Ugandan Women Risk Their Lives to Access Abortion

“Many girls are dying because we have chosen to ignore them.”

Friday, 8 March, 2024
Culton Scovia Nakamya

For Jovia (not her real name), 2023 was the worst year of her life. The 20-year-old business student was gang-raped at a drunken house party in the Kampala suburb of Kansanga and six weeks later realised that she was pregnant.

“I wondered what I am going to tell my parents. For God’s sake, I am just in my second semester of year one, and I didn’t know who did it,” she said.

Her options were limited, as abortion is illegal in Uganda except under rare circumstances. She confided in a female friend, who suggested they visit the Kampala suburb of Nakulabye, an area known as a hub of clinics that administer clandestine abortions, mostly to students.

Continued: https://iwpr.net/global-voices/ugandan-women-risk-their-lives-access-abortion

‘I can’t bear the pain’: grieving the lives lost to the Dominican Republic’s abortion ban

A decade after Rossa Nelly Aquino died aged 20 in an illegal clinic, her family are still struggling to find answers. And campaigners are still fighting to update the 140-year-old law

Sarah Johnson in Santo Domingo
Mon 4 Mar 2024

One of the walls in Alba Nely Peña’s front room is adorned with graduation photos of her children. She gave birth to three boys and three girls, but only five smiling faces are on display in her house on the outskirts of Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic.

“My youngest one died. I took her photo down because I can’t bear the pain,” she says, before going into a back room and digging out a framed collage of photos of her daughter. On it are written the words: “We will always remember you, Rossa.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/mar/04/i-cant-bear-the-pain-grieving-the-lives-lost-to-the-dominican-republics-abortion-ban

Empowering mothers, securing futures: The quest for safe motherhood in the Philippines

March 01, 2024
By Gelaine Louise Gutierrez

Bringing a child into the world should be a joyous milestone, not a mortal risk. Yet in the Philippines, over 2,000 women lost their lives while giving birth in 2021 - more than double the number in 2019.

These preventable deaths underscore the urgent need to secure safe motherhood through robust healthcare access and empowerment of Filipino women. Giving birth remains one of the most dangerous moments for women in underserved communities lacking proper medical facilities and prenatal care.

Continued: https://pia.gov.ph/features/2024/03/01/empowering-mothers-securing-futures-the-quest-for-safe-motherhood-in-the-philippines

01.03.2024

Commentary

maternal deaths

maternal mortality

National Safe Motherhood Program

By bus, car and plane, women journey across Latin America for abortions

By Marina Dias and Terrence McCoy
February 23, 2024

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — She’d taken an overnight bus from the countryside, then a train across the urban sprawl of São Paulo, and now she was staring out the plane window, head full of worry. There was a pink rosary in her pocket. But she didn’t see the point of praying. She feared she was a sinner, a criminal, and this trip, her first time out of Brazil, would be a secret she’d carry for the rest of her life.

Cristina was 35 years old. She was 11 weeks pregnant. She came from a conservative Christian family in a conservative Christian nation where abortion was largely illegal, so she’d decided to travel to a country where it was not and bring an end to the pregnancy she didn’t want.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/23/brazil-latin-america-abortion-restrictions/

States That Restrict Abortion Have Higher Rates of Intimate Partner Homicide

“[T]here’s an epidemic of preventable violence that disproportionately affects vulnerable populations,” one study finds.

By Zane McNeill , TRUTHOUT
February 13, 2024

According to a new study published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons (JACS), pregnant women who live in states that restrict abortion are more likely to experience intimate partner homicide. Researchers also found that the risk of intimate partner homicide is higher for young women under the age of 30, Black women, and women with lower education levels.

“This study reveals that in the United States, there’s an epidemic of preventable violence that disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, including peripartum people,” said Grace Keegan, lead author of the study and third-year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/states-that-restrict-abortion-have-higher-rates-of-intimate-partner-homicide/

13.02.2024

abortion and violence

Grace Keegan

intimate partner violence

IPV and abortion laws

Journal of the American College of Surgeons

Justin Cirone

maternal mortality

peripartum homicides

pregnancy and homicide

Tanya Zakrison

Our Abortion Stories: ‘I’m a Registered Nurse, a Wife and a Mother. This Story Is Personal and Painful.’

