Norway – Instrumentalising women’s reproductive vulnerability for political gain: where in the world does it stop?

Instrumentalising women’s reproductive vulnerability for political gain: where in the world does it stop?
November 30, 2018

A move to restrict abortion in Norway is a particularly stark example of the readiness with which women’s reproductive vulnerability is traded as a kind of political capital

There is an extraordinary piece of instrumentalisation of women’s health for political gain going on in an unlikely quarter, just now.

Norway has both a relatively good record on women’s rights, and a balanced and popular abortion law with no popular or parliamentary mandate for change. It also has low and falling abortion rates, 80% of which are conducted as a woman’s choice under 9 weeks, and just 4%—far more tightly regulated than, for example, in either Sweden or the UK—in the second trimester.

Continued: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2018/11/30/instrumentalising-womens-reproductive-vulnerability-for-political-gain-where-in-the-world-does-it-stop/


The German parliament is split over a Nazi-era abortion law that punishes doctors

The German parliament is split over a Nazi-era abortion law that punishes doctors

by Jill Petzinger
March 15, 2018

One of the first orders of business for the freshly-formed government in Berlin next week was meant to be a vote on striking a law introduced by the Nazis in the 1930s, making it illegal for doctors to publicly say that they offer abortion services or abortion advice.

In a country as progressive as Germany, it may surprise some people to know that under section 219a of the criminal code, a medical professional is forbidden to publicly “offer, announce, or advertise” abortion services. Breaking the law is punishable with a fine or up to two years in prison.

Continued: https://qz.com/1228962/the-german-parliament-is-split-over-a-nazi-era-abortion-law-that-punishes-doctors/


Chile’s Abortion Bill Approved by Senate Commission

A woman protests for the right to choose. | Photo: EFE

Published 6 September 2016, TelesurTV

Three out of five senators approved President Michelle Bachelet's proposal to allow pregnancy terminations in three circumstances.

Chile's Senate Health Commission approved a bill decriminalizing abortion in three specific cases Tuesday, with the Christian Democratic Party voting for it—in a surprising move—inching one step closer to lifting a decades-long ban on the practice imposed in 1989 by the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.

[continued at link]

Source: Telesur TV