Australia – These women were told their babies would not survive – but Catholic-run public hospitals refused to provide abortions

Both Jennifer and Amy were devastated when their wanted pregnancies were deemed unviable, but they were forced to go elsewhere when Catholic-run public hospitals would not terminate

by Donna Lu
Tue 5 Sep 2023

When Jennifer* fell pregnant for the first time in August 2019, there was no indication that anything was amiss. But the Melbourne-based healthcare worker was given bad news at her 12-week ultrasound scan: her foetus had a severe genetic condition.

“They detected a severe abnormality in the baby, which I already knew was a girl, so I’d already gotten a bit excited about having a daughter,” Jennifer recalls. “They said … essentially you could choose to bring the baby to term and give birth to her but if you do, she’ll be placed into palliative care immediately, so we’re recommending that you strongly consider a medical termination.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/05/the-women-refused-medical-terminations-abortions-catholic-public-hospitals-australia

USA – It’s Time to Call Abortion Bans What They Are—Torture and Cruelty

The US must learn from other countries where denials of abortion are considered intentional, state-inflicted torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

By Payal Shah and Akila Radhakrishnan
June 9, 2023

On August 24, 2022, Mayron Hollis sought an abortion after receiving news that her pregnancy was endangering her life and its continuation would likely result in uterine rupture and organ damage. Unfortunately, August 24 was also the day that Tennessee’s near-total ban on abortion went into effect. Denied care in her own state and unable to travel to one where she could get the care she needed, Hollis was forced to endure a dangerous pregnancy and birth, where she ultimately suffered severe hemorrhaging and lost her uterus, destroying her ability to give birth to any more children.

There are many terms to describe Mayron Hollis’s experience of being denied an abortion in Tennessee—harrowing, agonizing, unconscionable—but we should also call it what it is: torture and cruelty.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/abortion-bans-torture-cruelty/

You Are Not Owed a Reason for Somebody’s Abortion

For too long abortion stories were split into "good" and "bad." And as a journalist, I walked right into that trap.

By Caitlin Cruz
1/25/22

Kaia was nearly 42 when she learned her fetus had a chromosomal abnormality that would likely lead to a painful death. Liz found out she was pregnant right after a long-distance relationship ended. Ophelia, already perimenopausal, was raising two children with mood disorders. Natalie wanted to be homecoming queen. Dima knew the dude wasn’t right. Layidua was undocumented and attempting to change her immigration status after getting married. Yas was about to start her senior year of high school. Deb had just graduated college.

I have interviewed dozens and dozens of people who had abortions for dozens of articles. I have spoken to people who chose to self-manage their medication abortions at home, who chose first-trimester abortions in hospitals and clinics, who got later abortions, multiple abortions, secret abortions, people who got abortions as minors, whose fetus wouldn’t survive, who did it to protect their health, who didn’t want to be parents ever or just not right now, and who couldn’t afford the procedure. Every one of these safe and wanted abortions was a good abortion.

Continued: https://jezebel.com/you-are-not-owed-a-reason-for-somebodys-abortion-1848317442

25.01.2022

Featured

Opinion

abortion for rape and incest

balance in journalism

severe fetal abnormality

United States

Activism

Human Rights

The mental health cost of Poland’s abortion ban

Seven months after severe restrictions against abortion came into effect, women are struggling with the emotional toll of the near-total ban.

by Ylenia Gostoli
22 Aug 2021

When Dominika Biernat took to the streets last October, joining the huge public protests against Poland’s near-total ban on abortion, little did she know that in a few months she would become one of its victims.

A single woman and a successful actress with
one of Warsaw’s most renowned theatre companies, her pregnancy was not planned.
But the father was a good friend and when she found out, the 39-year-old
thought it could be one of her last chances to become a mother.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/8/22/the-mental-health-costs-of-polands-abortion-ban

22.08.2021

Commentary

Featured

Abortion Network Amsterdam

All-Poland Women's Strike

anti-choice misogyny

Catholic Church

conscientious objection

Dominika Biernat

Dr Maciej Socha

European Court of Human Rights

European Parliament

European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights

FEDERA

Federation of Women and Family Planning

Law and Justice party

Milena Kwiatkowska

Neil Datta

omphalocele

Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture

Ordo Iuris International Law Center

Poland Constitutional Tribunal

severe fetal abnormality

travelling for abortion

Abortion in Northern Ireland: at the interface between politics and law

22 March 2021
by Anurag Deb, UK Human Rights Blog

Abortion reform in Northern Ireland has had a fraught history, to say the least. Matters appeared to finally come to a head when in 2019, the UK Parliament enacted the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc.) Act 2019 (2019 Act), which created a duty on the Secretary of State to implement abortion reform by following the report of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination of Women (CtteEDAW). Nearly two years and two statutory instruments later, Stormont finds itself mired in fresh controversy as long-term abortion facilities in Northern Ireland have yet to be commissioned. So the obvious question arises: what happened?

Continued: https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2021/03/22/abortion-in-northern-ireland-at-the-interface-between-politics-and-law/

Poles protest abortion ban in churches and on streets

By VANESSA GERA
Oct 25, 2020

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Women’s rights activists furious over a tightening of Poland’s already restrictive abortion law staged protests outside and inside churches Sunday, disrupting Masses and finding themselves confronted with accusations of “barbaric” behavior.

With the coronavirus surging in Poland, large protests also erupted for a fourth straight night in cities large and small across the nation, including in Warsaw, Gdansk and Poznan, where police on horseback guarded a church.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/womens-rights-poland-europe-warsaw-0e63ff083f4a8efa3a98abab5e0fd6f9

Poland abortion ruling: Protests spread across the country

Oct 23, 2020

Thousands of women are protesting against Poland's new abortion laws in cities across the country.

A court ruling on Thursday banned almost all abortions - with exceptions only for cases of rape, incest, or where the mother's health is at risk.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54669257

Protesters gather after Polish court supports almost total ban on abortion

Curbing access to procedure a long-standing ambition of country's ruling party

Thomson Reuters
Posted: Oct 22, 2020

Protesters gathered across Poland on Thursday after the Constitutional Tribunal ruled that abortion due to fetal defects was unconstitutional, banning the most common of the few legal grounds for ending a pregnancy in the largely Catholic country.

After the ruling goes into effect, abortion will only be permissible in Poland in cases of rape, incest or when a mother's health and life are in danger, which make up only about two per cent of legal terminations conducted in recent years.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/poland-court-abortion-law-1.5773722

Poland’s top court rules out abortions due to fetal defects

Monika Scislowska, The Associated Press
Published Thursday, October 22, 2020

WARSAW, POLAND -- Poland's top court ruled Thursday that a law allowing abortion of fetuses with congenital defects is unconstitutional, shutting a major loophole in the predominantly Catholic country's abortion laws that are among the strictest in Europe.

Two judges in the 13-member constitutional Court did not back the majority ruling. Activists deplored the decision, and the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner wrote on Twitter that it was a "sad day for women's rights."

Continued: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/poland-s-top-court-rules-out-abortions-due-to-fetal-defects-1.5156017

Poland abortion: Top court ban almost all terminations

October 22, 2020

Poland's top court has ruled that abortions in cases of foetal defects are unconstitutional.

Poland's abortion laws were already among the strictest in Europe but the Constitutional Tribunal's ruling will mean an almost total ban.

Once the decision comes into effect, terminations will only be allowed in cases of rape or incest, or if the mother's health is at risk.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54642108