The Terrifying Global Reach of the American Anti-Abortion Movement

Conservatives have not limited their attack on reproductive rights to the United States. They’ve been busy imposing their will on other countries, too—with disastrous consequences for millions of poor women.

Jodi Enda
March 18, 2024

Because Editar Ochieng knew the three young men, she didn’t think twice when they beckoned her into a house in an isolated area near the Nairobi River. One was like a brother; the other two were her neighbors in the sprawling Kenyan slum of Kibera.

Ochieng did not know the woman who performed her abortion. She and a friend scoured Nairobi until they found her, an untrained practitioner who worked in the secrecy of her home and charged a fraction of what a medical professional would. Mostly, what Ochieng remembers is the agony when this stranger inserted something into her vagina and “pierced” her womb. “It was really very painful. Really, really, really painful,” she told me. Afterward, Ochieng said, she cut up her mattress to use in place of sanitary pads, which she could not afford. She was 16 years old.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/179485/american-anti-abortion-movement-terrifying-global-reach


Zimbabwe – Inside the illegal abortion market: ‘I nearly touched hell’

Inside the illegal abortion market: 'I nearly touched hell'
Zimbabwe’s tight abortion laws aren’t curbing demand, they’re driving them underground — and it’s about to get worse.

29 Jan 2019
Wendy Muperi

Tapiwa Chiwenga was two months pregnant when she slipped the pink pills inside herself, lay down on her bed, and prayed they would do their job.

They had to.

She was 22. Her boyfriend, a foreign student in Zimbabwe on a scholarship, loved her fiercely. But he was broke. So was she. She lived with her cousin and didn’t have a job. A baby simply was not in the cards.

Continued: https://bhekisisa.org/article/2019-01-29-00-illegal-abortions-zimbabwe-shut-down-what-is-the-gag-rules-impact-contraception


First Study on the Incidence of Abortion Among Ugandan Adolescents Released

First Study on the Incidence of Abortion Among Ugandan Adolescents Released
Research Sheds Light on Abortion and Postabortion Care Experiences

Sept 11, 2018

A new study by researchers at the U.S.-based Guttmacher Institute and Uganda’s Makerere University documents, for the first time, abortion rates and the severity of abortion-related complications among Ugandan adolescents aged 15–19. The study, published in Contraception, found that an estimated 57,000 abortions took place among Ugandan adolescents in 2013. The researchers also found that adolescents seeking postabortion care for complications resulting from an unsafe abortion or miscarriage did not face greater disadvantages in their abortion care experiences, compared with women older than 20. However, among those seeking postabortion care, unmarried women, including unmarried adolescents, were more likely than married women to experience severe complications.

Continued: https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2018/first-study-incidence-abortion-among-ugandan-adolescents-released


First Study on the Incidence of Abortion Among Ethiopian Adolescents Released

First Study on the Incidence of Abortion Among Ethiopian Adolescents Released
Improved Access to Safe Abortion Has Benefited Adolescent Women

March 14, 2018
News Release

A new study finds that adolescent women have benefited greatly from the 2005 expansion of Ethiopia’s abortion law that gave them access to safe, legal abortion services. “Playing it Safe: Legal and Clandestine Abortions Among Adolescents in Ethiopia,” conducted by researchers from the Guttmacher Institute and Ipas, documents for the first time legal and clandestine abortion rates among Ethiopian adolescents (aged 15–19), and the severity of abortion-related complications in this age-group. The study found that adolescents are more likely than older women to obtain legal abortion services, and that complications from unsafe abortion are just as severe among adolescents as they are among other age-groups.

Continued: https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2018/first-study-incidence-abortion-among-ethiopian-adolescents-released