Missouri and the Fight for Abortion Rights: How Past Became Prologue

Missouri and the Fight for Abortion Rights: How Past Became Prologue
Missouri’s historic battle for abortion rights presaged in important ways where we are today, and what will be required of reproductive rights advocates in the future.

Aug 1, 2019
Angela Bonavoglia

The time, the late 1960s; the place, St. Louis, Missouri. Judy Widdicombe, a twenty-something self-described supermom, was raising two boys with her husband, working as a labor and delivery nurse in a Catholic hospital, and volunteering one night a week as a counselor on a suicide prevention hotline.

“In those days, there was no official place a woman with an unwanted pregnancy could go for help,” she told me when I interviewed her for my book, The Choices We Made: 25 Women and Men Speak Out About Abortion.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2019/08/01/missouri-and-the-fight-for-abortion-rights-how-past-became-prologue/

01.08.2019

American Civil Liberties Union

Arlene Carmen

bomb threats

Clergy Consultation Service of Missouri

clinic picketing

Closed: 99 Ways to Stop Abortion

Judson Memorial Church

Judy Widdicombe

Justice Blackmun

Kathryn Kolbert

manual vacuum aspiration

National Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion

peritonitis

Planned Parenthood Missouri

Planned Parenthood v. Casey

Pro-Life Action League

prosecuting women for abortion

Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region

Reverend Howard Moody

Roe v. Wade

self-induced abortion

self-managed abortion

septicemia

The Choices We Made: 25 Women and Men Speak Out About Abortion

undue burden standard

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services

USA – I Learned How to Do an Abortion on a Papaya

I Learned How to Do an Abortion on a Papaya
Papaya workshops have become a popular way to demystify and destigmatize abortion.

by Marie Solis
Jul 24 2019

“This is a 10-week gravid uterus,” Zoey Thill said, holding up a "pregnant" papaya the size of a large fist. “And this,” she added, gesturing to her own pregnant belly, “is a 38-week gravid uterus.”

Thill, a New York City-based abortion provider, was explaining the anatomy of the uterus to a group of about a dozen of us, in Verso Books’ Brooklyn office on a Monday night.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3k334w/how-to-do-an-abortion-with-manual-vacuum-aspiration-papaya-workshop

USA – Not Your Grandmother’s Illegal Abortion

Not Your Grandmother’s Illegal Abortion

By Jennifer Block
Book excerpt
July 1, 2019

The sola variety of papaya resembles a pregnant uterus, so much so that around the world, humans use the fruit to learn one method of modern reproductive health care: manual vacuum aspiration, or MVA, a low-risk, low-tech method of first-trimester abortion that requires little or no anesthesia. As one doctor remarked at a conference in 1973, where the technology was introduced to physicians from around the world, “it’s something we will be able to bring practically into the rice paddy.”

This, too, is the fruit I have been given to practice on. I’ve placed it on a table across from me, and I’m focused on the neck, where its stem grew, which evokes the cervical os. The tool I’m using is a large plastic syringe with a bendable plastic strawlike thing, called a cannula, where the needle would be. At the top of the syringe is a bivalve to create one-way suction.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2019/07/excerpt-from-everything-below-the-waist.html

USA – The New Abortion Underground Starts With Information

The New Abortion Underground Starts With Information
The threats against safe abortions are changing—where women once feared the coat hanger, the symbol of the handcuff is now more ominous. Is arming activists with information the first step in keeping abortion accessible?

By Meghan Racklin
January 22, 2019

A papaya, it turns out, is a good model of a uterus in the early stages of pregnancy. Well—the papaya is a bit bigger, actually. And the average uterus has more of a tilt. But overall, the fruit is a close replica.

That’s what I’m told during a training session hosted by the Reproductive Health Access Project (RHAP). Under the guidance of our instructor, a doctor and RHAP fellow, I insert a thin metal instrument into the top of my papaya to create an opening before inserting a small suction device called an aspirator. There’s a slight slurping sound as the papaya seeds are sucked into the aspirator’s main chamber. Slurp. Slurp. Slurp. And then it’s done.

Continued: https://www.glamour.com/story/the-new-abortion-underground-starts-with-information

How Bangladesh Made Abortion Safer

How Bangladesh Made Abortion Safer
The government’s effort to help Rohingya victims of wartime rape has lessons for the world.

By Patrick Adams
Dec. 28, 2018

No one knows how many Rohingya became pregnant as a result of rape by the Myanmar military. No one knows how many babies were born to survivors of sexual violence living among the 750,000 Rohingya in camps in Bangladesh.

