Chile voters sour on right-wing constitution as abortion clause stirs debate

By Natalia A. Ramos Miranda, and Lucinda Elliott
October 6, 2023

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Voters are souring on Chile's second, conservative-led attempt at drafting a new constitution as a bid to further tighten the country's already restrictive abortion laws and other moves to the right threaten to turn off a majority of voters.

More than half of Chileans, 54% of respondents surveyed before the draft text was completed this week, plan on voting against the new constitution, according to pollster Cadem.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chile-voters-sour-right-wing-constitution-abortion-clause-stirs-debate-2023-10-06/


In a case at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, European groups supported criminalising women who had obstetric emergencies

Diana Cariboni and Tatev Hovhannisyan
3 December 2021

European right-wing groups backed the El Salvador government over the imprisonment and death of a woman for having a miscarriage. But they lost.

One of the groups was the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), a branch of the ultra-conservative American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), led by Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/europe-us-right-groups-elsalvador-criminalising-abortion/


Sexual violence and abortion restrictions in Paraguay are fueling an epidemic of childhood pregnancy: Amnesty

By Kara Fox, CNN
Wed December 1, 2021

(CNN) An epidemic of childhood pregnancy in Paraguay is being fueled by widespread sexual abuse and restrictive abortion laws, according to a new Amnesty International report.

At least 1,000 girls aged 14 or younger gave birth in the country between 2019 and 2020, the report says. It adds that more than 12,000 teenage girls between the ages of 15 and 19 gave birth in 2019.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/01/americas/paraguay-pregnancy-child-abuse-sexual-violence-intl/index.html


The new anti-abortion tactics of the far right in the Americas

ISABELLA COTASTEPHANIA CORPI
OCT 24, 2021

An EL PAÍS investigation in five Latin American countries has found that a network of centers affiliated with the far-right US organization Heartbeat International (HI) promote themselves online as feminist support groups and use misleading language in favor of abortion, but in reality they work to manipulate and institutionalize women to get them to carry their pregnancy to term.

Five female reporters and one male reporter went undercover to centers in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Mexico between 2019 and 2021, as a follow-up to an OpenDemocracy investigation into HI’s operations in the region.

Continued: https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-10-24/the-new-anti-abortion-tactics-of-the-far-right-in-the-americas.html


Ipas’s Bia Galli attended Brazil’s historic Supreme Court hearing on abortion

Ipas’s Bia Galli attended Brazil’s historic Supreme Court hearing on abortion
In this Q&A, she shares why it was so important and what comes next

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

In an historic two-day hearing before Brazil’s Supreme Court last week, experts presented arguments and evidence regarding the question of whether abortion should be made legal up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. Currently abortion is a crime in Brazil—except after rape, if a woman’s life is in danger, or if the fetus has a fatal brain condition called anencephaly. As a result, thousands of women and girls each year resort to clandestine, often unsafe abortions that risk their health and lives.

Bia Galli, Ipas’s senior policy and advocacy consultant based in Brazil, attended the two-day hearing. Here she talks about its historic significance, the rise of the conservative opposition movement in Brazil, and what’s next for abortion rights advocates.

Continued: http://www.ipas.org/en/News/2018/August/Ipas-s-Bia-Galli-attended-Brazil-s-historic-Supreme-Court-hearing-on-abortion.aspx


FEATURE: Report from the Brazilian Abortion Frontline

FEATURE: Report from the Brazilian Abortion Frontline

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International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion
13 December 2017
The turbulence in Brazil continues

by the Abortion Frontline Project, coordinated by Cfemea (Feminist Center for Studies and Advisory), Ipas Brazil and Sexuality Policy Watch

As the turbulence of Brazil's political climate and sexual politics overall continues, the abortion rights debates decidedly intensified in November 2017 (check here for updates in Portuguese). As reported by the International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion on 24 November, Amendment No.181, a provision aimed at including right to life from conception into the Constitution, was approved by a Special Commission of the Chamber of Deputies on 8 November. Then, during the debate on the measure, new amendments to the provisional text were presented and were to be voted finally on 12 December. Congresswoman Erika Kokay, whose vote against the amendment was the only one, had proposed on the 8th to withdraw this "Trojan Horse" provision (the right to life from conception) because it was inserted into the text of what was supposed to be a bill for extending maternity leave for women who deliver prematurely.

Continued at source: http://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/feature-report-from-the-brazilian-abortion-frontline-13-december-2017?e=3fa4c971b0


Brazilian who pushed abortion debate ends pregnancy abroad

Brazilian who pushed abortion debate ends pregnancy abroad

By renata brito and sarah dilorenzo, associated press
SAO PAULO — Dec 11, 2017

A woman believed to be the first in Brazil to ask the state for permission to end a pregnancy that did not result from a rape or involve medical issues has had an abortion — in Colombia.

With one request denied by the Supreme Court and fearing that another would languish in the justice system, Rebeca Mendes told The Associated Press on Monday that she decided to have the procedure done abroad so as not to be punished in Brazil.

The decision ends her involvement in a case that garnered national headlines in Latin America's most populous nation and sought to push the limits on restrictive abortion laws.

Continued at source: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/brazilian-pushed-abortion-debate-ends-pregnancy-abroad-51725692