The Britons and Americans trying to reverse abortion rights in Africa

British academic Calum Miller attacked the legalisation of abortion in an Ethiopian medical journal and said it could have contributed to maternal deaths

By Michael Day, Chief Foreign Commentator
July 16, 2023

The US Supreme Court’s decision last year to sweep away a woman’s right to an abortion has set back civil liberties in America by several decades. But the culture wars that threaten Americans’ rights are also having a knock-on effect – and a potentially far deadlier one – thousands of miles away.

Sub-Saharan Africa already has the highest rate of unsafe abortions and unintended pregnancies in the world. Now health workers say right-wing Catholic groups in the US are using the Supreme Court ruling to redouble their efforts to deny women in some of the world’s poorest countries the right to safe terminations.

Continued: https://inews.co.uk/news/world/the-britons-and-americans-trying-to-reverse-abortion-rights-in-africa-2461329


Abortion Activists Are Targets of Violent, Gendered Threats After Overturn of Roe

The threats almost always come from men.

BY ZELLY MARTIN, DR. MARTIN RIEDL, EDITH HOLLANDER, AND DR. INGA TRAUTHIG
JULY 10, 2023

If your job necessitated that you cope with constant death threats against you and your three-year-old, would you do it? What if you weren’t getting paid? Cathy* is an abortion rights activist whose answer is a resounding, yes. But Cathy wasn’t always an activist. Four years ago, she was a pregnant woman living in Ohio and thought she was having a miscarriage. “I went to the emergency room because I was having a lot of fluid leaking. And when you're pregnant, that's obviously a cause for concern, and I was having horrible pain, and I thought, Oh, my God! I'm miscarrying.”

She came into the ER sobbing, and the staff immediately took her into a small room without her partner. “What did you do to cause this miscarriage?” they asked. “I'm sobbing, and leaking, and I'm like, ‘Nothing, nothing! Can you help me? I think I’m losing my pregnancy,’” Cathy recalled saying.

Continued: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/abortion-activists-violent-threats-roe


Abortion: twenty states threaten to sue CVS and Walgreens over mail-order pills

Letter from Republican attorneys general warns pharmacies sale of abortion pills by mail in their states would violate laws

Associated Press
Thu 2 Feb 2023

Attorneys general in 20 conservative-led states have warned CVS and Walgreens that they could face legal consequences if they sell abortion pills by mail in those states.

A letter sent on Wednesday from Andrew Bailey, the Republican Missouri attorney general, to the nation’s largest pharmacy dispensing companies was cosigned by 19 other attorneys general, and warned that sale of abortion pills would violate federal law and abortion laws in many states. Missouri is among states that implemented strict abortion prohibitions last summer after the supreme court ruling overturning Roe v Wade.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/01/cvs-walgreens-abortion-pills-republican-states-missouri


FBI investigating growing attacks on abortion and reproductive health clinics

Christine Fernando, USA TODAY
Jan 30, 2023

The FBI is asking for the public's help in investigating a spate of unsolved attacks against reproductive health facilities nationwide after an Illinois man was charged Wednesday with setting fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Tyler W. Massengill, 32, of Chillicothe, just north of Peoria in central Illinois, was arrested Tuesday after being accused of “malicious use of fire and an explosive to damage, and attempt to damage" the Peoria clinic, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/01/30/peoria-planned-parenthood-fire-illinois-man-arrested/11132693002/


‘Radicalized’ anti-abortion movement poses increased threat, US warned

Comments from Anu Kumar of reproductive rights group Ipas come as militant anti-abortion groups gain legislative influence

Jessica Glenza
Thu 8 Jul 2021

The president and chief executive of an international reproductive rights non-profit has warned that the American anti-abortion movement has significantly radicalized and is working to spread its ideology around the world.

The comments came as pro-gun anti-abortion theocratic militant groups who seek to prosecute women who have abortions under murder statutes have gained increasing legislative influence in the US.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/anti-abortion-movement-radicalized


USA – Ted Cruz and a Bunch of GOP Senators Are Trying to Ban the Abortion Pill

They're asking the FDA to declare the pill used in about 40% of abortions an “imminent hazard to public health.”

