Training helps improve abortion and contraceptive care in marginalized and humanitarian settings in Nigeria

Rachel Ogunlana, IPAS Nigeria
May 22, 2025

In the aftermath of humanitarian crises, many communities are forced out of their settlements, increasing their vulnerability. In such challenging environments, transactional sex for food is the norm, and consequently, increased instances of rape and forced marriages. The need for access to abortion and contraception services is critical in these settings. It’s also important that within healthcare facilities, healthcare workers are equipped to provide these services.

The Ipas Nigeria project, “Improving Reproductive Autonomy for Women and Girls in Nigeria”, addresses this need. It provides training to humanitarian and health care workers to offer responsive care to women and girls who have experienced sexual violence in humanitarian settings.

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/abortion-contraceptive-humanitarian-nigeria/

22.05.2025

Commentary

Improving Reproductive Autonomy for Women and Girls in Nigeria

Ipas Nigeria

manual vacuum aspiration

Abortion Pills Aren’t Uncomfortable; Censorship Is

Here's my message to The Times-Picayune and every other institution that finds truth "uncomfortable": Get comfortable with discomfort. Because abortion pills aren't going anywhere.

Liv Raisner, Common Dreams
May 22, 2025

So here's what happened. We—Mayday Health, an abortion education nonprofit—tried to buy a newspaper ad in The Times-Picayune of New Orleans. The ad featured just a few words: "Abortion pills are more popular than ever. Thanks, Amy" with a photo of Amy Coney Barrett, who was born in New Orleans.

The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, Louisiana said… no. They refused to publish. They sent us a rejection letter assuring us that they "support First Amendment free speech," of course. They just find our particular speech too "uncomfortable."

Uncomfortable.
Let me tell you about uncomfortable.

Continued: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/abortion-pills-censorship

22.05.2025

Opinion

abortion pills

Amy Coney Barrett

censorship of abortion ads

Liv Raisner

Mayday Health

pro-choice billboards

Spotify Rapist Playlist

United States

Activism

Human Rights

Her miscarriage showed the limits of California’s abortion protections. Where you live matters

May 21, 2025
By Kristen Hwang, CalMatters

Anna Nusslock never wanted to be the face of a new kind of reproductive rights battle in California, but when a small Catholic hospital refused to provide an abortion that would end her miscarriage, Nusslock girded herself for a long and difficult conflict.

Nusslock felt her civil rights were being violated, she said, even as she lay in the hospital bed curled in on herself, bleeding and mourning the loss of her twin girls. The doctor had said that her pregnancy needed to be terminated immediately to protect her from infection and other serious complications but hospital policy prohibited it, according to two lawsuits filed by Nusslock and California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

Continued: https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/05/21/her-miscarriage-showed-the-limits-of-californias-abortion-protections-where-you-live-matters/

Colombia’s push for safe abortion access

Michelle Begue
May 21, 2025
Video: 2:47 minutes

Colombia has been pushing for citizens to have better access to safe abortions. In 2022, the country witnessed a landmark ruling where the Constitutional Court made abortions legal before the 24th week of gestation. Three years later, more than 150,000 women have exercised their right to a safe abortion.

Continued: https://america.cgtn.com/2025/05/21/colombias-push-for-safe-abortion-access

21.05.2025

Videos/Images

Colombia Constitutional Court

Diana Moreno

La Mesa

Laura Castro Gonzalez

UK – Shocking new rules mean police can now access your period app — 3 ways to protect yourself

What the new guidelines mean – and how to safeguard your data

By Chloe Gray
21 May 2025

Experts are saying they will 'aggressively challenge' new police guidance suggesting women’s homes should be searched for abortion drugs and phones checked for menstrual cycle tracking apps after unexpected pregnancy loss.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has said that investigators looking into the causes of stillbirth and miscarriage should look at digital devices to 'establish a woman’s knowledge and intention in relation to the pregnancy.'

Continued: https://www.womenshealthmag.com/uk/health/female-health/a64813827/police-menstrual-tracking-apps-miscarriage-abortion/

Why teenage pregnancy is on the rise in Nigeria – Expert

May 21, 2025
Vanguard

Mrs Roseline Akinlabi, Adolescent Desk Officer, Osun Primary Health Care Board, says that child marriage and peer pressure are some factors responsible for increase in teenage pregnancy in the country.

