Kenya – Why doctors should tell teens about contraceptives

Why doctors should tell teens about contraceptives

Njeri Mbugua
Nov 23, 2019

Failure by health care personnel to discuss contraception with young people who are just about to start engaging in sexual activity potentially increases unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

This is according to a report on young voices about future scenarios and contraception released in Nairobi on Tuesday.

Continued: https://www.the-star.co.ke/sasa/lifestyle/2019-11-23-why-doctors-should-tell-teens-about-contraceptives/


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/


How US government restrictions on foreign aid for abortion services backfired

How US government restrictions on foreign aid for abortion services backfired

Sep 2019, Policy Brief
By Grant Miller, Eran Bendavid, and Nina Brooks

Abortion is an issue that stirs up deeply felt passions and seems to offer little basis for compromise. But there is one thing that both sides of the debate agree on — fewer abortions are better. The pro-life side opposes abortion in principle, while pro-choice advocates generally hold that preventing unwanted pregnancies is preferable to terminating them.

That shared outlook could provide common ground on one of the most important federal initiatives concerning abortion — the Mexico City Policy. This executive order, announced in 1984 by the Reagan administration at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, requires all foreign nongovernmental organizations that get U.S. family planning assistance to certify they will not perform abortions or provide counseling about the procedure.

Continued: https://siepr.stanford.edu/research/publications/how-us-government-restrictions-foreign-aid-abortion-services-backfired


The cost of morality: how Nigeria’s own anti-abortion stance is killing women at an alarming rate

The cost of morality: how Nigeria’s own anti-abortion stance is killing women at an alarming rate
The passing of Alabama’s anti-abortion bill has caused shock-waves around the world but if we look a little closer to home, we would see that we are dealing with our very own violation of human and women’s rights which has already cost many lives.

Ntianu Obiora
May 23, 2019

The issue surrounding abortion rights in Nigeria is a highly sensitive one. Wrapped in layers of anti-women sentiment, religious ideals and buttressed by lack of adequate healthcare.

Abortion in Nigeria is governed by two laws that differ depending on geographical location

Continued: https://www.pulse.ng/lifestyle/beauty-health/the-cost-of-morality-how-nigerias-own-anti-abortion-stance-is-killing-women-at-an/zvdw1f7


Pakistan’s shocking abortion rates

Pakistan’s shocking abortion rates

By Syed Mohammad Ali
Published: January 11, 2019

Pakistan currently has one of the highest abortion rates in the world. Abortion in our country has become the means to exercise birth control, and most of these abortions are being conducted in unsafe environments. While our own media has not given this issue much attention, a recent in-depth story on America’s National Public Radio has revealed the shocking number of unsafe abortions which are taking place in our country, and their adverse impacts on the health of women.

Estimates cited by the above report indicate that 48% of pregnancies in Pakistan are unintended, of which 54% are terminated, mostly in an unsafe way. Around a third of all women who undergo abortions suffer complications, ranging from heavy bleeding to a perforated uterus and deadly infections.

Continued; https://tribune.com.pk/story/1885557/6-pakistans-shocking-abortion-rates/