Unsafe Abortions, Inaccessibility, & Stigma: A Look Into India’s Abortion Scenario

By Janees Rafiq
26th October, 2020

Unsafe abortions have devastating effects on women’s health. Every year around 42 million women with unintended pregnancies choose abortion. Nearly half of these procedures that about 20 million abortions are unsafe. Around 68,000 women die because of unsafe abortions, making it one of the causes of increasing maternal mortality rate. Of women who survive unsafe abortions, 5 million suffer long-term health complications. Unsafe abortion is thus a pressing issue.

While some abortions are self-induced, most of them are performed by providers lacking required qualifications and skills to perform abortions and hence termed unsafe WHO defines unsafe abortion as a procedure for terminating an unintended pregnancy carried out either by persons lacking skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimal medical standards or both. According to WHO, every 8 minutes, a woman in a developing country dies due to complications arising out of unsafe abortions.

Continued: https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2020/10/unsafe-abortions-a-threat-to-womans-life/

Women in Kenya Are Using Knitting Needles to End Their Pregnancies. Blame Donald Trump.

The president has given fringe anti-abortion groups unprecedented influence.

OCTOBER 8, 2020
By NEHA WADEKAR

On a rainy morning in May 2019, Dr. John Nyamu was attending to patients on the cluttered first floor of an office building in downtown Nairobi when he heard raucous shouts from down the street. A caravan of protesters was winding toward him, a few hundred people teeming in the streets, bellowing through loudspeakers, and stopping traffic.

As the crowd reached his building, Nyamu, a well-known gynecologist who performs abortions in a private clinic, peered through his window at the protesters below to make out what they were saying. It turns out they were targeting him. “Abortion is murder! Abortion must go! Nyamu must go!” Some held signs with photos of mutilated fetuses. Others clutched baby-size cardboard coffins with crosses on them.

Continued: https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2020/10/08/abortion-kenya-knitting-needles-donald-trump/

08.10.2020

anti-choice protesters

Austin Ruse

Bethany Kozma

C-Fam

Center for Family and Human Rights

CitizenGO

Dr John Nyamu

Esther Passaris

Family Health Options Kenya

Global Gag Rule

Human Life international

International Conference on Population and development

John Nyamu

Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops

Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board

Kisumu Medical and Education Trust

sexual and reproductive health

Sophie Hodder

Uhuru Kenyatta

UNFPA

United Nations Population Fund

US Agency for International Development

Countries called on to reaffirm commitment to ICPD agenda

Stevie Emilia and Rita Widiadana

The Jakarta Post, Tue, July 21, 2020

Just a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic began wreaking havoc, leaders from across the globe, including Indonesia, reaffirmed their commitment to advancing the sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of their people.

The commitments were made during the 25th anniversary of the landmark Program of Action of the International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD) in Nairobi in November 2019.

Continued: https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2020/07/21/countries-called-on-to-reaffirm-commitment-to-icpd-agenda.html

Women Activists Escalate Demand for “Bodily Autonomy” as 19 Nations Dissent

Women Activists Escalate Demand for “Bodily Autonomy” as 19 Nations Dissent

By Thalif Deen
Jan 17, 2020

UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - The United States and 18 other UN member states have come under fire for denying a woman’s legitimate right to “bodily autonomy”—the right to self-governance over one’s own body without coercion or external pressure.

The Executive Director of Women’s March Global, Uma Mishra-Newbery, told IPS the United Nations has worked towards progress in fighting for women’s rights.

Continued: http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/01/women-activists-escalate-demand-bodily-autonomy-19-nations-dissent/

Challenges abound for women’s sexual and reproductive rights

Challenges abound for women’s sexual and reproductive rights

BMJ 2019;367:l7000
doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l7000
Published 23 December 2019

Rojita Adhikari, freelance journalist

Health leaders gathered at the second International Conference on Population and Development in Nairobi last month to discuss how to improve women’s sexual and reproductive health. At the meeting Rojita Adhikari talked to Herminia Palacio, newly appointed president of the Guttmacher Institute, about the challenges and possibilities

Q: It’s been 25 years since the first ICPD conference was held. How far has the world come towards meeting the goals?

