Ugandan Women Risk Their Lives to Access Abortion

“Many girls are dying because we have chosen to ignore them.”

Friday, 8 March, 2024
Culton Scovia Nakamya

For Jovia (not her real name), 2023 was the worst year of her life. The 20-year-old business student was gang-raped at a drunken house party in the Kampala suburb of Kansanga and six weeks later realised that she was pregnant.

“I wondered what I am going to tell my parents. For God’s sake, I am just in my second semester of year one, and I didn’t know who did it,” she said.

Her options were limited, as abortion is illegal in Uganda except under rare circumstances. She confided in a female friend, who suggested they visit the Kampala suburb of Nakulabye, an area known as a hub of clinics that administer clandestine abortions, mostly to students.

Continued: https://iwpr.net/global-voices/ugandan-women-risk-their-lives-access-abortion


Library archives uncover long-lost history of Colorado women dying trying to get an abortion before it was legal

By John Daley
Mar. 7, 2024

Abortion access —  some states have outlawed it, others have seen scores of patients from out of state —  has been in the news since the U.S. Supreme Court repealed the Constitutional right to an abortion two years ago.  But looking back through history shows that unplanned pregnancies and access to abortions have been in the news for a long, long time.

More than a century ago, readers of the Rocky Mountain News learned about the death of a young woman who worked in a shop named Maude, who was trying to terminate a pregnancy. A woman named Mrs. Proctor, the wife of the manager of a “remedy company,” was charged with manslaughter in Maude’s death.

Continued: https://www.cpr.org/2024/03/07/denver-public-library-history-of-abortion-access-in-colorado/


‘I can’t bear the pain’: grieving the lives lost to the Dominican Republic’s abortion ban

A decade after Rossa Nelly Aquino died aged 20 in an illegal clinic, her family are still struggling to find answers. And campaigners are still fighting to update the 140-year-old law

Sarah Johnson in Santo Domingo
Mon 4 Mar 2024

One of the walls in Alba Nely Peña’s front room is adorned with graduation photos of her children. She gave birth to three boys and three girls, but only five smiling faces are on display in her house on the outskirts of Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic.

“My youngest one died. I took her photo down because I can’t bear the pain,” she says, before going into a back room and digging out a framed collage of photos of her daughter. On it are written the words: “We will always remember you, Rossa.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/mar/04/i-cant-bear-the-pain-grieving-the-lives-lost-to-the-dominican-republics-abortion-ban


By bus, car and plane, women journey across Latin America for abortions

By Marina Dias and Terrence McCoy
February 23, 2024

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — She’d taken an overnight bus from the countryside, then a train across the urban sprawl of São Paulo, and now she was staring out the plane window, head full of worry. There was a pink rosary in her pocket. But she didn’t see the point of praying. She feared she was a sinner, a criminal, and this trip, her first time out of Brazil, would be a secret she’d carry for the rest of her life.

Cristina was 35 years old. She was 11 weeks pregnant. She came from a conservative Christian family in a conservative Christian nation where abortion was largely illegal, so she’d decided to travel to a country where it was not and bring an end to the pregnancy she didn’t want.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/23/brazil-latin-america-abortion-restrictions/


USA – The Philly ‘heiress’ who died from an illegal abortion, sending a saloon manager to jail

The 1955 case of Doris Jean Ostreicher became a media sensation.

by Avi Wolfman-Arent
October 7, 2023

In August of 1955, a young woman attempted to get an abortion. After she died inside a North Philadelphia apartment, her case became a media sensation.

Doris Jean Silver grew up just north of Philadelphia. Her uncles founded a grocery store chain called Food Fair Stores Inc., which operated hundreds of locations. And her father, Herman, was a vice president with the company.

Continued: https://billypenn.com/2023/10/07/philadelphia-heiress-doris-jean-illegal-abortion-death-prison/


South Africa – Unsafe abortions continue to proliferate due to a lack of knowledge, stigma and nurses’ attitudes

Noxolo Majavu
28 Sep 2023

Despite safe medical abortion services being offered for free in public health facilities, the number of backdoor abortions being performed, especially on teenagers, is increasingly escalating as bogus doctors profit from the desperation of young women.

The scarcity of nurses and skill shortages, along with the lack of knowledge and the stigma around abortion, are among the reasons young people still opt for terminating pregnancies through illegal abortions at backdoor clinics.

