U.S.-Based Online Pharmacy First to Ship Abortion Pills to Patients Inside the U.S.

9/30/2020
by CARRIE N. BAKER

For years, pharmacies outside the U.S. have been shipping abortion pills to American women wanting to end their pregnancies. But now, for the first time, a U.S.-based pharmacy—Honeybee Health—is distributing abortion pills directly to patients within the country by mail, now legal because of a recent federal court ruling.

“This is a momentous achievement for Americans, particularly for women of color and others who historically faced barriers to reproductive healthcare that are made even worse by COVID-19,” said Dr. Jessica Nouhavandi, co-founder, co-CEO and lead pharmacist of Honeybee Health.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2020/09/30/honeybee-health-us-based-online-pharmacy-first-to-ship-abortion-pills-to-patients-inside-the-u-s/

Insights into how the US abortion gag rule affects health services in Kenya

September 30, 2020
Boniface Ushie, Sara E Casey, Terry McGovern

The Mexico City Policy – often referred to as the “Global Gag Rule” – is a US government policy that requires non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that are not based in the US and that receive US global health assistance to certify that they will not provide, refer for, counsel on, or advocate for abortion as a method of family planning. The rule also applies to any non-US funding that the organisation may receive.

The policy was rescinded by President Obama in 2009 but then reinstated and expanded by President Trump in 2017. While prior iterations applied only to family planning assistance (US$575 million in 2016), Trump’s new version extends the restrictions to nearly all US global health assistance – an estimated US$9.5 billion – which includes funding for HIV/AIDS, malaria, and maternal and child health. For example, it now means that an organisation that provides HIV care and treatment with US funding may not also provide safe abortion.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/insights-into-how-the-us-abortion-gag-rule-affects-health-services-in-kenya-145777

International Safe Abortion Day – Zambia DJ Shows Support

30 September 2020

Community Radio (Youth DJ Nchimunya Chadukwa whilst spinning his records) interviewed Dr. Whyson Munga, an OB-GYN at the Women and Newborn Hospital at Lusaka's University Teaching Hospital, to learn more about the sexual reproductive rights of adolescents and to better understand the issue of current statistics on early pregnancies in young people, and the impact of unsafe abortion on and why access to safe abortion services is a fundamental human right of all women/girls in Zambia.

The idea of the radio programme stemmed from the advocacy training by FIGO in June. Local youth community-based organisations and doctors agreed to jointly host a radio programme with the latter playing the role of interviewee and the former as DJ/interviewers. It was felt that to reach out to the young audience and make it more relatable, it would be interesting for young people themselves to run the show.

Continued: https://www.figo.org/news/international-safe-abortion-day-zambia-dj-shows-support

30.09.2020

International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics

International Safe Abortion Day

Rwanda celebrates International Safe Abortion Day

By Joan Mbabazi
Published : September 30, 2020

Participants representing different organisations encouraged the youth and women to make use of safe abortion services.

Health Development Initiative (HDI) on Monday, September 28 partnered with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and other organisations to celebrate the International Safe Abortion Day. The celebrations were held at Kibagabaga Hospital and the main message for the day centred on measures to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/rwanda-celebrates-international-safe-abortion-day

30.09.2020

Great Lakes Initiative for Human Rights and Development

Health Development Initiative

International Safe Abortion Day

Canada – 36 Canadian senators call for New Brunswick to ensure access to abortion

By Karla Renic, Global News
Posted September 30, 2020

On Tuesday, 36 senators from across Canada signed a call for access to reproductive rights in New Brunswick after Premier Blaine Higgs said funding Clinic 554 would be a “slippery slope.”

Fredericton’s Clinic 554, which serves as an abortion clinic, a family practice and a resource for LGBTQ2+ patients across the province, is set to close at the end of the month as a result of the lack of funding.

Continued: https://globalnews.ca/news/7368407/canadian-senators-new-brunswick-access-to-abortion/

30.09.2020

Canada Health Transfer funds

The Trump Administration Is Giving Up Its Fight To Prevent Undocumented Teens From Getting Abortions

The administration issued a new policy explicitly preventing ORR staff from blocking minors in its care from obtaining abortions or disclosing their pregnancies.

Ema O'Connor and Zoe Tillman
September 29, 2020

After three years of arguing in court to block pregnant, undocumented teenagers in government custody from obtaining abortions, the Trump administration dropped the fight on Tuesday, announcing it had officially changed its policy.

The new policy makes clear that the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the branch of the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees undocumented minors and those seeking asylum in the US, must allow teenagers in its custody to obtain abortions.

Continued: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emaoconnor/trump-undocumented-teens-abortion-orr-lawsuit-immigration

Indonesia – Safe abortion crucial for women’s reproductive health

STEVIE EMILIA, THE JAKARTA POST
Jakarta / Tue, September 29, 2020

Abortion – safe or unsafe, legal or illegal – has existed throughout history. Yet, it continues to be the most sensitive and controversial issue in reproductive health.

The WHO has disclosed that an average of 73.3 million – safe and unsafe – abortions took place worldwide per year between 2015 and 2019, with the rate of abortions being higher in developing regions than in developed ones.

Continued: https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2020/09/29/safe-abortion-crucial-for-womens-reproductive-health.html

’Let down’: calls for Gibraltar’s Covid-delayed abortion vote to take place

Pro-choice activists demand decriminalisation referendum happen despite conservative opposition

Darcy Jimenez
Tue 29 Sep 2020

Earlier this year, pro-choice activists in Gibraltar were hopeful that their territory’s abortion laws – the harshest in Europe – could soon be overturned.

Terminations are banned in the tiny British territory, even in the cases of rape, incest, or foetal abnormality where the foetus will not survive. Abortions are punishable by life imprisonment, except when the woman’s life is in danger.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/29/the-gibraltarians-demanding-covid-delayed-abortion-vote-takes-place

USA – How Politics And Bureaucracy Halted The Promise Of The Abortion Pill

Twenty years after medication abortion was approved in the U.S., patients are still jumping through hoops to access it.

By Melissa Jeltsen, HuffPost US
09/28/2020

Twenty years ago today, the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone, a drug used to terminate early pregnancies that held the promise of revolutionizing abortion care in the U.S.

Colloquially called the abortion pill, mifepristone is taken in combination with another drug, misoprostol, and allows patients under 10 weeks pregnant to have an abortion in the privacy of their home, instead of inside an abortion clinic. Reproductive rights activists lobbying for the drug envisioned a future where women could have the pills prescribed by their primary physician and dispensed at their local pharmacy, transforming abortion into just another part of normal health care.

Continued: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/abortion-pill-mifepristone_n_5f720134c5b64e0666608a12?ri18n=true

USA – Amanda Shires on Why She Wrote a Song About Abortion

“The Problem,” a collaboration with Jason Isbell, imagines a couple having an honest, difficult conversation

By JON FREEMAN
September 28, 2020

Amanda Shires and Jason Isbell depict a couple having an honest, difficult conversation about abortion in the new song “The Problem.” The track’s release coincides with International Safe Abortion Day and proceeds from its sales will go to the Yellowhammer Fund, a reproductive justice organization based in Alabama.

Shires wrote the song a few years ago and originally imagined it as a conversation between several women, but revamped it to feature her collaborator and husband. The timing of “The Problem” and the fact that it’s benefiting the Yellowhammer Fund are both important, as draconian, punitive abortion laws have been enacted in Alabama and neighboring states in the last year.

Continued: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/amanda-shires-the-problem-abortion-laws-1067398/

28.09.2020