USA – Our Vision for the Future of Abortion Rights

As we step down from leading All* Above All, we pass the torch to the next generation to continue fighting for abortion with bold ideas.

Feb 28, 2022
Destiny Lopez & Silvia Henriquez

Twelve years ago, one of us met with a small group of women of color to envision lifting the Hyde Amendment and doing so in a way that would transform our movement. This federal policy, which prevents Medicaid insurance from covering the costs of abortion care, had been spreading its ugly tentacles for decades and disproportionately harming people of color and low-income people. Since that fateful meeting, a campaign launched that has changed the game in terms of how we imagine the future of abortion care.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2022/02/28/our-vision-for-the-future-of-abortion-rights/

28.02.2022

Featured

Opinion

Action Plan for Abortion Justice

USA – Why the Senate is taking a doomed vote on abortion rights

Democrats want to show voters they tried on abortion rights.

By Li Zhouli@vox.com
Feb 28, 2022

The Senate on Monday will take its first vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill aimed at codifying the right to an abortion.

Democrats hope to use the vote to show support for abortion rights as they come under attack in numerous states, and as they face a challenge in the Supreme Court. The vote, however, is widely expected to fail: Republicans are broadly opposed to the legislation and will likely filibuster it. Once filibustered, the bill would need 60 votes to advance, support it doesn’t currently have in a 50-50 Senate.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2022/2/28/22946299/womens-health-protection-act-senate-vote-abortion-rights

Constitutional Court decriminalises abortion in Colombia

Landmark decision means women in Colombia can now terminate a pregnancy up to the 24th week.

By Emma Newbery, Bogota Post
February 28, 2022

A recent
decision from the constitutional court will decriminalise abortion in Colombia.
On February 21, the court voted that women could terminate their pregnancies
until the 24th week in what Human Rights Watch described as a “milestone for
the reproductive rights of women.”

What just happened?
The constitutional court voted five to four to decriminalise abortion in Colombia
up to the 24th week of pregnancy. It makes Colombia one of the most progressive
countries in the world in terms of its abortion legislation, but a lot depends
on how the court’s ruling gets implemented.

Continued: https://thebogotapost.com/constitutional-court-decriminalises-abortion-in-colombia/49587/

How we finally won the legal case for abortion in Colombia

I’m one of the lawyers who took the lawsuit to Colombia’s constitutional court – and decriminalised abortion

Valeria Pedraza
28 February 2022

Having waited more than 520 days for the decision of Colombia’s constitutional court, on 21 February we finally received the news we were hoping for. The court ruled that abortion, if performed within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, is no longer a criminal offence.

The court’s ruling was in response to a case brought by Causa Justa (‘righteous cause’), an umbrella movement for more than 100 groups and thousands of activists across Colombia – including Women’s Link Worldwide, where I work as a lawyer. To get this far required so much creativity, courage and collaborative effort, and none of it would have been possible without the wide mix of people in the movement.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/how-we-finally-won-the-legal-case-for-abortion-in-colombia/

28.02.2022

criminalized abortion

green wave

Valeria Pedraza

Women's Link Worldwide

Senate rejects Democratic bill to codify abortion rights

The vote failed as the Supreme Court considers the fate of Roe v. Wade.

Feb. 28, 2022
By Sahil Kapur and Ali Vitali

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted 46-48 Monday to block a bill pushed by Democrats to codify abortion rights into federal law ahead of an expected Supreme Court decision that could limit access to the procedure.

The legislation, the Women’s Health Protection Act, failed to garner the needed 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and would have fallen short of the 50 votes needed for passage after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., joined Republicans in opposition.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-rejects-democratic-bill-codify-abortion-rights-rcna17968

Zambia – Bitter Brew: Pandemic Spurs Unsafe Abortions

The coronavirus has exacerbated the hurdles faced by Zambian women with unwanted pregnancies.

