Death toll of antiabortion law in Poland

Press release - Federation for Women and Family Planning
2 November 2021
https://en.federa.org.pl/death-toll-of-antiabortion-law-in-poland/

On 29 October 2021, the attorney J. Budzowska, who deals with medical error cases, announced the death of a 30-year-old woman, Izabela. The 22 weeks’ pregnant woman was said to have been taken to the hospital with an amenorrhea (lack of amniotic fluid). The woman was married and had one daughter. According to the information provided by the attorney, the doctors were to wait for the foetus to die and the woman died shortly after of septic shock.

The prosecutor’s investigation into the circumstances of the woman’s death is ongoing and no more information is available at this point. The director of the hospital in its statement assured that all medical decisions in this case were taken in accordance with the Polish law. This is in itself not reassuring because Polish antiabortion law exposes women’s lives and health to risk.

On 1 November, candles were lit across Poland as a part of the campaign called "Ani Jednej Więcej", initiated by the Federation for Women and Family Planning in solidarity with the family of the deceased woman. Protests were yet again held in front of the illegitimate Constitutional Tribunal that a year ago banned abortion on the grounds of “the severe and irreversible foetal defect or incurable illness that threatens the foetus life”. As a result of this ruling, legal abortion may be accessed when pregnancy constitutes a threat to the woman's life or health and if it results from the criminal act.

This is another victim of the Polish antiabortion law – in 2004, a 25-year-old woman died of pregnancy complications that could have been avoided by a timely abortion.

“Instead of protecting the life of the woman, the doctors think of saving the foetus. This is the chilling effect of the Constitutional Tribunal's decision in action." said Kamila Ferenc, the lawyer at the Federation for Women and Family Planning.

Why Texas’s strict abortion law is terrible for the economy

By Anneken Tappe, CNN Business
Tue September 7, 2021

New York (CNN Business)As abortion rights advocates scramble to fight a Texas law that effectively bans abortion in the state, economists are drawing attention to the financial hardships — and subsequent economic downsides — that can occur when women's reproductive rights are restricted.

The effects having children can have on a woman's career and pay are well documented: While men and women with comparable qualifications and jobs earn similarly at the start of their careers, this changes when women choose to have children, after which their pay takes a hit. This is often called the "motherhood penalty."

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/07/economy/abortion-access-economic-impact/index.html

Argentina must legalize abortion so doctors like me don’t have to choose between helping or going to prison

Opinion by Cecilia Ousset
Dec. 28, 2020

I am a Catholic doctor, mother of four and a
conscientious objector to abortion who has been trying to reconcile her
religious views with public health needs. Because the reality that I see every
day is that all women have abortions. The married woman and the single one, the
Catholic, the Jewish, the atheist. Women who do not use birth control and those
whose birth control has failed them. Illiterate women and those with college
degrees.

The difference, however, is in the conditions under which they have abortions.
That’s always defined by their economic status.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/28/argentina-legal-abortion-senate-vote/

Is Croatia going the way of Poland on reproductive rights?

In Croatia, lawmakers and activists have been debating abortion legislation for three decades. The church, conservative politicians and pro-life activists now want to see rules tightened as they have been in Poland.

26.12.2020
Author Siniša Bogdanić, Davor Batisweiler

Since 1991, when Yugoslavia fell apart and
Croatia became an independent state, conservative elements in the country have
been trying to overturn the liberal abortion law introduced in the communist
era. This legislation from 1978 allows Croatian women to have an abortion up to
the 10th week of pregnancy without having to give reasons or fulfill any
additional conditions. That is the theory. In practice, however, implementing
the law has been somewhat tricky, as it was amended in 2003 to give doctors the
right to refuse the operation on grounds of conscience.

Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/is-croatia-going-the-way-of-poland-on-reproductive-rights/a-56044929

Rape victim, 12, gives birth to twins in Argentina after she was denied an abortion

By Charlotte Mitchell
9 December 2020

A 12-year-old girl has given birth to twins in Argentina after being denied an abortion by local authorities despite having been raped.

Authorities in Jujuy forced the child to remain pregnant until the twins could be safely delivered by caesarean section.

