funds
from all but one of a slate of 14 research proposals means that Health and
Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who has the final say, would need to buck
the will of a board he convened — and of social conservatives crucial to
President Trump’s political base — for the projects to get federal support.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/trump-fetal-tissue-research/2020/08/18/85902fcc-e157-11ea-8dd2-d07812bf00f7_story.html

USA – FDA urged to let women get abortion drugs by mail during coronavirus crisis

Donna Miller
August 16, 2020

The FDA is being urged to let women obtain abortion-inducing drugs by means of the mail amid the coronavirus slightly than have to go away their houses to get them.

“Whereas any girl who desires to go into a health care provider’s workplace or right into a clinic at the moment and get an abortion ought to proceed to have the opportunity to achieve this, management over one’s reproductive freedom shouldn’t be restricted to these ready to go away their houses as we battle the coronavirus,” New York Lawyer Normal Letitia James mentioned in an announcement Monday — echoing a letter despatched by her and 20 different high law-enforcement officers to the FDA urging an easing-up of restrictions.

Continued: https://gruntstuff.com/fda-urged-to-let-women-get-abortion-drugs-by-mail-during-coronavirus-crisis/78870/