By Prudence Phiri
February 27, 2022

RUFUNSA, ZAMBIA — The concoction was dark and sludgy, a blend of berries, roots and leaves. The moon serving as a beacon, Chikondi carried the mixture back to her mud-brick hut in a white, 2-liter container and slid it under her bed. She had arranged to be alone that night, sending her two daughters, ages 9 and 12, to their grandmother’s under the pretext of helping with fieldwork. At cockcrow, she would take her first sip.

Chikondi was three months pregnant with a baby she could not afford. The 29-year-old lives in Rufunsa, a small village east of Lusaka, the capital, amid an expanse of maize fields and mud homes with grass-thatched roofs. Her boyfriend of three years was unemployed and not ready to be a father. She had long supported her girls with an assortment of farming jobs, such as preparing fields and planting crops, but the coronavirus pandemic had made even those scarce.

Continued: https://globalpressjournal.com/africa/zambia/bitter-brew-pandemic-spurs-unsafe-abortions/

27.02.2022

Commentary

Featured

abortion stigma

Covid-19 and abortion

Doreen Mulimba

Dr. Alex Makupe

Dr. Goshon Kasanda

Dr. Mulindi Mwanahamuntu

USA – How abortion bans widen the gender pay gap and diminish women’s economic power

Paul Constant, Business Insider
Feb 26, 2022

When the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in December for and against a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, Justice Amy Coney Barrett seemed confused why lawyers arguing for legal abortion, as she put it, "focus on the ways in which forced parenting, forced motherhood, would hinder women's access to the workplace and to equal opportunities."

Justice Barrett asked the lawyers, "Why don't the safe-haven laws [in which any mother can give up her new baby to the state for adoption, no questions asked] take care of that problem?"

Continued: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-legalizing-abortion-bans-could-impoverish-women-for-generations-2022-2

Zambia – 40% maternal admissions to L/stone hospital abortion related – Chaambwa

February 26, 2022
By Edwin Mbulo in Livingstone

FORTY per cent of maternal admissions to the
Livingstone Hospital are abortion related, says a gynaecolologists Herdley
Chaambwa.

And Dr Chaambwa, a lecturer at Lusaka’s Apex University, says a woman can
become pregnant eight days soon after an abortion.

Continued: https://zambianobserver.com/40-maternal-admissions-to-l-stone-hospital-abortion-related-chaambwa/

26.02.2022

Featured

News

Comprehensive Abortion Care

Herdley Chaambwa

unsafe abortion complications

Zambia Association of Gynecologists and Obstetricians

Abortion pill use spikes in Texas as thousands of patients circumvent state’s ban

Orders for the drugs from an international nonprofit spiked 1,180 percent in the first week after the Texas law took effect in September.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
02/25/2022

Texans have been ordering abortion pills online at record rates in the wake of the state’s law banning the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, according to a new study published Friday in JAMA Network Open.

Orders for the drugs from the international nonprofit Aid Access spiked 1,180 percent in the first week after the Texas law took effect in September, increasing from about 11 purchases per day to more than 137 per day. And though orders decreased over the next few months, researchers found that they remained 175 percent higher than before the Texas law took effect.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/25/abortion-pill-use-spikes-in-texas-as-thousands-of-patients-circumvent-states-ban-00011728

Why Was a Catholic Hospital Willing to Gamble With My Life?

Feb. 25, 2022
By Katherine Stewart

More than 20 states are poised to ban or severely restrict abortion if the Supreme Court decides to overturn or undermine Roe v. Wade this year. We know these laws and regulations will have a devastating effect on women’s rights and liberty, but many people do not realize how deeply they will reach into maternal medicine. You can’t take away the right to abortion without risking the health and lives of all women who become pregnant.

We can get a sense of why this is so by taking a look at the Catholic hospital systems. All Catholic health care facilities, including hospitals and clinics, and many affiliated providers are governed by the Ethical and Religious Directives, a numbered set of rules that apply Catholic doctrine to health care. These directives, which act as guidelines and impose limitations on the types of services and procedures these facilities are able to deliver, are codified by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/opinion/sunday/roe-dobbs-miscarriage-abortion.html