Scotland – MSPs back abortion clinic buffer zone bill at first stage

April 30, 2024
Megan Bonar, BBC Scotland News

Legislation which aims to introduce buffer zones around clinics providing abortions has been voted through its first stage in the Scottish Parliament.

The bill, tabled by Scottish Green MSP Gillian Mackay, passed at stage one by 123 votes to one.

The legislation would prevent any protests taking place within 200m (656ft) of clinics offering abortion services.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c51nq5dy095o


Inside Poland’s Abortion Crossroads

... and what it has to do with the Kremlin.

Podcast: 27:50 minutes
WORDS: LAICIE HEELEY, PICTURES: COLIN LLOYD
DATE: APRIL 29, 2024

When does something as deeply personal as abortion become a matter of foreign policy? Maybe when it becomes a stand-in for national values and belief systems. Or maybe when it becomes a clever wedge to divide societies.

Today, Polish abortion activists are on the cusp of a huge change. After 30 years of some of the strictest abortion laws in the country, it looks like some liberalization could be on the way.

Continued: https://inkstickmedia.com/inside-polands-abortion-crossroads/


Unsafe abortion and unprotected sex activities affecting health of Adolescents

April 29, 2024
A GNA Feature by Fatima Anafu-Astanga

Bolatanga – Agnes Malebna (Not real name) was rushed in by her family to the Tinguri CHPS Out Patients Department (OPD) in the West Mamprusi Municipality in the North East Region already emaciated, dehydrated and anaemic having lost so much blood.

The examination conducted by the medical team making efforts to keep her alive indicated it was an attempt to abort, which may have started at home by the 16-year-old, SHS form one student who felt she was still in school and too young to start making babies.

Continued: https://gna.org.gh/2024/04/unsafe-abortion-and-unprotected-sex-activities-affecting-health-of-adolescents/


Ashley Judd speaks out on the right of women to control their bodies and be free from male violence

by Edith M. Lederer, The Associated Press
April 29, 2024

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Actor Ashley Judd, whose allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein helped spark the #MeToo movement, spoke out Monday on the rights of women and girls to control their own bodies and be free from male violence.

A goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Population Fund, she addressed the U.N. General Assembly’s commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the landmark document adopted by 179 countries at its 1994 conference in Cairo, which for the first time recognized that women have the right to control their reproductive and sexual health – and to choose if and when to become pregnant.

Continued: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/04/29/ashley-judd-speaks-out-on-the-right-of-women-to-control-their-bodies-and-be-free-from-male-violence/


Project 2025 Is Already Here

Core aspects of the far-right plan to overhaul U.S. government are already being put into place, through an anti-abortion influence campaign overseas.

GILLIAN KANE
APRIL 25, 2024

When pundits, critics and supporters discuss Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s readiness work plan for a second Donald Trump presidency, it’s always in the future tense. At more than 900 pages, Project 2025’s playbook, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, is a door-stopper of policy recommendations that lays out detailed steps for decimating democracy in the first 180 days of the new administration. Some executive orders include eliminating the Department of Education (“a woke education cartel”), renaming the Department of Health and Human Services the ​“Department of Life,” and anchoring these commitments in the promise to restore ​“the family as the centerpiece of American life.”

This Christian nationalist plan is no fever dream: even if Trump loses in November, many core aspects of Project 2025 will still be implemented. In fact, some of its recommendations are already underway.

Continued: https://inthesetimes.com/article/project-2025-protego-trump-huber-abortion


Bottlenecks in the law against abortion fueling deaths in post abortion care

Monday, April 29th, 2024
By George Kebaso

Remove hurdles that stand in the way of safe abortion for women in the country, especially teenagers, a group of civil society organisations and individual pharmacists have urged the government.

The argument is that even as the country’s laws have criminalised abortion, unintended pregnancies among young women in Kenya are still on the spiral, same as unsafe terminations of pregnancies, and increased trips to pharmacies for emergency contraceptives.

Continued: https://www.pd.co.ke/lifestyle/bottlenecks-in-the-law-against-abortion-fueling-deaths-in-post-abortion-care-231971/


Canada – UBC student develops website to help Canadians choose the right type of abortion

Apr 29, 2024

Deciding to have an abortion is a deeply personal choice, and so is what comes next: determining the type of abortion that’s best for you. UBC PhD student Kate Wahl wants to help Canadians navigate that decision. She’s developed It’s My Choice, Canada’s first interactive website aimed at helping people identify the abortion option that best fits their values and circumstances.

Hosted by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC), the tool integrates the best available evidence on the two methods of abortion available in Canada: the abortion pill and abortion procedure. Users learn what to expect from each option, and after completing a secure and anonymous questionnaire, receive a personalized recommendation designed to support conversations with their healthcare provider.

Continued: https://news.ubc.ca/2024/04/29/student-develops-website-to-help-choose-the-right-type-of-abortion/


Junk science is cited in abortion ban cases. Researchers are fighting the ‘fatally flawed’ work

Researchers are calling for the retraction of misleading anti-abortion studies that could influence judges in critical cases

Jessica Glenza
Sun 28 Apr 2024

The retraction of three peer-reviewed articles prominently cited in court cases on the so-called abortion pill – mifepristone – has put a group of papers by anti-abortion researchers in the scientific limelight.

Seventeen sexual and reproductive health researchers are calling for four peer-reviewed studies by anti-abortion researchers to be retracted or amended. The papers, critics contend, are “fatally flawed” and muddy the scientific consensus for courts and lawmakers who lack the scientific training to understand their methodological flaws.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/28/junk-science-papers-abortion-cases


SCOTUS v. Pregnant Patients: Idaho’s Abortion Fight Could Blow Up a “Revolutionary” Health Care Law

“My reaction can be summed up as ‘appalled,’” says health policy guru Sara Rosenbaum.

NINA MARTIN, Mother Jones
Apr 27, 2024

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in what could end up being its most consequential abortion decision since Dobbs. In a case pitting Idaho’s extreme abortion ban against a federal law known as EMTALA—that since 1986 has required hospitals to provide emergency care—conservative justices seemed to embrace the idea that states can deny crisis medical treatment to pregnant patients, even if doing so means those patients suffer catastrophic, life-altering injuries. “My reaction can be summed up as ‘appalled,’” says Sara Rosenbaum, emerita professor at George Washington University who is one of the country’s foremost experts in health policy issues affecting women and families. “Will [the court] really say it is fine [to enforce] a law that costs women their organs as long as they don’t die?”

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/04/scotus-v-pregnant-patients-idahos-abortion-fight-could-blow-up-a-revolutionary-health-care-law/


A woman might win the presidency of Mexico. What could that mean for abortion rights?

Neither of the two leading candidates has shared specific proposals on abortion. Both have suggested equality and protection measures for women amid a wave of violence and femicide.

By María Teresa Hernández | The Associated Press
Published April 27, 2024

If a woman wins Mexico’s presidency on June 2, would she rule with gender in mind? The question has been raised by academics, humans rights organizations and activists ahead of the voting that will likely elect Mexico’s first female president for the term 2024-2030.

Out of three candidates, the frontrunner is Claudia Sheinbaum, who has promised to keep President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's legacy on track. Next comes Xóchitl Gálvez, representing several opposition parties, one of which is historically conservative.

Continued: https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/national-international/a-woman-might-win-the-presidency-of-mexico-what-could-that-mean-for-abortion-rights/3399038/