Akinlabi said this during an enlightenment programme organised by a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), The Challenge Initiative (TCI), on Wednesday in Osogbo.

Continued: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/05/why-teenage-pregnancy-is-on-the-rise-in-nigeria-expert/

21.05.2025

adolescent pregnancy

child marriage

Ouson Primary Health Care Board

Roseline Akinlabi

The Challenge Initiative

UNICEF

United Nations Children’s Fund

UK – State and federal MPs describe death threats and vile abuse in wake of Joanna Howe’s anti-abortion campaign

Representatives around the country say third parties sent abusive messages after they were targeted for their stance on abortion

Tory Shepherd
Wed 21 May 2025

State and federal MPs around the country say they and their staff have received death threats from third parties amid controversy generated by the self-described “assertiveness” of the anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe.

Howe, an expert in migration law at the University of Adelaide, has campaigned for anti-abortion laws in various state parliaments, and this month organised a rally – attended by the former prime minister Tony Abbott – against NSW reforms to improve access to services. She said on social media people “need to be hysterical” about the bill, which represented what she called “an extreme, radical takeover of our country”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/21/state-and-federal-mps-describe-death-threats-and-vile-abuse-in-wake-of-joanna-howes-anti-abortion-campaign-ntwnfb

Going abroad to get an abortion, a struggle for thousands of women in Europe

“Exporting Abortion”, a transnational investigation, reveals that more than 5,000 women in Europe have to travel abroad each year to access abortion services due to obstacles they face in exercising this right in their home country.

20 May 2025
Francesca Barca, Translated by Ciarán Lawless

On 24 April of this year the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) My Voice, My Choice came to a close. The initiative attracted around 1.2 million signatures: a remarkable success for an ECI – a mechanism that calls the European Commission to propose a legal act in an area where the member countries delegated powers to the EU, provided it collects enough signatures. The campaign demanded a financing mechanism to guarantee safe abortion care for all those without access to such services.

Current laws and practices, it seems, are far removed from what civil society knows to be the reality.

Continued: https://voxeurop.eu/en/abortion-abroad-struggle-women-europe/

Report: Abortion Providers Are Confronting a New Wave of Extremism

“It shouldn’t take someone being murdered for a law to be enforced.”

Laura C. Morel, Mother Jones
May 20, 2025

In November 2023, while an abortion provider in the South was on vacation, someone broke into their home, shattered the windows, and scribbled “Baby Killer” on a whiteboard. The case is still open.

That same year, a man crashed his car into a new abortion clinic in Danville, Illinois, trying to start a fire. A few months after that, someone left a one-star Google review for a Florida clinic that read, “I have a bomb waiting to go off.” The clinic was evacuated and the FBI was called to investigate.

These incidents, highlighted in a recent report from the National Abortion Federation, are among hundreds of threats and attacks experienced by abortion providers across the US in the nearly three years since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/05/report-abortion-providers-clinic-attacks-are-confronting-a-wave-of-extremism-violence/

20.05.2025

Commentary

anti-choice hatred

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice terrorism

anti-choice violence

FACE Act

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act

Melissa Fowler

National Abortion Federation

United States

Anti-choice

Why so many newborns and foetuses are abandoned in landfills and the veld

By Bhekisisa Team
May 19, 2025

They were wrapped in plastic or foil or a piece of clothing, tucked inside a backpack or pulled from a burnt pile of rubbish. Those were some of the ways the remains of newborns and foetuses were found before being taken to the Diepkloof Forensic Pathology Service in Soweto.

Although discoveries like these rarely make the news, they are a regular occurrence. The bodies are found in open veld, public toilets and landfills across South Africa.

To help figure out why, researchers from Wits University gathered data about the remains that landed up at the Diepkloof facility from 2020 to 2021 and in 2023. They hope by tracking where the bodies were found and the causes of death, they will better understand why so many women take desperate measures instead of seeking legal and safe abortions.

Continued: https://mg.co.za/health/2025-05-19-why-so-many-newborns-and-foetuses-are-abandoned-in-landfills-and-the-veld/

20.05.2025