Continued: https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l7000

23.12.2019

Featured

Interviews/Podcasts

Herminia Palacio

International Conference on Population and development

Nairobi Summit

Nairobi Summit on ICPD25

Rojita Adhikari

Sustainable Development Goals

Opinion: Time to put abortion top of the SRHR agenda

Opinion: Time to put abortion top of the SRHR agenda

By Anu Kumar
09 December 2019

Just a couple of weeks ago, I attended the Nairobi Summit on ICPD25, which marked the 25th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994. The trip was particularly meaningful to me, having been at the Cairo meeting where 179 governments made women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights a priority goal of global development.

The anti-rights opposition movement called it “the abortion summit,” but in truth, it was far from it. In my opinion, that’s a shame, because we — the global health, sexual and reproductive health, and development fields — need an abortion summit.

Continued: https://www.devex.com/news/opinion-time-to-put-abortion-top-of-the-srhr-agenda-96151

What Have We Delivered for the World’s Women and Girls Since 1994?

What Have We Delivered for the World’s Women and Girls Since 1994?

11/19/2019
by Latanya Mapp Frett

End poverty. End patriarchy. Could it be that these two goals are more intimately linked than ever before? Last week marked a rubber-hits-the-road moment for those who are interested in doing both.

Government leaders, politicians and civil society activists gathered from November 12 to 14 in Nairobi, Kenya for a United Nations Summit on population and development. I joined those delegates to follow up on commitments made 25 years ago at the original International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD)—and to continue to advocate for grassroots women’s voices to be not only present but fully heeded in these global conversations, processes and policies that will help determine our futures.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2019/11/19/what-have-we-delivered-for-the-worlds-women-and-girls-since-1994/

19.11.2019

International Conference on Population and development

‘Turkey should step up efforts on zero target for mother deaths’

'Turkey should step up efforts on zero target for mother deaths'

Barçın Yinanç - NAIROBI
November 18 2019

Professor Ayşe Akın received a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) award last week in Nairobi, Kenya at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICDP25) for her contribution to the health of women at the global and national levels since 1994, when the first ICDP took place in Cairo, which she had also attended.

Can you give us an overview of Turkey’s population policies?

The new republic’s population was 13 million at the end of the war of liberation, when a lot of men had lost their lives. Modern Turkey founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk had endorsed a pro-natal policy, but he has no forceful statement on the record.

Continued: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-should-step-up-efforts-on-zero-target-for-mother-deaths-148798

US must lead the charge on global reproductive rights — not stand in the way

US must lead the charge on global reproductive rights — not stand in the way

By Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), Opinion Contributor
Nov 18, 2019

For women to lead full productive lives, they must have the freedom to make the health care choices that are best for them. And when women and girls are healthy, educated and safe, their countries and the world are more secure and prosperous.

Alarmingly, the Trump administration is taking us in the wrong direction, amplified by recent activity at an important international conference where the U.S. adopted a counter-productive role, rallying countries to oppose internationally-accepted references to sexual and reproductive health and rights. That is why last week, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and I were joined by 36 members of Congress to introduce a resolution that calls on the U.S. to recognize reproductive rights as human rights and celebrates 25 years since the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).

Continued: https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/470869-us-must-lead-the-charge-on-global-reproductive-rights-not

Kenya – Scale up sexuality education to address maternal hitches

Scale up sexuality education to address maternal hitches

Irungu Houghton
16th Nov 2019

Exaggeration is the lazy tool of advocates attached to a cause. With it, dies truth and the possibility of common ground. This week’s International Conference on Population and Development attracted its share of half-truths, manipulated facts and lies. What is its significance for the next decade?

Seven thousand delegates attended this week’s conference to reflect how far the world has changed since the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, 25 years ago. Rallied by the United Nations Population Fund, 179 governments placed women’s empowerment at the centre of poverty reduction and population control strategies for the first time. Women must have the right to choose the number and timing of their children was part of the quantum leap achieved in 1994. Rather than states controlling women’s fertility, signatories committed to providing universal education, broadening the range of reproductive and sexual health services and reducing infant and maternal mortality and female genital mutilation (FGM).

Continued: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001349594/scale-up-sexuality-education-to-address-maternal-hitches