UK – The majority of people want to make at-home abortions legal

It's an issue currently being debated by the government

by JENNIFER SAVIN
FEB 19, 2021

A ground-breaking new study of over 50,000 medical abortions has found that the at-home option (introduced temporarily during the pandemic, for those up to 10 weeks pregnant) was not only safe and effective, but allowed more people to easily access the healthcare they required. The results of the study have been released during an especially poignant time, as the government is currently examining whether or not to make at-home abortions a permanent option in England.

The study looked at abortions carried out in England, Scotland and Wales, both before and after the pandemic, and researchers, from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), MSI Reproductive Choices UK and the University of Texas at Austin, say their aim was to compare the data and see how the telemedicine service compares to the services previously available.

Continued: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a35558873/at-home-abortions-legal-study/

The Supreme Court Doesn’t Hold All the Power When It Comes to Abortion Rights

Here Are 2 Things the Biden Administration Can Do to Extend Access

BY RACHEL REBOUCHÉ
DECEMBER 22, 2020

All eyes are on new appointments to President-elect Joe Biden’s Administration, with great speculation about which policies those appointees will change first. In particular, reproductive-rights supporters wonder what protection the Biden Administration can provide for abortion now that the Supreme Court has six votes to overturn or to further eviscerate the core holding of Roe v. Wade. But the Supreme Court is not the only forum for protecting abortion access, and new leadership for executive agencies matters more than has been popularly discussed. The Biden Administration could take two related actions–one right after taking office and one a few months later–that would help provide early and safe abortion to many thousands of people.

Continued: https://time.com/5922555/medication-abortion-joe-biden/

New Zealand – Abortion Care: Equity Not Improving Fast Enough

Wednesday, 16 December 2020
Press Release: ALRANZ Abortion Rights Aotearoa

ALRANZ Abortion Rights Aotearoa notes with disappointment that the Ministry of Health survey shows improvements to abortion care have not reached all DHBs.

While delays for early medical and surgical abortions have shortened in some DHBs, others still do not offer abortion care at all. Different DHBs do not provide medical abortions, or telemedicine, or abortions post 20 weeks gestation.

Continued: https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE2012/S00067/abortion-care-equity-not-improving-fast-enough.htm

16.12.2020

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New Zealand – Abortion access improves with law reform, but inequity still significant — Health Ministry

The Associate Health Minister says she's watching district health boards "very closely" after a survey found variations in abortion services offered across the country.

Dec 15, 2020
By Susan Strongman

It's been more than eight months since abortion law reform came into force, yet the Ministry of Health survey found in some parts of New Zealand early medical abortions - where two pills are taken to induce a miscarriage within the first nine weeks of pregnancy - are not locally available at all.

It also found significant differences in later gestation abortion services offered across DHBs, meaning it's harder form some people to access the procedure because of where they live.

Continued: https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/abortion-access-improves-law-reform-but-inequity-still-significant-health-ministry

Polish pro-choice campaigner helps women bypass abortion law

Issued on: 31/10/2020

Seven years ago, Natalia Broniarczyk had an abortion despite stringent Polish legislation against it.

Now, she is helping other women do the same and taking part in mass protests against a further tightening of an already highly restrictive law.

Continued: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201031-polish-pro-choice-campaigner-helps-women-bypass-abortion-law

Abortion by pill is becoming more widespread in America

Changes to medical technology will change the politics of the country’s original culture war

The Economist
Sep 19th 2020 edition

When women used to tell Susan Long (not her real name), a doctor in Washington state, that they wanted to terminate a pregnancy, she would refer them to an abortion clinic. Today, they need not even walk into her office: after an online consultation, she prescribes two pills, which she posts, along with instructions on how to take them several hours apart.

It is difficult to exaggerate the benefit for “innumerable” women of being able to have an abortion at home, without having to arrange a trip to a clinic, she says, describing some of them. The university student living with her conservative parents, hundreds of miles from the nearest abortion clinic. The woman whose violent husband is vehemently pro-life. Single mothers, strapped for cash and child care. Those whose frail health prevents them risking exposure to covid-19 at a doctor’s office.

Continued: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/09/19/abortion-by-pill-is-becoming-more-widespread-in-america

Easing restrictions on abortion pill greatly improved access to care in Canada

UBC-led study offers lessons for other nations on deregulating mifepristone

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, Research News
NEWS RELEASE 14-SEP-2020

Removing restrictions on how mifepristone--the medical abortion drug--can be prescribed and dispensed in Canada greatly improved access to abortion, especially in rural communities across the country.

That's one of
the key findings of new University of British Columbia-led research published
today in the Annals of Family Medicine.

Continued: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-09/uobc-ero090920.php

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

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India – Why your nearby chemist doesn’t have abortion pills, and why he should stock them

A new study throws light on the availability
of prescription-based medical abortion drugs with chemists as a way to prevent
early abortion care costs among other benefits for women exercising their
choice of terminating pregnancy

Written by Jayashree Narayanan
Published: August 19, 2020

Marking 49 years of the inception of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP)
Act in 1971, a new study out on August 10, 2020 evaluated the availability of
Medical Abortion (MA) drugs in six Indian states to understand the awareness
levels and perceptions of the chemists stocking and selling MA pills.

Despite the passage of the MTP (Amendment) Bill in March 2020 that extended the
upper limit for permitting abortion to 24 weeks from 20 weeks, the
non-availability of MA drugs, which are approved for use up to nine weeks of
pregnancy in India, is seen to be “threatening” to women’s access to safe
abortion and proper reproductive healthcare.

Continued: https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/health/medical-abortion-pills-mtp-act-chemist-study-6552205/

USA – FDA urged to let women get abortion drugs by mail during coronavirus crisis

Donna Miller
August 16, 2020

The FDA is being urged to let women obtain abortion-inducing drugs by means of the mail amid the coronavirus slightly than have to go away their houses to get them.

“Whereas any girl who desires to go into a health care provider’s workplace or right into a clinic at the moment and get an abortion ought to proceed to have the opportunity to achieve this, management over one’s reproductive freedom shouldn’t be restricted to these ready to go away their houses as we battle the coronavirus,” New York Lawyer Normal Letitia James mentioned in an announcement Monday — echoing a letter despatched by her and 20 different high law-enforcement officers to the FDA urging an easing-up of restrictions.

Continued: https://gruntstuff.com/fda-urged-to-let-women-get-abortion-drugs-by-mail-during-coronavirus-crisis/78870/