By Carter Sherman
September 2, 2020

Sen. Ted Cruz is leading the charge on a Hail Mary plea to the Food and Drug and Administration: He wants the agency to cut off access to a pill that’s used in nearly 40% of U.S. abortions.

On Monday, the Texas Republican led a group of 20 senators in sending a letter to the commissioner of the FDA, asking the agency to take the pill mifepristone, which helps induce abortions, off the U.S. market. The senators want the pill declared an “imminent hazard to public health.”

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7kpap4/ted-cruz-and-a-bunch-of-gop-senators-are-trying-to-ban-the-abortion-pill


USA – Priest says ‘pedophilia doesn’t kill anyone’ but abortion does, in defense of denying communion to lawmakers

Priest says ‘pedophilia doesn’t kill anyone’ but abortion does, in defense of denying communion to lawmakers

By Kim Bellware
Feb. 11, 2020

A Rhode Island priest is doubling down on his recent call to deny Communion to lawmakers who voted in favor of an abortion rights bill.

After the Rev. Richard Bucci of Sacred Heart Church in West Warwick, R.I., drew a backlash with his initial announcement two weeks ago, the 72-year-old priest dug in, telling Rhode Island’s NBC 10 in an interview over the weekend, “We are not talking about any other moral issue, where some may make it a comparison between pedophilia and abortion."

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/11/priest-lawmakers-abortion-pedophilia/


USA – Abortion Isn’t Slavery. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Should Know Better

Abortion Isn't Slavery. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Should Know Better | Opinion

Renee Bracey Sherman
On 1/29/20

As a black woman who had an abortion, I am disgusted and seething.

Last week, as the United States commemorated the anniversary of the legalization of abortion nationwide, the Trump administration made headlines for its despicable opposition to abortion access. Donald Trump became the first sitting president to attend the anti-abortion March for Life rally, and in remarks praising his efforts to restrict access to health care worldwide, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos had the nerve to compare abortion to slavery.

Speaking at a Colorado Christian University event in Washington, D.C., DeVos argued that Trump's fight against abortion rights is similar to President Abraham Lincoln's fight against slavery.

Continued: https://www.newsweek.com/abortion-isnt-slavery-education-secretary-betsy-devos-should-know-better-opinion-1484742


USA – New Law Would Force Abortion Doctors to Do the Impossible — or Face Charges

New Law Would Force Abortion Doctors to Do the Impossible — or Face Charges

By Katie Heaney
Dec 5, 2019

A 700-page anti-abortion bill proposed by Ohio state legislators includes a strange side provision that would require doctors to “reimplant an ectopic pregnancy” into a woman’s uterus or face charges of “abortion murder.” But ectopic pregnancy is the term for a pregnancy that grows outside the uterus and thus will never produce a baby.

Doctors (as well as anyone familiar with the ins and outs of pregnancy) say such a procedure is medically impossible, and not for the first time — when the bill was first introduced in May, OB/GYN and researcher Daniel Grossman called the idea “pure science fiction” on Twitter. Given that the bill’s author has pointed to a case study from 1917, he’s barely exaggerating.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2019/12/ectopic-pregnancies-have-nothing-to-do-with-abortion.html


USA – The new bill that would create a crime called “abortion murder,” explained

The new bill that would create a crime called “abortion murder,” explained
It could be the future of the anti-abortion movement.

By Anna North
Dec 5, 2019

Ohio legislators last month introduced a measure that would, if passed, become the most restrictive abortion law in the country.

The bill creates a new felony called “abortion murder,” making people who have or perform abortions subject to life in prison. It also includes a provision suggesting that doctors should attempt to reimplant an ectopic pregnancy in a patient’s uterus, a procedure medical experts say is not possible with current medical technology.

continued: https://www.vox.com/2019/12/5/20994296/ohio-abortion-murder-hb-413-reimplant-ectopic