Forced Pregnancy Is Involuntary Servitude, Violates the 13th Amendment

5/23/2022
by CARRIE N. BAKER

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.“
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The draft Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization leaked this month gives America a glimpse into a dystopian future where the Constitution would offer no protection for women’s rights—including abortion rights—because they are not “deeply rooted in the country’s history and traditions.”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2022/05/23/abortion-bans-13th-amendment/

23.05.2022

involuntary servitude

reproductive coercion

United States

Health

Human Rights

UK – Married civil servant accused of lacing lover’s drink with abortion drug

Laura Slade says she found powdery residue at the bottom of the glass after he insisted she drink from it

Caroline Davies and agency
Tue 26 Apr 2022

A woman who became pregnant during an affair with a married senior civil servant told a court he looked “very flustered” before preparing a drink for her allegedly spiked with an abortion drug.

Darren Burke, 43, a deputy director for the emergency services mobile communications programme at the Home Office, is accused of trying to cause Laura Slade’s miscarriage.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/26/married-civil-servant-accused-of-lacing-mistresss-drink-with-anti-abortion-drug

26.04.2022

reproductive coercion

Europe

United Kingdom

Health

USA – Harassment at Abortion Clinics Is Already Bad. It’s Worse When You’re Black.

We need to explicitly name white supremacy and racism as the core drivers of abortion bans and restrictions, as well as violence and harassment.

Apr 21, 2022
MiQuel Davies, Rewire News

Abortion providers and people accessing abortion care are at high risk of violence and harassment. We know this from the well-documented history of providers being murdered, clinics dealing with arson and regular hate mail, and protesters stationed daily outside many abortion clinics, where they harass providers and patients.

What we don’t always talk about—or name explicitly—is that the violence and harassment faced by patients and providers who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color is often heightened and racialized. At Physicians for Reproductive Health, we know this is true from the countless experiences of physicians in our network as well as those working day to day on the ground, especially in hostile states. Unfortunately, this reality is often dismissed or minimized in an attempt to disassociate racism and white supremacy from attacks on abortion rights.
Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2022/04/21/harassment-at-abortion-clinics-is-already-bad-its-worse-when-youre-black/

Black women fear the steady rise in abortion restrictions across the US will worsen maternal health crisis

By Maya Brown, CNN
Sun April 17, 2022

(CNN) Mckayla Wilkes remembers repeatedly complaining of shortness of breath to her doctors during her entire pregnancy seven years ago.

But she says no one listened. Her concerns were consistently dismissed or minimized while she was pregnant with her daughter, Madison, who is now 6.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/17/us/abortion-restrictions-black-maternal-health/index.html

USA – Why the Hyde Amendment and other barriers to reproductive care lead to more domestic violence

Hyde binds the seemingly separable issues of pregnancy, domestic abuse, poverty, and the global pandemic

By KYLIE CHEUNG
PUBLISHED AUGUST 28, 2021

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed a historic budget that didn't include the Hyde Amendment, a budget rider that's severely restricted coverage of abortion care by withholding federal funding since 1976. Of course, the gift of hindsight shows us celebrations of this monumental moment proved slightly premature, when it was quietly undone with a single stroke on Aug. 10.

By a narrow margin, determined as ever to deny us good things, the US Senate adopted an amendment to restore Hyde to the budget, and usher in yet another year of abortion care being all but banned for those who are struggling financially. Today, despite the relative quietness and feelings of helplessness attached to this loss for reproductive justice, we're closer than ever to eliminating Hyde, and there's too much at stake — especially for many victims of domestic abuse — to give up now.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2021/08/28/why-the-hyde-amendment-and-other-barriers-to-reproductive-care-lead-to-more-domestic-violence/

India – Woman Forced To Undergo Abortion 8 Times and Given Steroids For Conceiving Male Child

DIPANWITA
Updated On August 17, 2021

Forced abortion: A 40-year-old woman from Dadar, Mumbai was forced by her husband to abort her foetus eight times because he of his preference for a male child.

The woman has now filed a complaint with the police. In her complaint, the woman said that her husband started to abuse her physically, saying that he wanted a son to protect his family and property. They reportedly got married in 2017. The woman’s husband and mother-in-law are reportedly lawyers and her sister-in-law is a doctor.

Continued: https://www.shethepeople.tv/news/mumbai-woman-underwent-forced-abortion/

17.08.2021

News

forced abortion

Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act

reproductive coercion

USA – Banning Abortion Doesn’t Protect Women’s Health

July 9, 2021
By Michele Goodwin
New York Times

During its coming term, the United States Supreme Court will review the constitutionality of a Mississippi anti-abortion law that criminalizes abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Already in Mississippi, only one abortion clinic remains to serve the entire state. This new law, one of the most restrictive anti-abortion measures yet, provides no exemptions in cases of rape or incest. Many see it as the gravest threat to Roe v. Wade ever taken up by the Supreme Court. They are not wrong.

But this effort to dismantle Roe is not new, nor is it isolated. More than 550 anti-abortion restrictions have been put in place across the country since 2011. Each is part of a concerted, sweeping effort across Republican-dominated state legislatures to dismantle reproductive rights — often presented in the name of protecting women. Take Mississippi’s Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who argued that “the Mississippi Legislature enacted this law … to promote women’s health and preserve the dignity and sanctity of life.”

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/opinion/roe-abortion-supreme-court.html

10.07.2021

anti-choice restrictions

black women and abortion

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

forced sterilizations

maternal deaths

maternal mortality

Mississippi Maternal Mortality Report

reproductive coercion

Roe v. Wade

systemic racism

U.S. Supreme Court

The History of Coercion Dressed Up As Care Is a Long One

BY ELINOR CLEGHORN, Vogue
June 25, 2021

“I have a lot to say, so bear with me,” Britney Spears said as she began her testimony against the conservatorship that has controlled her since 2008. By now, the transcript of Spears’s 24-minute account—given over the telephone to L.A. probate judge Barbara Penny this past Wednesday—has been shared across the world, inciting fans and allies to call for the court to finally #freebritney.

This was the first time Spears had spoken out
at length about the hold the conservatorship has issued over her life, art,
finances, and even her own body. As well as alleging that she was forced to
work “seven days a week, with no days off,” Spears claimed that her body had
been policed through medical interventions she had no choice but to endure.

Continued: https://www.vogue.com/article/history-of-reproductive-coercion-britney-spears-conservatorship

25.06.2021

reproductive coercion

India – Woman survives botched abortion of female foetus

The surgery was carried out by a quack

JUNE 16, 2021

Vijayapura police have booked a man and his associates for causing injury to his wife by forcefully aborting her foetus because he did not want a girl child.

Vijayalakshmi Hadapad suffered blood loss during surgery by a quack. She is now recuperating in a private clinic.

Continued: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/woman-survives-botched-abortion-of-female-foetus/article34831843.ece

16.06.2021

News

Aravind Hadapad

forced abortion

reproductive coercion

sex selection abortion

Ireland – Garda in the clear after ‘abortion pills’ inquiry

Senior officer was investigated by GSOC and the force

Ali Bracken
May 16 2021

A senior garda accused of trying to force a woman he had sex with to take illegal abortion pills has been cleared of any wrongdoing by an internal disciplinary inquiry.

The accusations against the officer had been subject of a garda ombudsman investigation a number of years ago.

Continued: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/garda-in-the-clear-after-abortion-pills-inquiry-40430368.html

16.05.2021