Guam – Year in Review: 2023 abortion rights, anti-abortion issues

John O'Connor | The Guam Daily Post
Dec 31, 2023

(February 2023-December 2023) The year 2022 was a significant time for both abortion rights and anti-abortion advocates, as that year saw the Supreme Court of the United States overturn a half-century of precedent and declare that the Constitution granted no right to an abortion in the U.S. This decision gave states and other jurisdictions greater latitude to regulate abortion, including the imposition of outright bans.

At the time of the Supreme Court decision, Guam was debating whether to pass an anti-abortion measure modeled after a Texas law - the Guam Heartbeat Act. The bill essentially would have banned abortions at six weeks, earlier than when women may know they're pregnant.

Continued: https://www.postguam.com/news/local/2023-abortion-rights-anti-abortion-issues/article_ea8a92f0-a558-11ee-a969-3ffcb2d9d8e7.html

31.12.2023

Supreme Court of Guam

How to Protect US Reproductive Rights in 2024

We need more people who believe in abortion as a human right to stand up for telemedicine abortion and protect access to mifepristone.

JULIE F. KAY
Dec 31, 2023

To paraphrase Charles Dickens, 2023 has been the “best of times and the worst of times” for abortion rights in America. Where you live, how much money you have, and whether you’re more than six weeks pregnant determine whether you can access your human rights.

The best news this year is that telemedicine abortion shield laws came to full fruition in five states. These new laws provide medical providers with protection from criminal and civil charges or license revocation so they can provide abortion pills by telemedicine nationwide.

Continued: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/us-reproductive-rights-2024

31.12.2023

Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine

severe fetal anomalies

shield laws

telemedicine abortion

What Are ‘Missed Period Pills,’ and How Do They Work?

Menstrual regulation—sometimes referred to as “missed period pills"—is a new front in women's battle for bodily autonomy. Here's how it works and what you need to know.

Dec 30, 2023

Cari Siestra first learned about menstrual regulation when they were working on the Myanmar-Thailand border. At the time, abortion was broadly criminalized in both countries. But if a person’s period was late, it was relatively easy to get access to pills that would induce menstruation in just a few days. In Bangladesh, where abortion is largely illegal, menstrual regulation is available up to 10 weeks after a missed period, and public health advocates routinely talk about it as a promising way to reduce maternal mortality and rates of unsafe abortion.

Menstrual regulation isn’t completely unknown in the United States. Melissa Grant, chief operations officer and cofounder of Carafem, recalls friends who would have their periods brought back through manual vacuum aspiration in the 1980s, when early pregnancy tests weren’t as common. But in recent years, it hasn’t been a widespread option, and for a while, Siestra wasn’t sure if there was a place for menstrual regulation in the US.

Continued: https://www.wired.com/story/missed-period-pills-menstrual-regulation-how-it-works/

India – 55-year-old rapist, nurse who performed abortion on minor held under Pocso Act in TN

According to a police source, the accused farmer of Ponnivadi village in Dharapuram owned several acres of farmland in the locality.

30th December 2023

TIRUPPUR: Police on Friday arrested a 55-year-old man under Pocso Act for sexually assaulting a girl and making the minor abort the baby in Dharapuram. A nurse attached to the Dharapuram Government Hospital was also arrested for her role in the Dalit girl’s abortion.

According to a police source, the accused farmer of Ponnivadi village in Dharapuram owned several acres of farmland in the locality. The 16-year-old girl was working as a farmhand in his field. The accused sexually assaulted her repeatedly, and three months ago, the minor became pregnant.

Continued: https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil-nadu/2023/dec/30/55-year-old-rapist-nurse-who-performed-abortion-on-minor-held-under-pocso-act-in-tn-2646134.html

30.12.2023

News

Dharapuram Government Hospital

It’s 2023, but certain men are desperately grasping for control of women’s bodies

Barrington Salmon
DECEMBER 30, 2023

America harbors a profound and deep-seated hatred for women. The misogyny is pervasive, leaching into just about all areas of life, tainting, polluting and poisoning relationships, the home, marriages, the workplace, friendships, education, intimacy and the privacy of the bedroom.

This toxic brew continues to percolate into the pores of the US consigning the distaff gender to second-class citizenship and systematic discrimination. This despite women comprising approximately 51.1 percent of the U.S population.

