Unsafe Abortions, Inaccessibility, & Stigma: A Look Into India’s Abortion Scenario

By Janees Rafiq
26th October, 2020

Unsafe abortions have devastating effects on women’s health. Every year around 42 million women with unintended pregnancies choose abortion. Nearly half of these procedures that about 20 million abortions are unsafe. Around 68,000 women die because of unsafe abortions, making it one of the causes of increasing maternal mortality rate. Of women who survive unsafe abortions, 5 million suffer long-term health complications. Unsafe abortion is thus a pressing issue.

While some abortions are self-induced, most of them are performed by providers lacking required qualifications and skills to perform abortions and hence termed unsafe WHO defines unsafe abortion as a procedure for terminating an unintended pregnancy carried out either by persons lacking skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimal medical standards or both. According to WHO, every 8 minutes, a woman in a developing country dies due to complications arising out of unsafe abortions.

Continued: https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2020/10/unsafe-abortions-a-threat-to-womans-life/

Philippines – Why we need to decriminalize abortion

SEP 28, 2020
CLAIRE PADILLA

The restrictive, colonial, and archaic 1930 Revised Penal Code abortion law has never reduced the number of women inducing abortion. It has only endangered the lives of hundreds of thousands of Filipino women who have made personal decisions to induce abortion for various reasons (economic - 75%; too young, under 25 years old - 46%; health reasons - one-third; rape - 13%) but are unable to access safe abortion services.

No restrictive law nor religious dogma has stopped these Filipino women, especially poor women with at least 3 children, to end their unintended or unwanted pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.rappler.com/voices/thought-leaders/opinion-why-we-need-decriminalize-abortion

Nepal – For safe abortion practices

Published: September 16, 2020
DR TULA KRISHNA GUPTA

In February this year, a 20-year-old unmarried woman was brought to our emergency ward with abdominal pain and rash on her legs and lower abdomen. Her blood pressure was almost unrecordable. It was clear from her appearance that she suffered from disseminated intravascular coagulation, a complication of severe infection. The rashes on her body were, in fact, bleeding underneath her skin.

While examining her it was found that her genital area had many old infected lacerated wounds. The smell of pus was evident despite our N95 masks. An ultrasound test revealed the retained product of conception inside her uterus. These are the tell-tale signs of septic abortion.

Continued: https://thehimalayantimes.com/opinion/for-safe-abortion-practices/

Kenya – Unsafe abortion: The problem nobody wants to talk about

Unsafe abortion: The problem nobody wants to
talk about

By MERCY KAHENDA AND SAADA HASSAN
August 31st 2020

The images still sneak up to her when she least expects. They come unannounced,
and they torture her. Eve never imagined that the process of trying to get rid
of an unplanned baby could leave her with physical and emotional scars that
have refused to go away.

When she speaks of abortion, she whispers. The shame she feels lingers in every
word she utters.

“I get bad dreams and I am haunted by the
act,” she says.

Continued: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/the-standard-insider/article/2001384569/unsafe-abortion-the-problem-nobody-wants-to-talk-about

Latin America – Covid-19 hospital beds and abortion

There is hard evidence that the pandemic presents a heightened risk to reproductive health

DEBORA DINIZ and GISELLE CARINO
31 JUL 2020

“Abortion is a public health matter,” scientists say. This notion seems a bit abstract – how can a criminalized practice constitute a public health need? The Covid-19 pandemic is a teachable moment. But it is the teaching of horror: according to the World Health Organization, thousands of women visit health services every month to receive care for incomplete abortions. In Argentina, the figure was 3,330 women; in Chile, 1,522; in Colombia, 7,778; and in Mexico, 18,285, in different years. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 760,000 women in Latin America and the Caribbean are treated annually at healthcare services because of complications from unsafe abortions, averaging out to 63,000 beds a month. When a woman goes to a hospital for complications from an unsafe abortion, she might end up needing a bed twice: once, to treat the unsafe abortion and next, to be treated for the Covid-19 she contracted in the hospital.

