Activists welcome Colombia’s decriminalisation of abortion

Amy Booth, The Lancet WORLD REPORT| VOLUME 399, ISSUE 10328, P899
MARCH 05, 2022

The ruling consolidates Latin America's swing towards pro-choice, following similar recent decisions in Argentina and Mexico. Amy Booth reports.

Colombia's constitutional court has decriminalised elective abortion up to 24 weeks, giving the country some of the most liberal abortion legislation in Latin America. The ruling deepens a trend towards legalisation in a region where the procedure was almost universally banned until recently. Following extensive and litigious negotiations, the court announced its 5–4 verdict on Feb 21, 2022. Outside the courthouse, feminist campaigners clad in the emerald green of Latin America's green tide pro-choice movement hugged each other and jumped for joy, many bursting into tears.

Continued: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00416-0/fulltext

Health Providers Worldwide Welcome Biden Reversal of Anti-Abortion Rule

By restoring funding cut off by his predecessor, President Biden ended four years of what abortion rights advocates called a concerted assault on women’s reproductive health in the developing world.

By Bhadra Sharma, Ruth Maclean, Oscar Lopez and Rick Gladstone
New York Times
Jan. 29, 2021

KATHMANDU, Nepal — When President Donald J. Trump scrapped tens of millions of dollars in aid to women’s health care providers around the world four years ago, the Family Planning Association of Nepal was forced to dismiss more than 200 people and close clinics in at least four parts of the country, one of Asia’s poorest.

Family planning education and birth-control distribution slowed or stopped in Nepal, which relies heavily on American financial assistance for public health programs. While abortion is legal in the country, the options for safe procedures were abruptly narrowed.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/world/asia/gag-rule-abortion.html

Colombia’s Upcoming Abortion Ruling Could Have A Big Impact On Latin America

Colombia's Upcoming Abortion Ruling Could Have A Big Impact On Latin America

By Tim Padgett
Feb 17, 2020

Colombia’s highest court is about to issue a ruling that could return the country to a total ban on abortion – or bring it in line with Roe v. Wade, the decision that legalized abortion in the U.S. Either way, because Colombia is one of the region's largest and more culturally influential countries, the decision could have a profound effect on abortion rights in Latin America.

The region already has some of the world’s strictest abortion laws – and now people on both sides of the debate hope a recent – and admittedly unusual – case will affirm their agendas.

Continued: https://www.wlrn.org/post/colombias-upcoming-abortion-ruling-could-have-big-impact-latin-america#stream/0

Trump’s foreign aid policies endanger women, experts say

Trump's foreign aid policies endanger women, experts say
“If it was done at the end of a gun, it would be denounced before the International Criminal Court,” the U.N. human rights commissioner said.

July 2, 2019
By Linda Givetash

LONDON — Caroline Nyandat will never forget the day she watched a 14-year-old girl die due to complications from an unsafe abortion.

Nyandat, 36, was then completing her training as a nurse midwife in Kisumu, Kenya, when the teen was in need of surgery but suffered from sepsis before doctors in the hospital could react.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trump-s-foreign-aid-policies-endanger-women-experts-say-n1018056

INVIMA approves mifepristone for abortion in Colombia

INVIMA approves mifepristone for abortion in Colombia
by Safe Abortion
March 31, 2017

On 3 March 2017, it was announced that Colombia’s Instituto Nacional de Vigilancia de Medicamentos y Alimentos (National Food and Drug Surveillance Institute, INVIMA) had approved the registration of mifepristone in Colombia for use in combination with misoprostol for induced abortion.

According to the Gynuity Health Projects website, mifepristone has been available (up to June 2016) only in Guyana and Uruguay in South America.

Profamilia, Colombia’s national family planning organisation, hope to begin providing the combination method in the second quarter of this year according to Marta Royo, Profamilia’s Executive Director.

Royo reports that in March 2012 Profamilia started all the procedures required in order to introduce mifepristone in Colombia: “It took five years and tons of paperwork, meetings and lobbying, she said, but we made it!!!! We are thrilled at INVIMA´s granting of approval but to be honest, also a little bit scared…. I won’t truly believed it until I see Mifepristona in Profamilia´s clinics and of course other clinics as well.”

SOURCES: El Espectador, 3 March 2017 ; E-mail from Marta Royo, 22 March 2017

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Source: International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/invima-approves-mifepristone-for-abortion-in-colombia/