Continued: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9033887/Rape-victim-12-gives-birth-twins-Argentina-denied-abortion.html

09.12.2020

Health Professionals for the Right to Decide

In Italy, religious organizations’ ‘fetus graves’ reignite abortion debate

Catholic and conservative groups are slowly chipping away at abortion rights in Italy, where abortion has been legal since 1978.

November 11, 2020
By Lucía Benavides

A recently discovered cemetery of aborted fetuses where the names of the women who had had abortions appeared on crosses has sparked outrage across Italy.

Retired gynecologist Silvana Agatone says the cemetery discovery renewed a conversation about growing anti-abortion sentiments in Italy, despite the practice being legal since 1978. Although every public hospital is required to provide abortions, she says only about 64% of them do.

Continued: https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-11-11/italy-religious-organizations-fetus-graves-reignite-abortion-debate

Poland’s mass protests for abortion rights: ‘This is war’

A proposal to ban most terminations has triggered the largest rallies post-communism Poland has witnessed.

By Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska
6 Nov 2020

Anna has been among the hundreds of thousands who recently marched through the streets of Warsaw, rallying for abortion rights amid the largest protests since the fall of communism.

“When the state fails to protect us, I’ll stand by my sister,” said some signs raised up amid the anger. “I think, I feel, I decide” and “This is war”, read others.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/11/6/polands-protests-against-abortion-ban-this-is-war

India – The Orissa High Court’s Troubling Judgment To Deny an Abortion

04/10/2020
SAMBIT DASH

On September 23, the Orissa high court — responding to a writ petition concerning the medical termination of pregnancy — refused a physically disabled and mentally challenged rape victim’s request to abort her 24-week-old foetus. The high court relied on the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971 and the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Rules 2003, plus the advice of doctors, to deny permission. Though the court did grant monetary compensation to support the child’s upbringing, and made the state responsible for the child’s education, was the decision ethical?

Given the woman’s right to privacy, dignity and bodily rights, the case of mental illness, the trauma of rape giving rise to the pregnancy, the state’s interest in preserving life and the law of the land, finding which way the ethical compass here isn’t easy.

Continued: https://science.thewire.in/health/the-orissa-high-courts-troubling-judgment-to-deny-an-abortion/

04.10.2020

Medical Termination Of Pregnancy (MTP) Act

Medical Termination of Pregnancy Rules 2003

India – The Question of Mother’s safety in Abortion: Is the Indian system progressive?

Dushyant Kishan Kaul
August 1,2020

India is largely seen a progressive regime on right to abortion. However, there have been multiple instances where courts have denied to grant abortion even in medically important cases. The author notes a case where the abortion procedure itself posed risks to the life of the mother. In this context the article analyses Indian courts and laws approach to mothers well being and reproduction rights.

——–

The Supreme Court recently allowed the medical termination of twin pregnancies of a twenty-five-week pregnant woman. In Komal Hiwale v. State of Maharashtra, a bench, comprising of Justice R. Banumathi, Justice Indu Malhotra and Justice Aniruddha Bose, allowed for the abortion of a fetus which had been diagnosed with Down Syndrome.

Continued: https://theleaflet.in/the-question-of-mothers-safety-in-abortion-is-the-indian-system-progressive/

01.08.2020

Commentary

Featured

abortion in self-defense

anti-choice restrictions

denial of abortion

Dushyant Kishan Kaul

India Supreme Court

Medical Termination Of Pregnancy (MTP) Act

The Study That Debunks Most Anti-Abortion Arguments

For five years, a team of researchers asked women about their experience after having—or not having—an abortion. What do their answers tell us?

By Margaret Talbot
July 7, 2020

There is a kind of social experiment you might think of as a What if? study. It would start with people who are similar in certain basic demographic ways and who are standing at the same significant fork in the road. Researchers could not assign participants to take one path or another—that would be wildly unethical. But let’s say that some more or less arbitrary rule in the world did the assigning for them. In such circumstances, researchers could follow the resulting two groups of people over time, sliding-doors style, to see how their lives panned out differently. It would be like speculative fiction, only true, and with statistical significance.

A remarkable piece of research called the Turnaway Study, which began in 2007, is essentially that sort of experiment.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-study-that-debunks-most-anti-abortion-arguments