Continued: https://english.elpais.com/opinion/2020-07-31/covid-19-hospital-beds-and-abortion.html

Zimbabwe – Woman Battling For Life After Terminating Pregnancy Arrested At Hospital

Woman Battling For Life After Terminating Pregnancy Arrested At Hospital

By Andrew
On Mar 23, 2020

A 23-year-old Hwange woman who suffered massive complications after terminating a pregnancy was arrested on her hospital bed after the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) officers pounced on her following a police report. The woman, Shyleen Ncube, 23, of Shangano village in Dete was arrested on Saturday at St Patrick’s Hospital in Hwange where she is currently admitted. She was charged with unlawful termination of pregnancy but is yet to appear in court.

According to reports from NewZimbabwe, Ncube unlawfully terminated her pregnancy and then buried the fetus in a shallow grave near her house. She later fell ill after the unsafe abortion procedure. She was then rushed to the hospital for immediate medical attention.

Continued: https://iharare.com/woman-arrested-in-hospital-for-terminating-pregnancy/

23.03.2020

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Kenya split over campaign to give women the right to safe abortions

Kenya split over campaign to give women the right to safe abortions
MP Esther Passaris says lives are being put at risk in a country where 40% of pregnancies are unplanned

Ginger Hervey in Nairobi
Tue 17 Mar 2020

The pills arrived with no instructions. Delivered on a Sunday to Joy’s home in Kayole, an informal settlement in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, by someone she didn’t know.

She had ordered them because she was pregnant, and didn’t want to be. At 19, she said, she couldn’t support a baby, and the father had stopped answering his phone after she told him. Desperate, she had asked an older friend, who said she knew someone who could help.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/17/kenya-split-over-campaign-to-give-women-the-right-to-safe-abortions

The informal networks resisting Honduras’s abortion ban

The informal networks resisting Honduras's abortion ban
Through hotlines and clinics, activists and health experts are trying to change the stigma associated with abortion.

Anna-Cat Brigida
July 12, 2019

Tegucigalpa, Honduras - At 22 years old, Ana Padilla was certain of one thing: she did not want to be a mother. So when she found out she was pregnant six years ago, she frantically called a friend to see if she knew how to get an abortion, which is illegal under all circumstances in Honduras. The friend calmed her nerves and gave her the phone number of someone she knew who clandestinely sold mifepristone and misoprostol, pills used for at-home abortions.

"I was desperate in that moment," says Padilla, adding that the experience of buying the pills was "mysterious", like a drug deal.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/informal-networks-resisting-honduras-abortion-ban-190712162754747.html

Unsafe abortion: 13-year-old girl’s life hangs by thread in Banke, Western Nepal

Unsafe abortion: 13-year-old girl’s life hangs by thread in Banke, Western Nepal

May 15th, 2019

BANKE: A 13-year-old girl in Nepalgunj sub-metropolitan city in Banke, in Western Nepal who conceived a baby after being sexually exploited by yet-to-be identified person has her life at stake after she attempted an unsafe abortion.

According to the District Police Office, Banke 8th-grader Alina (name changed) had attempted to terminate the three-month-old baby through medication abortion process.

She suffered excessive bleeding thereafter. Superintendent of Police (SP) Arun Poudel shared the girl was currently receiving treatment at Nepalgunj Medical College Teaching Hospital at Kohalpur.

She was rescued from Nepalgunj sub-metropolitan city-10 during police’s routine patrolling, shared SP Poudel, adding she was immediately admitted to the hospital given her critical health condition.

Police have already contacted her family and launching investigation into the case relating to the girl’s unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion.

Police has also urged those with AB negative blood group to donate blood for the girl who only has 2.7 pints of blood left in her body, according to the hospital.

Source: https://www.nepal24hours.com/unsafe-abortion-13-year-old-girls-life-hangs-by-thread-in-banke-western-nepal/

15.05.2019

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Arun Poudel

Nepalgunj Medical College Teaching Hospital

unsafe abortion complications

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Africa should review legal restrictions on abortion to save lives

Africa should review legal restrictions on abortion to save lives
Lives are lost when women seek help from untrained personnel to avoid facing the law

by DANIEL OTIENO, Star Blogs
01 May 2019

The annual hospitalisation rate for complications from unsafe abortion in Uganda is estimated at12 per 1,000 women aged between 15 and 49, down from 15 per 1,000 in 2003.

Kenya spent Sh533 million last year to treat complications related to unsafe abortion. In Rwanda half of all abortions are done by untrained individuals.

Continued: https://www.the-star.co.ke/opinion/star-blogs/2019-05-01-africa-should-review-legal-restrictions-on-abortion-to-save-lives/

01.05.2019