Research Supports Advocating for Safe Abortion

Research Supports Advocating for Safe Abortion
New research in ten countries reveals the challenges and opportunities for FIGO National Member Societies to advocate for safe abortion.

29.01.2020
FIGO

Each year, 25 million women and girls around the world undergo unsafe abortions, contributing to an estimated 13 percent of maternal mortality and resulting in long term injuries and infertility for millions more. These figures are unacceptably high and represent an avoidable, but often neglected, public health and women’s rights issue.

FIGO’s Advocating for Safe Abortion Project is supporting ten National Member Societies in Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Panama, Peru, Uganda and Zambia to advocate for safe abortion to the full extent of the law in their national contexts.

Continued: https://www.figo.org/news/research-supports-advocating-safe-abortion-0016316

Explained: Abortion Rights in Mexico and Latin America

Explained: Abortion Rights in Mexico and Latin America
Here are some key facts and figures for specific countries

By Amy Guthrie
Published Sep 29, 2019

Mexican women on Saturday marched for abortion rights, highlighting increased efforts across Latin America to lift some of the world's most restrictive abortion laws.

Efforts to legalize abortion have emerged in the region as some societies become more liberal and the Roman Catholic Church loses sway amid clerical sex abuse cases. Mexico City, along with Cuba and Uruguay, are the only places in the region where women can undergo abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy regardless of the circumstances.

Continued: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/Explained-Abortion-Rights-Mexico-Latin-America-561721361.html

USA – How many steps it takes to get an abortion in each state

How many steps it takes to get an abortion in each state

Orion Rummler, Aïda Amer
Aug 24, 2019
Data: Guttmacher Institute; Aïda Amer, Andrew Witherspoon

The most restrictive abortion laws in generations are working through the courts across America's red states, confusing some on whether abortion is legal where they live.

Where it stands: Women and transgender men must take 5-8 steps to get an abortion in the most heavily regulated states. They often have to wait at least 24 hours after seeking an abortion, attend counseling against the decision and take at least 2 trips to a facility — and in 6 states, only 1 such facility is available.

Continued: https://www.axios.com/steps-abortion-state-170f0083-a117-438c-9b90-da9105ce4683.html

The Roadmap to Safe Abortion Worldwide: Lessons from New Global Trends on Incidence, Legality and Safety

The Roadmap to Safe Abortion Worldwide: Lessons from New Global Trends on Incidence, Legality and Safety

Sneha Barot
Guttmacher Institute
First published online: March 20, 2018

The Trump administration and social conservatives in Congress are engaged in broad-based attacks on sexual and reproductive health and rights in the United States and globally. In the international sphere, the administration has imposed and expanded the global gag rule and defunded the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), while calling for outright elimination of all U.S. international family planning aid during its first year in office (see “When Antiabortion Ideology Turns into Foreign Policy: How the Global Gag Rule Erodes Health, Ethics and Democracy,” 2017, and “The Benefits of Investing in International Family Planning—and the Price of Slashing Funding,” 2017). At the heart of these attacks is an extreme animus toward abortion rights. Advocates for women’s health fear that these attacks will roll back improvements in sexual and reproductive health services that were built over decades. This is especially true in developing regions where unsafe abortion is a serious public health issue and the limited progress to date is in jeopardy.

continued: https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2018/03/roadmap-safe-abortion-worldwide-lessons-new-global-trends-incidence-legality-and-safety

Abortion rates go down when countries make it legal: report

Abortion rates go down when countries make it legal: report
Countries with stricter abortion laws have higher abortion rates

by Maggie Fox
Mar.20.2018

Abortion rates have fallen over the past 25 years, even as more countries have made the procedure legal and easier to get, according to a new report released Tuesday.

Countries with the most restrictive abortion laws also have the highest rates of abortion, the study by the Guttmacher Institute found. Easier access to birth control drives down abortion rates, the report also finds.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/abortion-rates-go-down-when-countries-make-it-legal-report-n858476

In Lesotho, women say they’re finding their abortions on Facebook

In Lesotho, women say they're finding their abortions on Facebook

Story by Rossalyn Warren, for CNN
Mar 7, 2018

Maseru, Lesotho — Mpho opened a new chat on WhatsApp, entered an unfamiliar number, and typed a question she never thought she would have to ask.

Mpho: When can I get the pills?
I'm 7 weeks pregnant.
Doctor: Tomorrow
1000LSL including womb cleaning.
Okay.
Does it hurt?
No. 9am tomorrow, come by then.

Mpho, who asked that CNN not use her real name, didn't know who she was talking to. She found the phone number on a Facebook post while searching for "abortion pills, Lesotho" online. The person reading her messages claimed to be a doctor.
In Lesotho, a remote country home to just 2.2 million people and surrounded by South Africa, abortion is strictly illegal, apart from in life-threatening cases.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/07/health/lesotho-abortions-asequals-intl/index.html

New report on women’s health criticises Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws

New report on women’s health criticises Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws
European Commissioner for Human Rights focuses on laws in Republic and North

Dec 5, 2017
Seán Dunne

A new report published by the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights has questioned Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws.

The report, ‘Women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights in Europe’, examines women’s health within the EU and looks at abortion services.

Continued at source: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/new-report-on-women-s-health-criticises-ireland-s-restrictive-abortion-laws-1.3316324