Doctors worry that online misinformation will push abortion-seekers toward ineffective, dangerous methods

By Naomi Thomas, CNN
Wed July 13, 2022

After a US Supreme Court draft decision on Roe v. Wade was leaked in May, Dr. Joshua Trebach noticed a disturbing turn in the online conversation around abortion.

"I started seeing things on social media, things like TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, people saying 'oh, if Roe v. Wade does get overturned, here are some secret, sneaky ways that you can drink some tea and have an abortion,' " Trebach said.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/13/health/abortion-misinformation-social-media/index.html

What You Didn’t Know About Abortion In Ghana

By Alpha Osei Amoako
26.05.2021

Unsafe abortion is the second most common cause of maternal mortality in Ghana. It accounts for about 15% of maternal deaths in the country. Unsafe abortion is very common amongst teenagers, women in their 20s and poor women probably because—they either do not know where to get safe abortions or they do not have access to financial resources.

Also, the stigma associated with abortion is one major reason why most teenagers and women in their early 20s resort to orthodox methods or practice unsafe abortion.

Continued: https://www.modernghana.com/news/1083798/what-you-didnt-know-about-abortion-in-ghana.html

26.05.2021

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Thousands of women dying ‘like chickens’ as efforts to change Malawi’s strict abortion laws stall

Roughly 12,000 women die from back street abortions each year in Malawi, yet continuing efforts to relax strict laws face heavy opposition

By Henry Kijimwana Mhango, MANGOCHI, MALAWI
19 February 2021

It was Angrita's only choice: to terminate a pregnancy by any means necessary and save her family from shame. But the procedure took her to the grave.

The 14 year old orphan was rejected by a man who she says impregnated her. Dorothy Fundai, her grandmother, hides tears as she recalls how Angrita’s fear of being a “laughing stock” in her remote village near Mangochi, at the southern tip of Lake Malawi, drove her to adopt dangerous methods to terminate her pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/women-and-girls/thousands-women-dying-like-chickens-efforts-change-malawis-strict/

USA – Women Have Always Had Abortions

Women Have Always Had Abortions

By Lauren MacIvor Thompson
Dec. 13, 2019

Over the course of American history, women of all classes, races, ages and statuses have ended their pregnancies, both before there were any laws about abortion and after a raft of 19th-century laws restricted it. Our ignorance of this history, however, equips those in the anti-abortion movement with the power to create dangerous narratives. They peddle myths about the past where wayward women sought abortions out of desperation, pathetic victims of predatory abortionists. They wrongly argue that we have long thought about fetuses as people with rights. And they improperly frame Roe v. Wade as an anomaly, saying it liberalized a practice that Americans had always opposed.

But the historical record shows a far different set of conclusions.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/13/opinion/sunday/abortion-history-women.html

USA – The Dishonesty of the Abortion Debate

The Dishonesty of the Abortion Debate
Why we need to face the best arguments from the other side

Story by Caitlin Flanagan
December 2019 Issue
(Posted Nov 11, 2019)

In 1956, two American physicians, J. A. Presley and W. E. Brown, colleagues at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine, decided that four recent admissions to their hospital were significant enough to warrant a published report. “Lysol-Induced Criminal Abortion” appeared in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. It describes four women who were admitted to the hospital in extreme distress, all of them having had “criminal abortions” with what the doctors believed to be an unusual agent: Lysol. The powerful cleaner had been pumped into their wombs. Three of them survived, and one of them died.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/the-things-we-cant-face/600769/

Madagascar’s ‘angel makers’ flourish in ban on abortion

Madagascar's 'angel makers' flourish in ban on abortion

01 Sep 2019

ANTANANARIVO: Volatiana keeps her secret behind a flimsy wooden gate, tucked along a red brick wall at the back of her vegetable garden in Madagascar's Antananarivo.

"There are around eight foetuses buried here," said the Malagasy mother of six, standing on a narrow patch of land hidden behind a corrugated metal sheet.

Continued: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/madagascar-s--angel-makers--flourish-in-ban-on-abortion-11861910

MALTA – Throwing out the bathwater with the baby | Mara Clarke

Throwing out the bathwater with the baby | Mara Clarke
Malta is among the last European countries to have a total abortion ban in all circumstances. MARA CLARKE, founder of Abortion Support Network, argues that banning abortion doesn’t save babies… it just drives poor people to desperation

5 August 2019
by Raphael Vassallo

Your organisation, Abortion Support Network, offers help to women seeking termination services in (among others) countries where abortion is illegal, like Malta. What sort of service do you provide?

First of all, it’s important to note that Abortion Support Network is a non-political organisation, in the sense that… we don’t tell people how to vote. The groups that campaign for legislative change are the ‘cure’… we’re the ‘band-aid’. We receive calls from women who need assistance, and we explain to them what their options really are. Because most of the time, they wouldn’t know. These are not things they can talk about at home, or even with a doctor…

Continued: https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/interview/96692/throwing_out_the_bathwater_with_the_baby__mara_clarke#.XUnmpHt7lPb

05.08.2019

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USA – How did women get abortions when they were illegal? A 1966 Post series reveals the answer

How did women get abortions when they were illegal? A 1966 Post series reveals the answer
Before Roe v. Wade, women died trying to end their pregnancies

The Lily News
June 13, 2019

Original story by Elisabeth Stevens for The Washington Post.

As new abortion restrictions are being imposed in Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Utah and other states, nearly a half-century after Roe v. Wade, The Washington Post is looking back at a four-part series that ran in January 1966 on how women in the Washington area obtained abortions. At the time, abortion was illegal with few exceptions in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.

Below is an abridged version of The Post’s four-part series, edited to highlight personal experiences. The original headlines of the series are now subheads for each section.

Continued: https://www.thelily.com/how-did-women-get-abortions-when-they-were-illegal-a-1966-post-series-reveals-the-answer/

Lack of safe abortion provision a global health issue

Lack of safe abortion provision a global health issue
At least 22,000 women and girls die each year from unsafe abortions

Thu, Mar 7, 2019
Claire Fotheringham

Setting foot in the busy maternity hospital in West Africa in September 2011 , I was completely unprepared for what I found: women arriving on death’s door, with complications such as heavy bleeding and septic shock.

In the operating theatre, examining many of these women, I found trauma marks on the cervix, caused by objects such as sticks that had been inserted to terminate their pregnancies. Examples of unsafe abortion that had resulted in horrific injury.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/lack-of-safe-abortion-provision-a-global-health-issue-1.3816662

07.03.2019

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It is time that Jamaica decriminalises abortion

It is time that Jamaica decriminalises abortion

By Staff Writer
Mar 6, 2019

Dear Editor,

We, the undersigned social justice and women’s organisations and individual advocates, note the parliamentary consultations on the law on abortion in Jamaica.

Within CARICOM, Barbados (1983) and Guyana (1995) have led the way with legislation that decriminalizes the termination of pregnancy. Belize, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have expanded the exceptions that allow for abortion under the criminal law.

Continued: https://www.stabroeknews.com/2019/opinion/letters/03/07/it-is-time-that-jamaica-decriminalises-abortion/