UK – Will easy, early abortions become another casualty of the Tories’ culture war?

Doctors say a return to pre-Covid rules, where women had to get a clinic appointment, will leave thousands waiting too long

Polly Toynbee
Thu 10 Feb 2022

How long ago the Abortion Act of 1967 seems now, and yet the struggle for a woman’s right to control her own body never ends. Time and again this basic principle comes under attack from rightwing and religious lobbies forever seeking to limit and reverse it.

Now they are at it yet again. As the prime minister dashes to roll back all coronavirus legislation a month early to mollify his rebels, the health secretary, Sajid Javid, and his junior minister, Maggie Throup, will decide whether to maintain the abortion laws that were introduced as part of emergency Covid laws, allowing women to request earlier and easier terminations at home. If Javid and Throup instead return to the old abortion laws that were in place before Covid, where women had to have an in-person clinic visit in order to get an abortion, thousands of women will have to chase scarce clinical appointments, forcing many to wait beyond the time limit for medical abortions.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/10/abortions-tories-culture-war-doctors-covid-women

N. Ireland – Abortion: New laws need full discussion says Arlene Foster

Abortion: New laws need full discussion says Arlene Foster

By Jayne McCormack, BBC News NI Political Reporter
6 April 2020
The Stormont executive will have a "full discussion" about how abortion services should be provided in NI, First Minister Arlene Foster has said.

Major changes to NI's abortion laws came into force at the end of March.

However, the Department of Health has yet to put the regulations into practice.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-52190465

Netherlands – Health minister urged to guarantee abortion pill access amid corona restrictions

Health minister urged to guarantee abortion pill access amid corona restrictions

April 3, 2020

Pro-abortion organisation Women on Waves and women’s support agency Bureau Clara Wichmann are urging health minister Hugo de Jonge to act swiftly to make the abortion pill available to women who are unable to make the requisite visit to an abortion clinic because of the corona crisis.

Women who want to terminate an early pregnancy are bound by law to visit an abortion clinic before they can be given the drugs. The current coronavirus restrictions are making this impossible for at least two women in the Netherlands who are self-isolating, the organisations said. Both women want to terminate their pregnancy within the first trimester using the abortion pill.

Continued: https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/04/health-minister-urged-to-guarantee-abortion-pill-access-amid-corona-restrictions/

USA – Abortion After the Clinic

Abortion After the Clinic
As Republican lawmakers try to legislate it out of existence, the future of reproductive healthcare may be at home.

By Irin Carmon
Nov 11, 2019

When Leana Wen introduced herself to America as the new president of Planned Parenthood last fall, she had a story she liked to tell — one that showed exactly why abortion access mattered. It was a sad tale of “a young woman lying on a stretcher, pulseless and unresponsive, because of a home abortion.” Wen, an emergency physician who had been plucked from Baltimore’s Health Department to take over the century-old institution, said the young woman had arrived at her ER in “a pool of blood” because “she didn’t have access to health care, so she had her cousin attempt an abortion on her at home. We did everything we could to resuscitate her, but she died.”

Wen was talking about a time when abortion was technically legal, yet the story rhymed with the pre-Roe era, when doctors and lawyers spoke of being radicalized by women filling their wards with blood and desperation, the same nightmare the familiar pro-choice rhetoric warns will soon be upon us. Behind the scenes, however, a vanguard of the abortion-rights movement implored Wen, directly and through intermediaries, to stop talking about “home abortion” in such dire terms.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2019/11/future-abortion-access-america.html

11.11.2019

Commentary

Events/Campaigns

Ilyse Hogue

abortion pills by mail

Aid Access

Alexis McGill Johnson

Amy Hagstrom Miller

at-home abortion

Brett Kavanaugh

buying abortion pills online

Naral Pro-Choice America

National Network of Abortion Funds

Pamela Merritt

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

self-induced abortion

self-managed abortion

Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt

USA – The women looking outside the law for abortions

The women looking outside the law for abortions

By Jessica Lussenhop BBC News
28 October 2018

Accessing abortion has become increasingly difficult in parts of the US. As a result, a growing number of reproductive rights activists say it is time American women learn the facts about "self-managing abortion" with pills.

Kate could tell something was wrong. She'd been feeling nauseous for days and her body just felt different. The 27-year-old massage school student and her boyfriend were supposed to leave on a short road trip together, but before they hit the highway, she asked him to drive to a local drugstore.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45970356

28.10.2018