As Abortion Rights Expand, the U.S. Joins a Handful of Telling Exceptions

Recent shifts on access to abortion suggest democracy and women’s rights go hand in hand — and that the inverse might be true as well.

By Max Fisher
Published Sept. 9, 2021

The story of abortion rights in the 21st century can be seen in two world-shaking developments this past week. In the first, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively upheld drastic new abortion restrictions in Texas. A few days later, Mexico’s high court paved the way for nationwide legalization.

It may be tempting to see Mexico’s ruling as the more surprising, catapulting the world’s second most populous Catholic country on a deeply contentious social matter.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/world/abortion-rights-us.html


What Will Become Of Trump’s Anti-Abortion Declaration?

February 10, 2021 
by Cassie Ransom
The Organization for World Peace

On the 28th of January, President Biden released a memorandum intended to reverse the harm to women’s reproductive healthcare inflicted by the Trump administration. Among other things, the memorandum ordered the withdrawal of the U.S’s signature and sponsorship of the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a controversial international anti-abortion declaration.

The declaration was unveiled in October of 2020 by the then-Director of the U.S Central Intelligence Agency Mike Pompeo. It claims to “improve and secure access to health and development gains for women, including sexual and reproductive health, which must always promote optimal health, the highest attainable standard of health” as well as protect the health of the family and affirm women’s fundamental human rights. The central tenet of the document, however, is the assertion that “the child… needs special safeguards and care… before as well as after birth” and “there is no international right to abortion, nor any international obligation on the part of States to finance or facilitate abortion.”

Continued: https://theowp.org/reports/what-will-become-of-trumps-anti-abortion-declaration/


The Biden Administration Is Repealing the Global Gag Rule. That’s Not Enough.

The chilling effect doesn’t go away just because a Democrat is in office.

By JOSHUA KEATING
JAN 28, 2021

On Thursday, Joe Biden is expected to participate in what’s become a regular post-inauguration ritual for U.S. presidents by signing an executive order repealing the Mexico City Policy, known by its opponents as the global gag rule, which prohibits U.S. funding to foreign nongovernmental organizations that provide abortion counseling or referrals. The policy is a textbook case of how the lives of people thousands of miles away can be directly affected by America’s culture wars. And while Biden’s move will be applauded by reproductive rights advocates and family planning service providers around the world, the uncertainty and instability the rule introduced will be hard to erase.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/biden-global-gag-rule-mexico-city-policy.html


Will Trump’s anti-abortion Geneva Consensus fall apart?

The pro-choice Biden administration is very unlikely to support the declaration, signed just two weeks before the 2020 US elections.

Kerry Cullinan
25 January 2021

The anti-abortion Geneva Consensus Declaration, signed two weeks before the 2020 presidential elections, brings together some of the most authoritarian and anti-women regimes in the world – reflecting who President Trump counted as his international allies by the end of his four-year reign.

The declaration claims that “there is no international right to abortion, nor any international obligation on the part of states to finance or facilitate abortion”. It declares that the ‘traditional family’ – meaning a married, heterosexual couple and their biological children – is the “fundamental group unit of society”, and each country has “the sovereign right” to make their own laws on abortion.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/will-trumps-anti-abortion-geneva-consensus-fall-apart/


USA – It’s past time to be rid of the legacy of Jesse Helms

by Anu Kumar and Serra Sippel
08/07/20

You’ve likely never heard of the Helms Amendment, or perhaps not until now that Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), along with Reps. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), Barbara Lee(D-Texas), Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and Norma Torres (D-Calif.), have introduced legislation to repeal it. But our guess is you’ve heard of the late North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms.

In 1973, Helms, an outspoken opponent of civil rights — really, he opposed rights for anyone not white, male, heterosexual, American and Christian — introduced the Helms Amendment. The policy prohibits any U.S. foreign assistance funds from being used for “the performance of abortion as a method of family planning.” As written, the Helms Amendment allows for the provision of abortion information and counseling in cases of rape, incest and if a woman’s life is in danger. But in effect, it has been interpreted as a total ban on abortion-related services and information in developing countries.

