Abortion is decriminalized in Mexico, but the social and cultural stigma remains

Mexico's Supreme Court decriminalized abortion nationwide in September, but reproductive rights advocates grapple with the challenge of “social decriminalization.”

Nov. 2, 2023
By Isabela Espadas Barros Leal

MEXICO CITY — Every recovery room at Fundación ILE, an abortion clinic in Mexico City’s Roma Sur neighborhood, is equipped with a small bed, blankets, sanitary pads and a turquoise journal.

The journals are filled with letters written by women minutes after having had abortions.

Some of them detail the reasons they chose to undergo the procedure. Others have messages of encouragement for the next women who will be in their position.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/mexico-abortion-legal-social-cultural-stigma-remains-rcna123029

The Real End Goal of the Anti-Choice Texas Abortion Lawsuit

BY MARY ZIEGLER, Slate
MARCH 28, 2023

Earlier this month, Jonathan Mitchell, the former Texas solicitor general and the architect of S.B. 8, Texas’s six-week abortion ban, filed what seems like a long-shot lawsuit. Mitchell is representing a Texas man in a wrongful-death suit against two of his ex-wife’s friends and the person who provided them with an abortion pill.

This suit may never go anywhere, even in a state as hostile to abortion as Texas. State law requires that a death be “wrongful,” but the abortion in this case took place before Texas’ trigger ban took effect. Mitchell and his colleagues are relying on a pre-Roe criminal ban to try the case, and its legal status remains contested. As important, Texas law makes clear that pregnant people themselves can’t be sued or prosecuted for having abortions, so it’s not clear that aiding a woman in doing so would be considered wrongful either.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/03/personhood-laws-anti-choice-texas-abortion-lawsuit.html

28.03.2023

Abortion and authoritarianism: Why women’s freedom threatens male supremacy

The notion that men are superior to women is the root of all human inequality. That's why we must fight it

By ROBERT S. MCELVAINE
OCTOBER 23, 2022

Will America's future be one of democracy and women's control over their own bodies or one of authoritarianism and forced pregnancy? The two issues most motivating Americans to vote for Democrats in the rapidly approaching midterm elections are far more intertwined than is generally recognized.

At a time when right-wing extremists are hellbent on making American states — or, as many intend the whole nation — into the fictional Republic of Gilead, it is appropriate to turn to Margaret Atwood. "Tyrants and dictators like Adolf Hitler and Nicolae Ceausescu have often dictated the terms of fertility and criminalized those who did not comply," she pointed out in 2017. "It's no accident that Napoleon banned abortion. He said exactly what he wanted offspring for — cannon fodder. Lovely!"

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2022/10/23/abortion-and-authoritarianism-why-womens-freedom-threatens-male-supremacy/

Abortion pill: Why Japanese women will need their partner’s consent to get a tablet

By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, BBC News, Tokyo
Aug 30, 2022

While debate still rages in the US over the repeal of Roe v Wade, a much less noisy argument is unfolding in Japan over the legalisation of so-called medically induced abortions.

In May, a senior health ministry official told parliament it was finally set to approve an abortion pill manufactured by British pharmaceutical company Linepharma International. But he also said that women will still need to "gain the consent of their partner" before the pills can be administered - a stipulation pro-choice campaigners have called patriarchal and outdated.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62515356

Legalising abortion pill only half the battle for women in Japan

Akanksha Khullar
5 Jun, 2022

More than three decades after the abortion pill first became available, legislation to approve the drug is winding its way through Japan’s parliament. The move follows an application last year by British pharmaceutical company Linepharma International to market medication for terminating pregnancies in the country.

An important question needs to be raised here: to what extent can Japan’s new legislation – which is likely to be approved by the end of the year – be described as a laudable step towards improving women's’ rights in the country?

Continued: https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3180280/legalising-abortion-pill-only-half-battle-women-japan

For Decades, We’ve Helped Open Abortion Access. Here’s Where We’ll Go Post-‘Roe.’

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel of abortion care—we need to build on it.

Jun 2, 2022
National Network of Abortion Funds & Abortion Care Network

Abortion funds and independent abortion clinics are grateful for the outpouring of support in the wake of the devastating Supreme Court draft decision leak in early May. In a moment when discriminatory, racist, patriarchal systems are working hard to isolate us from each other and our collective power, so many of you know that turning to the people on the forefront of abortion access in each of our communities is an important way to fight back together.

Thank you for plugging in with your communities and each other, spreading the word that abortion is still legal no matter where you live in the United States, and comforting your loved ones with the knowledge that there are still avenues of support (including you).

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2022/06/02/for-decades-weve-helped-open-abortion-access-heres-where-well-go-post-roe/

India’s abortion law still lacks a rights-based approach, gynecologist says

India's abortion law is progressive, but it is also problematic, says Dr. Suchitra Dalvie, a practicing gynecologist in Mumbai, India. The co-founder and coordinator of the Asia Safe Abortion Partnership unpacked the law and recent amendments to it with The World's reporter Chhavi Sachdev.

May 12, 2022
By Chhavi Sachdev

In India, abortion has been legal — within certain confines — for more than 50 years.

India's abortion law is progressive, but it is also problematic, says Dr. Suchitra Dalvie, a practicing gynecologist in Mumbai, India.

Continued: https://theworld.org/stories/2022-05-12/indias-abortion-law-still-lacks-rights-based-approach-gynecologist-says

Many Abortion Images Are Misleading Or Manipulative. These Photos Show The Reality.

"Most people don't know what a fetus looks like. Abortion takes place behind closed doors — for medical privacy and for safety — but I also believe something is gained by creating visuals for this process."

Pia Peterson, BuzzFeed News Photo Editor
Apr 28, 2022

Photographer Glenna Gordon has traveled the world, documenting everything from Nigerian weddings and abandoned oil tankers on the African coast to white supremacist groups and the rise of Donald Trump.

Her work in the United States has focused on the uneasy intersection between personal freedom and government oversight, including access to abortions. Traveling to clinics with a camera, Gordon realized that the graphic images that anti-abortion protesters often display were wildly misleading, and that she didn’t actually know where to go to see accurate photographs of abortions. She set out to make such images herself.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/piapeterson/photos-abortions-reality

28.04.2022

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Activism

What happens to women’s rights when democracy backslides

48 minute podcast
April 26, 2022
Meg Dalton, Jonathan Chang, Meghna Chakrabarti

From Nazi Germany to Mussolini's Italy, fascist regimes shared an early target: Women.

"The fascists passed laws criminalizing abortion both for doctors performing, for people providing information for women seeking," professor Anne Wingenter says.

Continued: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/04/26/women-fascists-democracy-backslides-abortion-rights

Revenge of the Patriarchs: Why Autocrats Fear Women

By Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks
March/April 2022 (posted Feb 8)
Foreign Affairs

The pantheon of autocratic leaders includes a great many sexists, from Napoléon Bonaparte, who decriminalized the murder of unfaithful wives, to Benito Mussolini, who claimed that women “never created anything.” And while the twentieth century saw improvements in women’s equality in most parts of the world, the twenty-first is demonstrating that misogyny and authoritarianism are not just common comorbidities but mutually reinforcing ills. Throughout the last century, women’s movements won the right to vote for women; expanded women’s access to reproductive health care, education, and economic opportunity; and began to enshrine gender equality in domestic and international law—victories that corresponded with unprecedented waves of democratization in the postwar period. Yet in recent years, authoritarian leaders have launched a simultaneous assault on women’s rights and democracy that threatens to roll back decades of progress on both fronts.

Continued: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2022-02-08/women-rights-revenge-patriarchs