The systematic sexual violence against the Rohingya reminded many in Bangladesh of their own painful history: During Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971, the Pakistani military and local collaborators killed about 300,000 civilians and raped and tortured as many as 400,000 women and girls.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/opinion/rohingya-bangladesh-abortion.html

Zimbabwe – Post-abortion drugs in short supply

Post-abortion drugs in short supply

Letwin Nyambayo
27 October 2018

HARARE - Health facilities that are meant to offer post-abortion care in the country are experiencing shortages of essential drugs required to provide for the service.

Research conducted by Tsungai Chipato of the University of Zimbabwe's Obstetrics and Gynaecology, in conjunction with Guttmacher Institute, the ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) and the Women's Action Group showed that 5 percent of the health facilities had run out of misoprostol - an essential medicine for post-abortion care.

Continued: https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2018/10/27/post-abortion-drugs-in-short-supply

27.10.2018

Featured

News

abortion pills

costs of abortion complications

Dr. Tsungai Chipato

manual vacuum aspiration

misoprostol

post-abortion care

World Health Organisation

Uganda – Allow girls to access to voluntary safe abortion to save lives

Allow girls to access to voluntary safe abortion to save lives
By DAVID MAFABI/PML Daily Reporter
Posted on May 27, 2018

SIRONKO: Jane Nakumiza, 17, lives in Nabidoko village in Sironko district and takes care of her nephew. Her mother died almost seven years ago following complications from a botched abortion.

She had reportedly become pregnant in a terrible gang rape during the ‘Kadodi’ dancing procession at night.

“She told us that she saw five men rape her and then she lost consciousness. She was just quiet most of the time after the rape; she didn’t want the baby and tried to abort two times, “says Nakumiza.

Continued: http://www.pmldaily.com/features/health/2018/05/87520483.html

Senegal: The law, trials and imprisonment for abortion

FEATURE - Senegal: The law, trials and imprisonment for abortion
24 April 2018
International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion

by Nandini Archer, Alice Finden, Hannah Pearson
Edited by Marge Berer

Introduction

The law on abortion in Senegal is both restrictive and unclear. Although the country’s criminal code completely prohibits pregnancy termination, the Code of Medical Ethics allows an abortion if three doctors agree that the procedure is necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life. Given these circumstances, almost no abortions are legal and unsafe abortion leads to a high maternal mortality ratio. A combination of an inherited colonial penal code, and the influence of religion and social stigma, mean that despite continuing attempts by advocates to change the law, cases of sometimes prolonged pre-trial detention and imprisonment for illegal abortion and for infanticide among women unable to obtain an abortion, are rife, especially among poor and rural women.

This report looks at Senegal’s abortion law and policy, the prevalence of unsafe abortions, attempts to reform the law, the process of criminalisation of women, the extent of infanticide, and women’s stories, based on a range of published sources and valuable input from Senegalese human rights and women’s rights advocates.

Continued: https://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/feature-senegal-the-law-trials-and-imprisonment-for-abortion-24-april-2018?e=372dd34034

USA – “Whatever’s your darkest question, you can ask me.”

“Whatever’s your darkest question, you can ask me.”
A secret network of women is working outside the law and the medical establishment to provide safe, cheap home abortions.

March 28, 2018
By Lizzie Presser

On a winter morning, Anna* walked the aisles of an herbal-medicine store, picked up a bottle each of blue cohosh and black cohosh, along with a plastic bag of pennyroyal tea, and drove to the topless bar on the edge of town where she worked. There, she met Jules, another dancer. They performed on a small stage with crystal curtains, the green light of an ATM flashing on their left, until 9 p.m. The women, both in their 20s, then drove to the Motel 6 where Jules lived and entered her dim room on the second floor, which smelled of grape cigars. Anna pulled out the tinctures and tea and explained the plan. She was going to help Jules try to have an abortion.

Continued: https://story.californiasunday.com/abortion-providers

New Study Reveals 214 Million Women Have an Unmet Need for Modern Contraception

New Study Reveals 214 Million Women Have an Unmet Need for Modern Contraception

DKT International highlights World Contraception Day as increased education and access to reproductive health services remains crucial

Sep 25, 2017

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- New data released by The Guttmacher Institute shows that of the 885 million women living in developing countries hoping to avoid pregnancy, 214 million of those are not using contraception. DKT International, one of the largest providers of contraceptives and family planning services in the developing world, stresses the importance of World Contraception Day (September 26), held annually to raise awareness and improved access of contraceptives for women worldwide.

Continued at source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-study-reveals-214-million-women-have-an-unmet-need-for-modern-contraception-300525053.html

25.09.2017