‘Like knives penetrating me’: Greenland’s victims of forced contraception seek justice

In the late 1960s, Denmark implemented a brutal contraceptive policy to limit births in its former colony of Greenland, forcing thousands of teenage girls to have IUDs inserted without their consent. After decades of repressing their trauma, the women are now speaking out and demanding reparation.

25/11/2023
By: Cyrielle CABOT

Naja Lyberth still has vivid memories of the ordeal she went through as a schoolgirl in Greenland, almost 50 years ago. “I was 13 or 14 at the time, I’m not sure. It was during our annual medical examination at school,” she recalls. “The pain was indescribable.”

Like thousands of fellow Greenlandic women, Lyberth was forced to have an interuterine device (IUD) – a long-term contraceptive also known as a coil – fitted when she was a teenager, without her consent or that of her parents.

Continued: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20231125-like-knives-penetrating-me-greenland-s-victims-of-forced-contraception-seek-justice

25.11.2023

The Right to Contraception: State and Federal Actions, Misinformation, and the Courts

Mabel Felix, Laurie Sobel, and Alina Salganicoff
Oct 26, 2023

Introduction
The Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling has heightened interest in affirming the right to contraception. While the Court’s majority opinion stated that the Dobbs decision does not “cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion,” Justice Thomas argued in his concurring opinion that in future cases, the Court should reconsider precedent that relied on the same principles as Roe – including Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court’s 1965 landmark decision that recognized the right of married people to obtain contraceptives – and overturn those decisions. The prospect of the Court overturning Griswold moved some in Congress to introduce federal legislation that would protect the right to contraception, though that legislation is unlikely to advance in the current divided Congress. Similarly, some state legislators have recently introduced measures to protect the right to obtain contraceptives.

Continued: https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/the-right-to-contraception-state-and-federal-actions-misinformation-and-the-courts/

USA – People are getting IUDs and Plan B ahead of a possible post-Roe future

By Abigail Higgins, Washington Post
May 10, 2022

Last week, as soon as Sydney Phillip read about the leaked draft opinion suggesting the Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, she booked an appointment to get an IUD.

Intrauterine devices are one of the most effective forms of birth control, and getting the long-acting contraceptive had been a floating item on her medium-term to-do list. She’s been using the birth control pill, a method that has about a 7 percent failure rate for typical use. The potential consequences of that margin of error felt tolerable — until now.

Continued, Unblocked: https://wapo.st/3Maiuda
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/05/10/iud-birth-control-supreme-court-draft-opinion-leak/

Why India is likely to lose its battle to population control as the health department focuses on COVID-19?

Why India is likely to lose its battle to population control as the health department focuses on COVID-19?
In the worst-case scenario, there can be more than 2.9 million additional population which could be due to unintended pregnancies

Thursday, May 14, 2020
By Jescilia Karayamparambil

The already stressed healthcare segment in India is presently concentrating on saving the lives of COVID-19 patients. But the healthcare professionals like doctors and other healthcare workers, are expected to feel the pinch further when there are more abortion cases and other health issues among women -- mainly due to unwanted pregnancies, says VS Chandrashekar, Chief Executive Officer, Foundation for Reproductive Health Services India (FRHS). This unwanted pregnancy is expected to have large economic pressure among families who were not ready for a child.

Speaking to The Free Press Journal, Chandrashekar, said, "We prepared a report taking into consideration three scenarios -- best case, likely case and worst scenarios."

Continued: https://www.freepressjournal.in/business/why-india-is-likely-to-lose-its-battle-to-population-control-as-the-health-department-focuses-on-covid-19

Canada – The Pill was legalized 50 years ago, but experts say we can still improve contraceptive access

The Pill was legalized 50 years ago, but experts say we can still improve contraceptive access

By Leslie Young, Senior National Online Journalist, Health Global News
Sep 26, 2019

As recently as the early 1960s, contraceptives were illegal in Canada.

People still used them, according to Christabelle Sethna, a professor of women’s and gender studies at the University of Ottawa, and co-editor of an upcoming book on changes to sexuality laws in the 1969 Omnibus bill.

People were getting condoms or the relatively new birth control pill under the table from pharmacists, nurses or doctors, she said, though they were technically illegal sales. A Toronto pharmacist, Howard Fine, was convicted in 1960 for selling condoms.

Continued: https://globalnews.ca/news/5955190/pill-legalized-canada-50-years/

USA – The new Trump plan to defund Planned Parenthood, explained

New rules could leave low-income women without access to affordable birth control.
By Sarah Kliff
May 18, 2018

Women’s health clinics that provide abortions or refer patients for the procedure will be cut off from a key source of federal funding under new Trump administration rules expected to be released Friday.

Both the New York Times and Modern Healthcare report that the White House plans to issue new guidelines for Title X, the only federal program dedicated to paying for birth control. The new rule is expected to require a “physical as well as financial separation” between entities that receive Title X funds and those that provide abortions.

continued: https://www.vox.com/2018/5/18/17367964/trump-abortion-planned-parenthood-defund

Left in the Dark on Contraception, Young Chinese Seek Abortions

Left in the Dark on Contraception, Young Chinese Seek Abortions
With premarital sex on the rise and sex ed lacking, more young women are facing unintended pregnancies.

Cai Yiwen
2018-04-30

SHANGHAI — Lying on the operating table, Qing watched as her doctor arranged the medical instruments she’d be using, piece by piece. For the first time since she decided to have an abortion, she started to panic: She had barely known anything about the procedure when she made the decision, and now the reality of the imminent surgery was sinking in. When the teen woke up an hour later, the 7-week-old embryo inside her had been removed.

Qing, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy, attends a high school in eastern China’s Fujian province that has never taught its students about sex or contraception, the 16-year-old said. Nor have her parents or other adults in her life ever broached such topics.

Continued: http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1002188/left-in-the-dark-on-contraception%2C-young-chinese-seek-abortions

Contraception Atlas for Europe

Contraception Atlas

Download the full report: map_cci-v5.pdf (pdf 3,2 mb)
What is the Atlas?

The Contraception Atlas is a map that scores 45 countries throughout geographical Europe on access to modern contraception.

The rankings -- which are based on access to contraceptive supplies, family planning counseling and online information -- reveal a very uneven picture across Europe.

The European Parliamentary Forum on Population & Development (EPF) has produced the Atlas in partnership with Third-i, while experts in sexual and reproductive health and rights designed the methodology.

“Access to contraception should be a key concern of governments in empowering citizens to plan their families and lives. Yet every country we analysed should be doing more to improve access. Our findings show that for many European countries, ensuring that people have choice over their reproductive lives is not a priority.” commented Neil Datta, EPF Secretary.

Continued at source: European Parliamentary Forum on Population & Development: http://www.contraceptioninfo.eu/node/7