South Africa’s Liberal Abortion Laws Affected by Public Disapproval
March 31, 2019
“Precious” is 26-years-old and 16 weeks pregnant. She asked VOA to call her by that name to protect her identity.
Her best friend is also pregnant by the same man – a man Precious once considered her boyfriend. This information led her to the difficult decision to seek an abortion
Italy: Thousands protest against anti-abortion conference
Pro-choice activists took to the streets of Verona to protest an anti-abortion conference attended by Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. His coalition partner Luigi Di Maio described anti-abortion rhetoric as medieval.
31.03.2019
Tens of thousands of people marched through the northern Italian city of Verona on Saturday to protest an international anti-abortion conference.
The three-day meeting organized by the US-based World Congress of Families (WCF) started on Friday and featured Interior Minister Matteo Salvini as Saturday's key speaker.
Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/italy-thousands-protest-against-anti-abortion-conference/a-48131965
Debate on abortion ban intensifies as decision looms
by Ock Hyun-ju
Published : Mar 31, 2019
When Hong Seung-hee, 28, discovered she was pregnant, she felt her world was falling apart.
She decided to terminate the unwanted pregnancy, even though it meant she would have to live as a criminal.
Going through an abortion was painful enough, but the stigma was worse, she said.
Continued: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20190331000068
Conservative congress on family divides Italy
The Associated Press
Published: March 30, 2019
VERONA, Italy — A congress in Italy under the auspices of a U.S. organization that defines family as strictly centring around a mother and father has made Verona — the city of Romeo and Juliet — the backdrop for a culture clash over family values, with a coalition of civic groups mobilizing against what they see as a counter-reform movement to limit LGBT and women’s rights.
The World Congress of Families, which runs through Sunday, has revealed another rift in Italy’s governing coalition, as well as providing a platform for ultra-conservatives seeking to reopen the debate over abortion, legalized in Italy in 1978.
The Abortion Divide Gets Deeper
With Roe threatened, red and blue states are pulling even further apart.
Michelle Goldberg
March 29, 2019
This week, a Georgia state representative, Ed Setzler, the sponsor of a bill that would ban most abortions as soon as a fetal heartbeat could be detected, spoke to a conservative group in the Atlanta suburbs about the legal fight he’d embarked on. “We need to maximize our influence over the next couple of weeks and then close this deal,” he said. Then, he continued, conservatives must mobilize behind Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, as “he recruits the best legal team in the nation to take this to the highest court in the land.”
With the ascension of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, as well as a host of other judges appointed by Donald Trump to lower courts, anti-abortion forces are engaged in a game of legislative whack-a-mole. Sensing their chance to either eviscerate or overturn Roe v. Wade, Republicans are pushing a barrage of anti-abortion measures at the state level, seeing which one goes all the way to the top.
Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/opinion/abortion-heartbeat-ban-georgia.html
30+ Caribbean women’s groups call for decriminalisation of abortion
Friday March 29, 2019
The undersigned social justice and women’s organisations and individual advocates note the Jamaican parliamentary consultations under way on the law on abortion.
We encourage Jamaica to follow the example of other countries within CARICOM, which have led the way with legislation that decriminalises the termination of pregnancy – Barbados (1983) and Guyana (1995). As well, Belize, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines have expanded the exceptions that allow for abortion under the criminal law.
A couple of married musical legends who help save women, one abortion at a time
By Robin Abcarian
Mar 29, 2019
You may not have heard of the irrepressible Corky Hale, but you almost certainly have heard her play.
A vocalist, jazz pianist and harpist — the jazz harpist, some say — Hale has accompanied, well, just about everybody: Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Barbra Streisand, Liberace, Anita O’Day, June Christy, Ella Fitzgerald, George Michael, Bjork.
Continued: https://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-corky-20190329-story.html
Trump Administration Gives Family Planning Grant to Anti-Abortion Group
By Kenneth P. Vogel and Robert Pear
March 29, 2019
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration took an important step on Friday in its push to restrict access to abortion and contraception, announcing that it would give as much as $5.1 million in family planning funds to a nonprofit organization funded by allies of the Catholic Church.
The grant from the Department of Health and Human Services went to the Obria Group, a Southern California-based nonprofit that describes itself as being “led by God” and that aims to siphon patients — and money — away from Planned Parenthood.
Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/us/politics/trump-grant-abortion.html
Heartbeat Abortion Bills Were Once a Fringe Idea. Could They Overturn Roe v. Wade?
Three states have enacted heartbeat bills. Ten more are considering them.
Emily Shugerman
03.29.19
When anti-abortion activist Janet Porter first introduced the idea of a “heartbeat” bill in 2011, she was almost laughed out of the room. The proposal—to ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat could be detected, or at about six weeks gestation—was so extreme that many of her fellow Republicans thought it was impossible.
A decade later, GOP lawmakers around the country are rushing to adopt Porter’s signature legislation, in hope of forcing the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court to re-examine Roe v. Wade. Georgia is poised to become the third state to enact such a ban in the first three months of 2019 alone. Ten other states are currently considering the legislation, which experts say would ban abortions before most women know they are pregnant.
Expanding Access to Safe Abortion in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Strengthening Evidence-Based Policy to Expand Access to Safe Abortion (SAFE ENGAGE)
Mar 28, 2019
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), access to safe abortion has historically been limited. Political chaos, a weak health sector, low use of contraception, and restrictive laws—that until recently made it illegal in nearly all cases—have contributed to high rates of abortion across the country. Many of these are unsafe, which contributes to the DRC’s very high maternal mortality rate. However, in March 2018 the Congolese government published the text of the Maputo Protocol in the country’s national legal journal following a concerted advocacy effort by a coalition of women’s rights groups, researchers, and nongovernmental organizations, known as Coalition de Grossesses Non Désirées. Due to the nature of the country’s legal system, this action effectively expanded the categories under which abortion is now legal in DRC.
Continued: https://www.prb.org/program/expanding-access-to-safe-abortion-in-the-democratic-republic-of-congo/
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