There’s a new surveillance state – and women are the target

Period tracking apps, car licence plate data and pregnancy registers are the latest tools experts warn are being harnessed to monitor women

By Harriet Barber, GLOBAL HEALTH REPORTER
7 October 2022

Surveillance data and technology are being exploited to stoke fear and prevent abortions in countries including the United States, China, Hungary and Poland.

Period tracking apps, car licence plate data and pregnancy registers are the latest tools activists warn are being harnessed to stop women using legal or geographic loopholes for terminations. All four countries have reversed abortion rights over the past two years.

Continued: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/women-and-girls/new-abortion-surveillance-state-keeping-tabs-women/

Slovakian woman breaks silence on abortion as key vote nears

By Sophie Davies
OCTOBER 19, 2020

(Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Ivana Gaziova had an abortion as a teenager, she didn’t want to talk about it to anyone apart from her closest cousin. Six years on, a push to tighten Slovakia’s abortion law impelled her to speak out.

Gaziova, a waitress from Bratislava, has gone public with her own story to campaign against the government-led proposal, which critics see as part of a trend towards more socially conservative policies in central Europe.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/article/slovakia-women-abortion/feature-slovakian-woman-breaks-silence-on-abortion-as-key-vote-nears-idUSL8N2H65AV

Telemedicine and self-managed abortion: a discussion paper

by Marge Berer
26 August 2020

Introduction
Telemedicine for abortion care is the use of communications technology to arrange an abortion in a clinical setting or self-managed by the woman at home with medical abortion pills and for follow-up after the abortion. For International Safe Abortion Day, 28 September 2020, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion (ICWRSA) is promoting the use of telemedicine to arrange and follow-up an abortion and to support women’s right to have an abortion at home in the first trimester of pregnancy with medical abortion pills if she so chooses.

This discussion paper provides a history of how the use of telemedicine
and self-managed abortion with abortion pills at home have developed.
Initially, in Brazil in the 1980s, women shared information about the use of
misoprostol informally. Then, feminist-run safe abortion information hotlines
were set up, starting in 2005, to provide women with the information they need
(and in some cases provide the pills) to have an abortion at home. There are
currently one or more such hotlines in at least 26 countries in all world
regions. More recently, health professionals began to use what is now called
telemedicine (or telehealth) for this same purpose. This paper is about telemedicine
and the conditions that make self-managed abortion safe, and gives examples of
abortion services that put telemedicine and self-managed abortion together. It
also covers the role pharmacies can and are playing in support of these
changes.

Continued: https://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/newsletter-26-aug-2020?e=372dd34034

26.08.2020

Commentary

Featured

International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion

International Safe Abortion Day

self-managed abortion

September 28

telemedicine abortion

Global

Health

Human Rights

Five Statements of Support for WHO, with a Preface

Five Statements of Support for WHO, with a Preface
UNFP
22 May 2020
Preface, by Marge Berer

Today’s newsletter includes five statements – by the Campaign, an international group of CSOs, and IAWG, IPPF and Ipas – all in response to demands by the US government on the UN and the World Health Organization to omit any language or policy related to abortion and sexual and reproductive health from the Covid-19 response. This issue was not at all the focus of the World Health Assembly (WHA) on 18-19 May, however, as Trump hoped them to be. Instead, the other issues raised in his three letters to the heads of WHO and the UN – got all the attention, as well as a few more.

Continued: https://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/newsletter-22-may-2020?e=372dd34034

USA – Research on claims of “abortion pill reversal” stopped early

USA – Research on claims of “abortion pill reversal” stopped early

International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion
Dec 10, 2019
by Marge Berer

Amongst the seemingly endless anti-abortion efforts to destroy the provision of safe, legal abortion in the USA, has been an unproven claim that it is possible to reverse the abortifacient effects of mifepristone by taking progesterone. As the editor of this newsletter, I decided against reporting this up to now because the only “evidence” put forward (by a handful of anti-abortion doctors in the USA) was and has remained too thin to draw any conclusions from it, based literally on a handful of cases and without a control group. Unfortunately, the European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care published the study in December 2017, giving it a veneer of scientific respectability that it did not deserve. Some anti-abortion politicians in the USA, who weren’t apparently concerned about the lack of evidence, put laws through the national legislatures of eight US states requiring doctors to offer “abortion pill reversal” to any woman who had taken mifepristone, but not yet taken the misoprostol 24 hours later (if she changed her mind). I wrote a comment criticising the article, which was published in April 2018: Response to “Progesterone for preventing pregnancy termination after initiation of medical abortion with mifepristone”: what’s the real point here? Eur J Contracept Reprod Health Care 2018 Apr;23 (2):169. The original article was not removed but “corrected”.

Continued: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/usa-research-on-claims-of-abortion-pill-reversal-stopped-early/

Slovakia’s Latest Regressive Abortion Bill Rejected: How Can Regressive Measures Against Women’s Reproductive Rights Be Countered?

Slovakia’s Latest Regressive Abortion Bill Rejected: How Can Regressive Measures Against Women’s Reproductive Rights Be Countered?