Continued: https://www.news24.com/citypress/news/unsafe-abortions-continue-to-proliferate-due-to-a-lack-of-knowledge-stigma-and-nurses-attitudes-20230928


Liberia’s New Health Law Among Most Liberal in Africa for Abortion

--- But faces hurdle in Senate

Sep 1, 2023
TINA S. MEHNPAINE

When Teta graduated from high school in 2015, she had big plans: attend college and become a medical doctor. But when the then-17-year-old discovered she was pregnant, that bright future was cast into doubt.

The father of the unborn child, her boyfriend of four years, denied the baby was his. Afraid of the shame and disgrace that would come with being an unwed teenage mother, Teta sought an abortion.

“I was scared and confused,” said Teta. “I had no plans of becoming a mother at age seventeen, my family and everybody looked up to me.”

Continued: https://www.liberianobserver.com/liberia-liberias-new-health-law-among-most-liberal-africa-abortion


3 held for abortion in Manila

Emmanuel Tupas - The Philippine Star
August 14, 2023

MANILA, Philippines — Three suspected abortionists were arrested during an entrapment operation in Sampaloc, Manila on Wednesday, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) reported on Friday.

Analiza Delfin, 52; Loid Ngitngit, 55, and Christian Punzalan, 40, were caught while performing induced abortion in a clandestine clinic in Barangay 406, CIDG director Maj. Gen. Romeo Caramat Jr. said.

Continued: https://www.philstar.com/nation/2023/08/14/2288420/3-held-abortion-manila


Women’s Reproductive Rights and Abortion in Morocco: Regulatory Reforms Should Not Miss the Bigger Picture

March 31, 2023
Othman Regragui

Summary
In Morocco, abortion is criminalized except to safeguard a woman’s life and health. But the current legal framework, inherited from the French Protectorate (1912-56), no longer properly reflects the social reality of contemporary Morocco, where more than 200,000 clandestine abortions are carried out every year. In 2015, a consultative commission appointed by King Mohammed VI proposed widening the legal parameters for pregnancy termination to include rape, incest, and fetal impairment. Yet the commission rejected progressive Islamic jurisprudence that would have authorized abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, and it failed to address the existing constraints for Moroccan women to access the procedure. Due to political inertia, Penal Code amendments that would have loosened the country’s strict abortion laws have stalled in the parliament for nearly seven years and successive governments failed to integrate the issue into a fully-fledged reproductive framework including other entangled and pressing issues such as contraception and sexual education. The recent death of a 14-year-old girl following a botched “back alley” abortion at the house of her abuser is the latest reminder of the need to better protect women’s reproductive rights in the North African country. This tragedy should also push the authorities to address the socio-legal drivers behind unwanted pregnancies — such as unduly light punishments for sexual crimes, systemic discrimination against single mothers, and the exploitation of underage girls working as house servants — and recognize these factors as critical impediments to women’s reproductive rights.

Source: https://www.mei.edu/publications/womens-reproductive-rights-and-abortion-morocco-regulatory-reforms-should-not-miss


Decriminalization of abortion in Benin: a solution to reduce female mortality and morbidity?

Kparon Baaru
March 28, 2023

Unsafe abortions are one of the causes of female mortality and morbidity worldwide. According to the WHO, estimates of the number of abortions in Africa stand at 6 million. Of this figure, only 3% are done in medicalized and safe conditions for women. Among the victims who eventually succumb or suffer over time from serious infections, cancer of the cervix or sterility, there are a large number of adolescent girls and young women. To remedy this, a few rare African countries are taking the resolution to legalize voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion). Among these, is now added Benin. Is the legalization of abortion the solution to reduce clandestine abortions and a step forward in access to sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) in Benin?

The WHO defines abortion as a simple health intervention that can be managed effectively by a wide range of health workers using drugs or by surgery. Abortion is a subject that we avoid talking about especially in the presence of adolescents and young people in Africa. This neglected point in the debates is an integral part of SRHR. Adolescents and young people do not have access to reliable information related to sexuality and reproduction as they should.

Continued: https://www.breakinglatest.news/world/decriminalization-of-abortion-in-benin-a-solution-to-reduce-female-mortality-and-morbidity-kparon-baaru/