India – Women, uninterrupted

Access to contraception and abortion services must be continuous

AUGUST 24, 2020

Among the more serious ramifications of the pandemic has been the rather extensive, even if unintended, disruption of health-care services. Normal life has been crippled by the restrictions flowing from control measures, and access to medical services has become infinitely tougher for a vast majority. The scale of the impact on women’s lives is only now being recognised, as global reports of inability to access contraceptives and abortion services during the long lockdown warn of dire consequences, including unwanted pregnancies, increase in domestic violence, and maternal mortality.

Continued: https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/women-uninterrupted/article32424024.ece

23.08.2020

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The Sexual-Health Supply Chain Is Broken

The Sexual-Health Supply Chain Is Broken
Condoms, birth control, and other items are harder to get in the developing world because of the pandemic. That is putting lives at risk.

Anna Louie Sussman
June 8, 2020

It took Dimos Sakellaridis about six years to build Kiss condoms into one of Nigeria’s top brands, with approximately 91 million sold in 2019. The prophylactics are available in shops, markets, and kiosks across the country, and a combination of irreverent advertising, a growing population of young people, and a greater understanding of reproductive health within Nigeria has meant his sales have steadily risen.

But if he can’t get a shipment of 12 million condoms (and 4 million packs of birth-control pills) out of the Lagos port soon, those stocks will run out. And unfortunately for Sakellaridis, it makes no difference to the customs authorities, who are working their way through a backlog of containers, that ordinary Nigerians depend on Sakellaridis’s stranded cargo to prevent unwanted pregnancies and stop the spread of sexually transmitted infections. All he can do is wait—and he is not alone.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/06/coronavirus-pandemic-sex-health-condoms-reproductive-health/612298/

USA – States That Use COVID-19 To Ban Abortion Increase Our Risks, Hardships And Fear Nationwide

States That Use COVID-19 To Ban Abortion Increase Our Risks, Hardships And Fear Nationwide

Janet Burns, Senior Contributor
April 12, 2020

For the past few weeks, lawmakers in a growing number of US states have taken it upon themselves to restrict abortion during the COVID-19 pandemic by deeming that care “nonessential,” despite medical experts’ explicit warnings not to.

As US states have rushed to define and maintain their own responses to the global viral disease outbreak, numerous state lawmakers have chosen the extra step of declaring virtually all abortion care or procedures “nonessential,” rather than letting doctors decide (along with patients) what’s essential and safe right now.

Continued: https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2020/04/11/states-using-covid-19-to-ban-abortion-increase-everyones-risks-and-hardships-in-a-crisis/#35d56106aa8c

Pandemic further hinders safe abortion in Latin America

Pandemic further hinders safe abortion in Latin America

By Carlos Christian
April 9, 2020

Calls decreased, but text messages increased. They cannot speak because they hear them. They cannot say in front of their families that they seek help, that they need to abort. Las Comadres, a feminist network in Ecuador that provides information to women who want to terminate their pregnancies with drugs, has had to change its communication channels in recent weeks. Telephone calls are becoming increasingly difficult. Isolation, imposed as a mitigation measure by Covid-19, has limited the freedom of those seeking access to an abortion, but not the determination of those who are determined to do so.

Verónica Vera, one of the sixty Ecuadorians who responds to requests for accompaniment, now through platforms such as Telegram, says that in March requests for support increased by 25%. Women who want to abort will do so even in a health emergency, and the public health system in Latin America seems not ready to respond. “The difficulty of mobilizing due to the measures adopted by the pandemic, the collapsed medical services and the lack of privacy within prolonged confinements could lead to a setback in Latin America,” he warns.

Continued: https://theunionjournal.com/pandemic-further-hinders-safe-abortion-in-latin-america-society/

Women face ‘catastrophic’ risks as thousands of sexual health clinics close

Women face 'catastrophic' risks as thousands of sexual health clinics close

Amber Milne
April 9, 2020

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - More than 5,600 sexual health clinics have shut due to the new coronavirus, risking more deaths from unsafe abortions and denying women access to HIV tests and drugs, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) said on Thursday.

The world’s largest sexual and reproductive health charity said COVID-19 lockdowns, social distancing and staff shortages had closed about one in seven of its members’ clinics, which also offer gender-based violence support and abortion care.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-women-trfn/women-face-catastrophic-risks-as-thousands-of-sexual-health-clinics-close-idUSKCN21R39C

The Pandemic Means More People May Be Giving Themselves Abortions

The Pandemic Means More People May Be Giving Themselves Abortions
But the abortion pill sites people rely on are in jeopardy.

by Marie Solis
Apr 8 2020

The first time H* needed an abortion, she drove about two hours to the nearest clinic and back, waited 48 hours—the required waiting period for anyone in Tennessee seeking an abortion—then went back and paid more than $700 for the procedure. That’s not counting gas money for eight hours of driving, or the wages she lost when she took time off from her hourly job for the appointment.