Continued: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/511037-its-past-time-to-be-rid-of-the-legacy-of-jesse-helms


US asks for abortion references to be removed from UN pandemic response plan

US asks for abortion references to be removed from UN pandemic response plan

By Kylie Atwood, CNN
Tue May 19, 2020

Washington (CNN)The Trump administration is urging the United Nations secretary general to remove any references to reproductive health, including abortions, from the UN's humanitarian response plan to the coronavirus pandemic to "avoid creating controversy."

"The United States stands with nations that have pledged to protect the unborn," acting Administrator of USAID John Barsa wrote in a letter to UN Secretary General António Guterres on Monday. "To achieve global unity toward this goal, it is essential that the UN's response to the pandemic avoid creating controversy. Therefore, I ask that you remove references to 'sexual and reproductive health,' and its derivatives from the Global HRP, and drop the provision of abortion as an essential component of the UN's priorities to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic."

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/19/politics/us-abortion-un-pandemic-response/index.html


African countries are trying to liberalize their abortion laws. Trump’s ‘global gag rule’ is making that difficult.

African countries are trying to liberalize their abortion laws. Trump’s ‘global gag rule’ is making that difficult.
Activists say the policy has forced some countries to take a step backward

Abigail Higgins
March 5, 2020

In 2016, churches in the small southeastern African country of Malawi did something surprising: They backed a law to expand abortion access.

At the time, Reverend Alex Benson Maulana, chair of the Malawi Council of Churches (MCC), said that abortion was still a sin. But Malawi was also facing a crisis: In a country with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, 18 percent of those deaths were due to unsafe abortions.

Continued: https://www.thelily.com/african-countries-are-trying-to-liberalize-their-abortion-laws-trumps-global-gag-rule-is-making-that-difficult/


U.S. President’s Global Gag Rule is Having Negative Impact on the Health of Malawians: Report

U.S. President’s Global Gag Rule is Having Negative Impact on the Health of Malawians: Report

By Samira Sadeque

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 2020 (IPS) - A report released last week has detailed the complex ways in which President Donald Trump’s ‘Global Gag Rule’ (GGR), that blocks U.S. global health assistance to foreign non-governmental facilities providing abortion or abortion-related services, is affecting the population in Malawi, a country already hard hit with numerous climate change disasters.

The report, titled ‘A Powerful Force: U.S. Global Health Assistance and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Malawi’ was released on Feb. 10 by Washington, D.C.-based sexual and reproductive health rights organisation CHANGE, the Center for Health and Gender Equity.

Continued: http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/02/u-s-presidents-global-gag-rule-negative-impact-health-malawians-report/


25 Years of Progress on Women’s Health Is in Danger

25 Years of Progress on Women’s Health Is in Danger
Because of course it is.

Words: Serra Sippel
Pictures: UN Women
Date: September 25th, 2019

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), and without missing a beat the Trump Administration has pounced on yet another opportunity to renege on US global commitments to sexual and reproductive health and rights.

In the lead-up to the United Nations General Assembly high-level meeting on universal health coverage, which took place on September 23, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary Alex Azar of the US Department of Health and Human Services sent a joint letter to governments asking that they join the US in rejecting longstanding global commitments to sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender equality.

Continued: https://inkstickmedia.com/25-years-of-progress-on-womens-health-is-in-danger/


When the U.S. Pulls the Funding Plug, How Do Reproductive Health Providers Proceed?

When the U.S. Pulls the Funding Plug, How Do Reproductive Health Providers Proceed?

Yam Kumari Kandel Senior Reporter
Linda Mujuru Reporter
Prudence Phiri Lead Reporter
Nakisanze Segawa Reporter
May 12, 2019

In 2017, the United States reenacted a policy that dramatically limited how reproductive healthcare providers around the world could use its money. But proving the policy’s actual impact on reproductive health programs worldwide, from Nepal to Zimbabwe, is difficult: Some providers found funding elsewhere, while others are reluctant to share information about their work, leading to a lack of data.

SURKHET, NEPAL — Kaushila BK and her husband, Dilip BK, have a son and a daughter. They say they can’t afford any more children.

Continued: https://globalpressjournal.com/world/u-s-pulls-funding-plug-reproductive-health-providers-proceed/