May 4, 2024
Kate Morgan, Communities correspondent
A woman who had to travel from Wales to England for an abortion says it made her experience more traumatic. Katie, 35 and from Cardiff, was thrilled to be pregnant with her first child, but a routine scan found a significant abnormality meaning her baby could not survive.
An abortion locally would have involved giving birth in a labour ward full of mothers and newborn babies, and Katie had to travel over the border for a surgical procedure.
Since Florida enacted a six-week abortion ban, clinics in several other Southern and mid-Atlantic states have sprung into action
By MAKIYA SEMINERA and GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press
May 4, 2024
RALEIGH, N.C. -- When Florida enacted its six-week abortion ban last week, clinics in several other Southern and mid-Atlantic states sprang into action, knowing women would look to them for services no longer available where they live.
Health care providers in North Carolina, three states to the north, are rushing to expand availability and decrease wait times. “We are already seeing appointments,” said Katherine Farris, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. “We have appointments on the books with patients who were unable to get in, in the last days of April in Florida.”
Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/florida-women-abortions-past-6-weeks-109936747
State’s fall as the last bastion of access to the procedure in the deep south means women will have to travel farther for care
Carter Sherman
Fri 3 May 2024
Rose hadn’t even missed her period when the thought hit her: “I need to take a test.” The Florida resident, who has two kids, had given birth just three months ago. She thought that she and her husband were being careful. But the pregnancy test confirmed her suspicion: she was pregnant and, she realized, didn’t want to be.
“It would just be a very big financial, physical, emotional strain,” said Rose, who asked to be identified by a nickname. Her last two pregnancies were enormously difficult and she feared for her health. She wants to be a tattoo artist, but she’s not working at the moment. Her husband has only recently started a new job. Rose continued: “I want to start a career and go to school and learn new things and it’s a lot harder with more kids. It’s already more difficult with the kids that I have.”
Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/03/florida-abortion-ban-clinic
By Marian Faa
2 May 2024
Photo story
The price of taboos
Around the world, heated debates about abortion are taking place. But in the Pacific, the topic is so taboo, only a handful of people are willing to talk about it. You’re about to hear from some of them.
WARNING: This story contains graphic details of sexual assault and violence against children.
Continued: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-03/pacific-abortion-taboo-women-laws-witch-doctor/103627236
April 29, 2024
A GNA Feature by Fatima Anafu-Astanga
Bolatanga – Agnes Malebna (Not real name) was rushed in by her family to the Tinguri CHPS Out Patients Department (OPD) in the West Mamprusi Municipality in the North East Region already emaciated, dehydrated and anaemic having lost so much blood.
The examination conducted by the medical team making efforts to keep her alive indicated it was an attempt to abort, which may have started at home by the 16-year-old, SHS form one student who felt she was still in school and too young to start making babies.
by Edith M. Lederer, The Associated Press
April 29, 2024
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Actor Ashley Judd, whose allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein helped spark the #MeToo movement, spoke out Monday on the rights of women and girls to control their own bodies and be free from male violence.
A goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Population Fund, she addressed the U.N. General Assembly’s commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the landmark document adopted by 179 countries at its 1994 conference in Cairo, which for the first time recognized that women have the right to control their reproductive and sexual health – and to choose if and when to become pregnant.
Monday, April 29th, 2024
By George Kebaso
Remove hurdles that stand in the way of safe abortion for women in the country, especially teenagers, a group of civil society organisations and individual pharmacists have urged the government.
The argument is that even as the country’s laws have criminalised abortion, unintended pregnancies among young women in Kenya are still on the spiral, same as unsafe terminations of pregnancies, and increased trips to pharmacies for emergency contraceptives.
Apr 29, 2024
Deciding to have an abortion is a deeply personal choice, and so is what comes next: determining the type of abortion that’s best for you. UBC PhD student Kate Wahl wants to help Canadians navigate that decision. She’s developed It’s My Choice, Canada’s first interactive website aimed at helping people identify the abortion option that best fits their values and circumstances.
Hosted by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC), the tool integrates the best available evidence on the two methods of abortion available in Canada: the abortion pill and abortion procedure. Users learn what to expect from each option, and after completing a secure and anonymous questionnaire, receive a personalized recommendation designed to support conversations with their healthcare provider.
Continued: https://news.ubc.ca/2024/04/29/student-develops-website-to-help-choose-the-right-type-of-abortion/
Researchers are calling for the retraction of misleading anti-abortion studies that could influence judges in critical cases
Jessica Glenza
Sun 28 Apr 2024
The retraction of three peer-reviewed articles prominently cited in court cases on the so-called abortion pill – mifepristone – has put a group of papers by anti-abortion researchers in the scientific limelight.
Seventeen sexual and reproductive health researchers are calling for four peer-reviewed studies by anti-abortion researchers to be retracted or amended. The papers, critics contend, are “fatally flawed” and muddy the scientific consensus for courts and lawmakers who lack the scientific training to understand their methodological flaws.
Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/28/junk-science-papers-abortion-cases
Kate Gargano
April 27, 2024
The nature and wording of Kenyan abortion laws which prevent women from receiving safe abortions have recently come into question. As of 2010, Kenya’s constitution was revised to allow for abortions when the life of the mother is in danger or when the pregnancy was a result of rape and/or incest. However, legal avenues to receive an abortion continue to be restricted. Arbitrary enforcement of the pre-2010 constitution’s anti-abortion rhetoric, which not only banned abortions but also sought to punish those who performed them, causes confusion as to the procedure’s legality. Thus, doctors refrain from offering abortion procedures – forcing women, especially the impoverished and those living outside the capital, to resort to backstreet methods to receive the abortions they need. This discrepancy between what the law theoretically allows and the measures that are feasibly possible for someone in need to take has promoted a culture of precarity and fear for women and their advocates.
Continued: https://theowp.org/ambiguous-abortion-laws-threaten-kenyan-women/
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