Continued: https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/12/30/its-2023-but-certain-men-are-desperately-grasping-for-control-of-womens-bodies/

States to award anti-abortion centers roughly $250m in post-Roe surge

At least 16 states will fund largely unregulated facilities that try to convince people to continue their pregnancies

Carter Sherman
thu 28 Dec 2023

In the months since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, at least 16 states have agreed to funnel more than $250m in taxpayer dollars towards anti-abortion facilities and programs that try to convince people to continue their pregnancies.

Much of that money is set to go to anti-abortion counseling centers, or crisis pregnancy centers, according to data provided by the Guttmacher Institute and Equity Forward, organizations that support abortion rights. It has been paid out throughout 2023 and will stretch into 2025.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/28/anti-abortion-pregnancy-crisis-centers-taxpayer-money-roe

These Are The Abortion Stories You Don’t Hear After Roe v. Wade

Why telling all kinds of abortion stories — particularly the mundane — is important in helping achieve reproductive justice.

BY DANIELLE CAMPOAMOR
DECEMBER 28, 2023

In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, countless stories of people being denied access to abortion care emerged, the majority focusing on instances of fatal fetal abnormality, rape, incest or catastrophic pregnancy complications.

From a woman in Texas being admitted to the ICU and nearly dying, to a 10-year-old girl in Ohio forced to cross state lines to access care after she was raped, to a mother who says she was told to wait in a hospital parking lot until she was closer to death before doctors would treat her, these stories saturated headlines across the country, and for good reason — people with the capacity to get pregnant losing the Constitutional right to bodily autonomy is, it turns out, deadly.

Continued: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/these-are-the-abortion-stories-you-dont-hear-after-roe-v-wade

18 Months After “Dobbs,” Here’s How Abortion Providers and Activists See Things

Abortion funds and logistical support groups are enabling people to travel out of state to obtain abortion care.

By Eleanor J. Bader , TRUTHOUT
December 28, 2023

After the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs decision eviscerated the already limited federal right to abortion, 14 states — Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia — banned the procedure.

In some of these states, clinics closed. According to The Guardian, 42 U.S. clinics shuttered in 2022, plus 23 more in 2023. But as disturbing as this is, it is not the full story. Despite financial, legal and political obstacles, many clinics in states that have banned abortion have pivoted, continuing to provide essential reproductive health services such as contraceptives, STI testing and treatment, and routine gynecological exams, with some expanding to deliver prenatal and gender-affirming care. In addition, new clinics have opened in states like Wyoming and Maryland where abortion remains legal.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/18-months-after-dobbs-heres-how-abortion-providers-and-activists-see-things/

Nigeria – Group decries number of unsafe abortions, complications in Oyo

by Sade Oguntola
December 28, 2023

EXECUTIVE Director of the Plan Health Advocacy and Development Foundation, Mr Obatunde Oladapo, has expressed concern over the number of unsafe abortions in Oyo State and the need to stem the needless deaths and ill-health arising from them.

Oladapo, who spoke at the stakeholders’ assessment and consultative session on the prevention of unsafe abortion organised by the foundation, stated that over one million abortions occur in Nigeria annually, with illegal abortion accounting for 11 percent of maternal deaths in Nigeria.

Continued; https://tribuneonlineng.com/group-decries-number-of-unsafe-abortions-complications-in-oyo/

28.12.2023

News

Obatunde Oladapo

Plan Health Advocacy and Development Foundation

N. Ireland – Blair told Mowlam to put abortion law reform ‘on ice’ 20 years before it was legalised in North

Prime minister’s private secretary wrote that Blair ‘sees little scope for bi-communal support for a change to the law’

Seanín Graham
Thu Dec 28 2023

Twenty years before abortion was legalised in Northern Ireland, British prime minister Tony Blair ordered Northern secretary Mo Mowlam to put her planned review of the restrictive law on terminations “on ice”.

The Downing Street correspondence is contained in previously confidential files released this week in which Blair’s private secretary wrote that the “Prime Minister… sees little scope for bi-communal support for a change to the law and sees little advantage in embarking on a review.”

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/history/2023/12/28/blair-told-mowlam-to-put-abortion-law-reform-on-ice-20-years-before-it-was-legalised-in-north/