Kenya abortion: Women go to backstreet clinics amid legal ambiguity

Legal ambiguity over abortions in Kenya is pushing thousands of women to turn to backstreet clinics. BBC Africa Eye explores how abortion is shrouded in stigma and misinformation.

26th November 2023
By Zoe Flood, Linda Ngari & Tamasin Ford, BBC Africa Eye, Nairobi & London

Edith is lying on a bed covered in old newspaper in a backstreet clinic in Nairobi.

Her legs are held high by stirrups while a man in a white medical coat explains he is about to put some medicine inside her uterus. A red bucket of bleach containing medical instruments sits on the floor.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67473183

‘Am I a Felon?’ The Fall of Roe v. Wade Has Permanently Changed the Doctor-Patient Relationship

BY ABIGAIL ABRAMS
OCTOBER 17, 2022

A few days after the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion in June, Dr. Mae Winchester got a call late at night. One of her patients had developed sepsis after her water broke at 19 weeks of pregnancy. Sepsis can be fatal, and normally Winchester, a maternal-fetal medicine physician in Ohio, would rush her patient into the operating room and provide an abortion. But this time, she felt she had to call her hospital’s lawyers first.

The lawyers agreed that treating this patient with an abortion would be legal under Ohio’s new abortion ban, which contained an exception to prevent the death of the mother. But in other cases, Winchester says care has been delayed, or the lawyers have disagreed with her, and she hasn’t been allowed to provide the care she deems necessary. “Meanwhile, the patient is just sitting in the operating room by herself,” Winchester says, “not knowing what I can do.”

Continued: https://time.com/6222346/abortion-care-after-roe-doctors-lawyers/

Old Anti-abortion Laws Are Taking on Unintended Meanings

Even where the words remain the same, a shifting political culture has changed the impact of suddenly revived statutes.

By Daniel K. Williams
SEPTEMBER 20, 2022

Abortion opponents seem not to have expected some of the more draconian consequences of the Dobbs decision—that anti-abortion laws would prevent pregnant women who were not seeking abortions from receiving needed treatment for miscarriages, or that women facing dire medical complications from their pregnancies would not be able to get proper care. After all, the anti-abortion laws that were in force in the pre-Roe era before 1973 were almost never used to prosecute doctors treating miscarriages or providing lifesaving care to women, and all of the anti-abortion laws that went into effect this summer (including the one enacted in Indiana in August) specifically allow abortions in cases where they are necessary to save a pregnant person’s life. A National Review article published in late July insisted that no current state anti-abortion law prevents the treatment of miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/abortion-laws-pre-roe/671409/

20.09.2022

Commentary

Featured

American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Human Life Amendment

Mary Ziegler

National Right to Life Committee

pre-Roe abortion bans

pre-Roe laws

prosecuting doctors for abortion

Ireland – ‘Threat of criminal sanctions’ hangs over medical practitioners who provide abortion services

1 May 2022
Carlow Live

The threat of criminal sanctions hangs over medical practitioners who provide abortion services in Ireland, politicians have been told.

Alison Spillane, a senior policy and research officer at the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), described to the Oireachtas Health Committee how the fear of prosecution “sits in the consultation room” between patient and doctor.

Continued: https://www.carlowlive.ie/news/local-news/802205/threat-of-criminal-sanctions-hangs-over-medical-practitioners-who-provide-abortion-services.html

Kenya: Court Declares Abortion-Related Arrests, Prosecutions Illegal

26 MARCH 2022
By Jemimah Mueni

Malindi — The High Court in Malindi has declared abortion related arrests and prosecution illegal.

The landmark ruling made on Friday now protects patients seeking abortion services as well as healthcare providers offering the services.

While making the ruling, the court noted that abortion care is a fundamental right under the Constitution of Kenya and that protecting access to abortion impacts vital Constitutional values, including dignity, autonomy, equality, and bodily integrity.

Continued: https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2022/03/court-declares-abortion-related-arrests-prosecutions-illegal/

26.03.2022

Center for Reproductive Rights

Evelyne Opondo

Malindi High Court

prosecuting doctors for abortion

Nigeria – Doctor, guardian remanded over abortion for 14-yr-old girl

Doctor, guardian remanded over abortion for 14-yr-old girl

By Ahmed Ali, Kafanchan
Published Date Jan 14, 2020

A chief magistrate court in Kafanchan has remanded a community doctor, Joe Orukwe and one Godwin Ikechukwu in Kafanchan Custodial Centre for alleged criminal conspiracy and causing the death of an unborn child.

Orukwe, who is the owner of a private hospital, Bethel Clinic in Kafanchan was charged for allegedly aborting a pregnancy for a 14-year-old girl. The girl was said to have been defiled and impregnated by her foster father, Ikechukwu, who later took her to Orukwe to procure abortion for her.

Continued: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/doctor-guardian-remanded-over-abortion-for-14-yr-old-girl.html

14.01.2020

News

Godwin Ikechukwu

Joe Orukwe

prosecuting doctors for abortion

Ireland – Dáil votes down proposal to fully decriminalise abortion

Dáil votes down proposal to fully decriminalise abortion
Criminalisation is necessary to protect women from forced abortions, says Minister

Nov 28, 2018
Jennifer Bray

Attempts to fully decriminalise abortion as part of new legislation have failed following a debate in the Dáil.

A number of TDs called on Minister for Health Simon Harris to support amendments to the Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Bill which would see doctors protected from criminalisation where they act in good faith, and which would drop the current 14 year jail term.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/brexit/d%C3%A1il-votes-down-proposal-to-fully-decriminalise-abortion-1.3713813

Ireland – Nurses campaign to opt out of abortion provision

Nurses campaign to opt out of abortion provision

Wednesday, November 28, 2018
By Evelyn Ring

A group of nurses and midwives has joined GPs in declaring they do not want to participate in providing abortion services. The group, Nurses & Midwives4Life Ireland, says if a woman opts for a surgical termination, they will be asked to provide the pre-operative care, to which they object.

Last month, hundreds of anti-abortion GPs voiced their concerns about the new laws and asked Health Minister Simon Harris not to rush legislation through.

Continued: https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/nurses-campaign-to-opt-out-of-abortion-provision-888378.html

South Korea’s nascent feminist movement turns to abortion ban

South Korea's nascent feminist movement turns to abortion ban
Women have continued to access abortion illegally in defiance of 65-year-old law

Benjamin Haas in Seoul
Sun 11 Nov 2018

Kim Soo-jin will never forget the disgusting taste of the pulpy green-brown traditional Korean brew she drank in the hopes of ending her pregnancy, or the night she spent in pain, curled into a ball and unable to move.

The recipe her roommate found on the internet was an attempt to sidestep South Korea’s 65-year ban on abortions, but in the end it did not work and Kim, a 21-year-old student at the time, was forced to go to a clinic a week later for an illegal surgical procedure.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/11/south-koreans-nascent-feminist-movement-turns-to-abortion-ban

Australia – Abortion laws that once led to police raids and arrests may be scrapped

Abortion laws that once led to police raids and arrests may be scrapped

By Allyson Horn
Oct 15, 2018

Thirty-three years ago Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen ordered police raids on Queensland's abortion clinics because terminating a pregnancy was illegal.

Those laws have not changed for more than 100 years, but this week MPs will be asked to make abortion legal.

In 1985 police burst through the doors of the Greenslopes Fertility Control Clinic — one of Queensland's only abortion facilities.

Continued: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-16/abortion-laws-may-be-scrapped-in-queensland/10373646