In March, she learned she was pregnant again, and found herself confronting many of the same barriers to getting an abortion: The clinic was still far away, the procedure was still costly, and she would still have to take off a day or two to account for the waiting period and the drives to and from the clinic.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/g5xezx/abortion-pill-sites-still-shipping-during-coronavirus-aid-access

International Call to Action: We Need a Rational Policy for Safe Abortion in Every Country NOW!

AN INTERNATIONAL CALL TO ACTION
TO: Women, Health Systems, Governments, UN Human Rights Bodies and WHO

27 March 2020
by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion

We Need a Rational Policy for Safe Abortion in Every Country NOW!

Every day, in every country of the world, women have abortions. Each year, globally, there are 56 million abortions, or an average of 154,000 abortions every single day. Some 45% of those abortions are still unsafe in spite of 100 years of national and international campaigns for safe, legal abortions.

In almost every country, even where abortions are safe, access to abortion is restricted by antediluvian, punitive and medically unnecessary laws and regulations. The only way many women manage to have abortions at all is if they or an abortion care provider breaks the law in some minor or major way – 25 million times each year if we count only the unsafe abortions. The serious effect of the COVID-19 virus on all our lives has put this absurdity into sharp relief.

Continued: https://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/newsletter-27-march-2020?e=372dd34034

27.03.2020

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Ireland – Coronavirus: Concern crisis could prevent timely access to abortion services

Coronavirus: Concern crisis could prevent timely access to abortion services
Women’s groups say need to visit a GP twice in three days ‘irreconcilable’ with restricted travel

Fri, Mar 27, 2020
Kitty Holland, Social Affairs Correspondent

Doctors and women’s groups are concerned that timely access to abortion services could be compromised during the coronavirus outbreak.

They say the legal requirement that a woman seeking an early medical abortion (before 12 weeks) must make two GP visits, three days apart, is “irreconcilable” with current public health advice to avoid all but essential travel.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/coronavirus-concern-crisis-could-prevent-timely-access-to-abortion-services-1.4213703

How COVID-19 Is Making It Harder To Get An Abortion In Canada

How COVID-19 Is Making It Harder To Get An Abortion In Canada

Leah Rumack
Last Updated March 26, 2020

The panicked calls about accessing abortions during the COVID-19 pandemic started coming in to the Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights hotline last week, and they haven’t stopped. “People are worried they won’t be able to get to their appointments, or that they won’t be able to even schedule appointments because they’re in quarantine,” says Frédérique Chabot, director of health promotion for the reproductive rights non-profit. “There’s a lot of anxiety.”

Understandably so. In a country where access to abortion — a legal, medical service — is already hit or miss, the potential closure of clinics and the scaling back of services is another looming barrier. And while Canadians likely won’t ever face a situation like women in Ohio or Texas — where anti-choice politicians are using COVID-19 as a completely transparent ruse to stop or indefinitely “postpone” abortions — there’s a very real concern that reproductive healthcare is going to slip down the priority list as the pandemic deepens and resources are stretched thin. “We can’t treat abortion as if this isn’t as urgent as COVID-19,” says Chabot. “It’s so time-sensitive and has such huge consequences, not like other elective surgeries.”

Continued: https://www.refinery29.com/en-ca/abortion-clinic-canada-pill-access-covid-19

USA – Abortion Foes Use the Pandemic as an Excuse

Abortion Foes Use the Pandemic as an Excuse
Officials hope to achieve their goal of effectively banning the procedure.

March 26, 2020
Katha Pollitt

Who would have thought COVID-19 would give anti-abortion forces the quick victory they could not win in the courts, in the legislative process, or through the deployment of screaming protesters outside clinics? Claiming abortion is a nonessential service that can be postponed so that the clinics’ medical resources can be used to fight the coronavirus, officials in Texas, Ohio, and Louisiana have moved to severely restrict or cut off abortion services completely; the governor of Mississippi announced his intention this week to do the same. Opponents of women’s reproductive rights hope to achieve, with the stroke of a pen, their dream of making states abortion-free.

For patients at these clinics, the situation is terrifying. “We have patients crying on the phone and staff crying with them,” Kathaleen Pittman, the director of Hope Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana, told me. “This is hard. So hard.” The clinic is open but has postponed all of its appointments. “We’re looking at all our options,” Pittman said.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/abortion-opponents-take-advantage-crisis/608758/