8 Dec, 2019
by Adrianne Ramirez
Organization for World Peace

On 5th December, the proposed regressive abortion law in Slovakia was rejected following a Parliamentary vote. The draft legislation required women seeking abortion care to undergo a mandatory ultrasound scanning, to view and obtain the embryo or foetus’ ultrasound image, and where technically possible, to listen to its heartbeat. Furthermore, it sought to prohibit abortion advertising as well as imposing a fine of up to 66,400 EU on those who order or disseminate it. Proposed by a centre-right party in the ruling coalition, it was the latest step in a campaign to tighten restrictions on abortion in Slovakia, in wake of the September protests that demanded a total ban. Though rejected, the mere possibility of this legislation being approved depicts tangible hazards on women’s reproductive rights. Beyond its local implications, it consequently contributes to the recent erosion of these rights worldwide.

Continued: https://theowp.org/slovakias-latest-regressive-abortion-bill-rejected-how-can-regressive-measures-against-womens-reproductive-rights-be-countered/

Slovakia – in sixth vote – backs abortion rights

Slovakia - in sixth vote - backs abortion rights

December 5, 2019
Molly Millar

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Slovakia narrowly defeated a bill on Thursday that would have forced women seeking an abortion to see images of their unborn child - and hear its heartbeat - in the country’s sixth vote on reproductive rights this year.

The legislation in overwhelmingly Catholic Slovakia would have been the first of its kind in the European Union, raising fears among human rights organizations of setting a precedent in nations pursuing a conservative social agen

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-women-abortion/slovakia-in-sixth-vote-backs-abortion-rights-idUSKBN1Y92FY

Report: International Conference on Population & Development+25

International Conference on Population & Development+25
Nairobi, Kenya, 12-13-14 November 2019

Press Release: 22 November 2019

What was it about: some history

This conference has taken place every five years, beginning in 1994. At each follow-up meeting, the overarching purpose has been to measure progress (and the lack of progress) in implementing the 1994 Programme of Action, which was agreed by acclamation by the representatives of 179 countries, and the follow-up actions added at subsequent conferences. An excellent summary of the aims, goals and history of the conference can be found here and a 20th anniversary edition of the Programme of Action can be found here along with a global report on progress published in 2014.

In 1994, UNFPA, the conference convenor, described the Programme of Action as: “a bold new vision about the relationships between population, development and individual well-being… remarkable in its recognition that [sexual and] reproductive health and reproductive rights, as well as women's empowerment and gender equality, are cornerstones of population and development programmes. The Consensus is rooted in principles of human rights and respect for national sovereignty and various religious and cultural backgrounds.”

Continued: https://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/press-release-international-conference-population-development-25?e=372dd34034

22.11.2019

Commentary

Featured

Ana Cristina González Vélez

Articulación Feminista Marcosur

decriminalisation of abortion

Gita Sen

Hedia Belhadj

Ib Petersen

ICPD Programme of Action 1994

ICPD25

International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion

International Conference on Population & Development

Kyle McCarter

Marge Berer

Marie Stopes International

maternal mortality

Nairobi Summit

Nairobi Summit on ICPD25

Naisola Likimani

OHCHR Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls

Programme of Action

sexual and reproductive health and rights

She Decides

Sustainable Development Goals

UNFPA

universal health coverage

YANAA

Young Activists Network for Abortion Advocacy

Ireland – Abortion campaigners protest ‘restrictions’ in legislation

Abortion campaigners protest ‘restrictions’ in legislation
Hundreds march through Dublin and call for introduction of safe zones around facilities

Sep 28, 2019
Shauna Bowers

Abortion rights activists marched through Dublin on Saturday to protest against the “restrictions” in the Ireland’s abortion legislation.

The theme of the 8th annual march, which was the first since Ireland legalised abortion in December last year, was “nobody left behind”.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/abortion-campaigners-protest-restrictions-in-legislation-1.4034103

What’s been happening in Ireland & International Women’s Day in Norway

FEATURE: What's been happening in Ireland & International Women’s Day in Norway

International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion
18 March 2019

Introduction
In the midst of the continuing shower of news from all over the world that I share with you, I’ve been collecting stories for a feature on Ireland. This is not a definitive piece, that will come from those who have been on the frontlines, but is based primarily on written information from a few key people and what has been in the media. This history describes an almost unique series of events, and one worth learning from. It’s a story of optimism winning over pessimism, of passionate positive action breaking down out-of-date barriers, and particularly of women’s personal stories, doorstep advocacy, highly visible supportive doctors and policymakers, all working with government to change the mindset of a nation and win a critical mass of support. They successfully created a sea-change in law, policy and service delivery in the blink of an eye. Edited by Marge Berer

The story in a nutshell
It took only seven months from the referendum that repealed the 8th Amendment to the Constitution in May 2018 for the law to be changed, providers trained, methods approved and ordered, and abortion services to become available officially in Ireland on 2 January 2019, free for everyone who is covered by existing schemes, such as the Maternity and Infant Care Scheme.

Continued: https://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/feature-whats-been-happening-in-ireland-international-womens-day-in-norway-18-march-2019?e=372dd34034