Feb 13, 2024
by AMY ROGERS

My name is Amy Rogers; I’m a registered nurse, a wife and a mother. I am writing this in support of House Bill 12, the Women’s Health Protection Act. This story is personal and painful. I am sharing this for myself, my daughters, and the 25 million women of childbearing age living in states with abortion bans or restrictions.

In 2011, my husband and I were newlyweds. We had primary custody of his 8-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter. I had just turned 43 and was shocked and delighted to discover that I was pregnant. Due to my age, I assumed my chances of conceiving without fertility treatments were slim to none.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/02/13/dobbs-abortion-story-healthcare-genetic-testing-abnormality-womens-health-protection-act/

Nigeria – Unsafe abortion fueling female infertility, maternal deaths, say gynaecologists

6th February 2024
By Janet Ogundepo

Maternal health experts have attributed the low contraceptive prevalence rate in the country to an increase in unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions.

In separate exclusive interviews with PUNCH Healthwise, they cautioned that the continuous rise in unsafe abortion would lead to increased cases of infertility and maternal deaths. Already, Nigeria has a maternal mortality rate of 1,047 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the World Health Organisation.

Continued: https://punchng.com/unsafe-abortion-fueling-female-infertility-maternal-deaths-say-gynaecologists/

India – ‘24-Week Limit For Abortion Is Obsolete’

The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act does not permit abortions beyond 24 weeks, but this limit is obsolete, as abortions can now safely be performed right up to full term, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves says

By Menaka Rao
2 Feb, 2024

New Delhi: On January 23, the Delhi High Court recalled its order granting permission for abortion to a 26-year-old woman. Her husband had died two months ago. She was about 30 weeks pregnant when she approached the court. The earlier order was based on the fact that she had suicide ideation due to her bereavement, but the court turned back on its previous order after doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) raised objections to the late-term abortion saying that the foetus was viable and it could be born alive after the procedure.

This case is similar to the one decided in October 2023 by a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, which involved a married woman with postpartum psychosis after a recent delivery. There too, AIIMS doctors had sent clarifications that it was a late-term pregnancy as defined by the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 2021 (MTP Act). The Supreme Court not only rejected the abortion plea at the time, but also told the woman to deliver the baby at AIIMS and give it up for adoption if the couple wishes to do so.

Continued: https://www.indiaspend.com/indiaspend-interviews/24-week-limit-for-abortion-is-obsolete-892891

Between law and sexual rights in Nigeria

Is extant legal framework protecting the sexual and reproductive rights of the Nigerian woman? YEJIDE GBENGA-OGUNDARE in this piece explore factors that answer the concerns on the attainment of reproductive health rights, lack of specific legislation, and the seeming unwillingness to domesticate international protocols that Nigeria co-signed.

by Yejide Gbenga-Ogundare
January 31, 2024

The issue of reproductive and sexual health rights has not always been an open discussion in the African society, repressed mainly by cultural beliefs, including in Nigeria, despite the prevalence of maternal mortality and morbidity. According to statistics in the OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development, every day, Nigeria loses 145 women of childbearing age from complications of child birth leading to more focus on health issues and the right to health. But while the right to health has been recognised globally since reproductive health rights gained formal acceptance in 1993, the need for women to have access to quality reproductive health services such as medical care, planned family, safe pregnancy, delivery care and treatment and prevention of sexually-transmitted infections, while gaining recognition, cannot be said to have been given its due pride of place.

Continued: https://tribuneonlineng.com/between-law-and-s3xual-rights-in-nigeria/

Stories of safe abortion care in Mozambique

29 JAN 2024
Médecins Sans Frontières

In every country, women from all walks of life may seek out an abortion at some time of their lives due to many reasons. Where safe abortion care is too difficult to access, people with an unwanted pregnancy often have no choice but to resort to unsafe abortion, one of the leading causes of maternal mortality globally.

To reduce the high number of women dying from unsafe abortion, Mozambique in 2014 legalised abortion up to 12 weeks and beyond in cases of rape, incest, and severe foetal anomalies such as heart defects. This essential care is provided free of charge. But even though abortion is free and legal, other barriers including stigma and misinformation can still make it difficult to access safe care.

Continued: https://msf.org.au/article/stories-patients-staff/stories-safe-abortion-care-mozambique