Nepal – Legal safeguards fail to curb abortion prosecution

Nepal’s abortion law protects rights on paper but women still risk arrest and harassment.

Aarya Chand
February 8, 2026

Kalpana, a resident of Siraha, was not seeking to abort the child. She was seeking medical care.

After a miscarriage, Kalpana, who the Post is identifying with a pseudonym to protect her privacy, was taken to a hospital for treatment. Instead, she was accused of having undergone an illegal abortion. The police were informed and she was arrested.

Months later, Siraha District Court cleared her of the charges by declaring that what had actually occurred was a natural miscarriage.

Continued: https://kathmandupost.com/national/2026/02/08/legal-safeguards-fail-to-curb-abortion-prosecution

Zimbabwe – Dilemma reignites debate on rape, abortion and women rights

February 7, 2026
Muchaneta Chimuka, Features Writer

MULTI-AWARD-WINNING filmmaker, Joe Njagu’s Dilemma, explores how a couple’s dream of having a baby turns nasty after Chloe Thandeka “Busi” Ncube is gang-raped by armed robbers at their matrimonial home and impregnated, leaving her traumatised.

Cultural and religious beliefs within her family become a stumbling block for Busi to access safe abortion services at the local clinic and for her to get justice. This creates a big wound in the heart of the vulnerable woman.

Continued: https://www.heraldonline.co.zw/dilemma-reignites-debate-on-rape-abortion-and-women-rights/

07.02.2026

Termination of Pregnancy Act

India – Supreme Court allows abortion of 30-week pregnancy of a minor, upholds right to reproductive autonomy

The court also said that there were cases in which women may have no other option but take the dangerous and life-threatening alternative of turning to quacks for an abortion

February 06, 2026
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the medical termination of a 30-week-old pregnancy of a minor, while noting that a person cannot be compelled to carry her pregnancy to its full term.

“What has to be considered in the instant case is the right of the minor child to continue a pregnancy which is ex facie illegitimate in as much as she is a minor and has to face this unfortunate situation of having the pregnancy owing to a relationship that she had,” a Bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan remarked in court.

Continued; https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/supreme-court-allows-abortion-of-30-week-pregnancy-of-a-minor-upholds-right-to-reproductive-autonomy/article70600629.ece

06.02.2026

News

B V Nagarathna

India Supreme Court

Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971

minors' right to abortion

US Appeals Court declines rehearing, block on Guam’s 1990 abortion ban stays

By Joe Taitano II, Pacific Daily News
Feb 5, 2026

A federal appeals court this week declined to rehear a case that could have seen Guam’s long-dead 1990 abortion ban revived.

It is “impossible” for the federal court to grant Guam Attorney General Douglas Moylan any relief in the push to have the abortion ban in Public Law 20-134 enforced, judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit wrote in a Feb. 3 order.

But any future abortion ban enacted by Guam lawmakers would not be held back by the existing federal injunction blocking the 1990 ban, according to a statement attached to the order.

Continued: https://www.guampdn.com/news/us-appeals-court-declines-rehearing-block-on-guams-1990-abortion-ban-stays/article_bd314b9f-29cd-4df3-8dbf-f14010c99ee6.html

05.02.2026

News

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation

Anita Arriola

Douglas Moylan

Guam abortion ban

Guam Memorial Hospital

Guam People for Choice

After Years of Silence, Texas Medical Board Issues Training for Doctors on How to Legally Provide Abortions

The course includes examples of when abortion is permitted to protect the life of the patient, but many experts say the complications women face in pregnancy are impossible to capture in a brief presentation.

by Cassandra Jaramillo, Kavitha Surana and Lizzie Presser – ProPublica
February 5, 2026

For the first time since Texas criminalized abortion, the state’s medical regulator is instructing doctors on when they can legally terminate a pregnancy to protect the life of the patient — guidance physicians have long sought as women died and doctors feared imprisonment for intervening.

The new training from the Texas Medical Board comes nearly five years after the state passed its strict abortion ban in 2021, threatening doctors with severe penalties. ProPublica’s reporting has shown that pregnancy became far more dangerous in the state after the law took effect: Sepsis rates spiked for women suffering a pregnancy loss, as did emergency room visits in which miscarrying patients needed a blood transfusion; at least four women in the state died after they didn’t receive timely reproductive care. More than a hundred OB-GYNs said the state’s abortion ban was to blame.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-medical-board-abortion-training-doctors

South Australian anti-abortion activist posts image of aborted foetus she claims was taken at Townsville hospital

Joanna Howe says a ‘whistleblower’ sent her the image, which she says was taken inside the hospital’s room for grieving parents

Tory Shepherd
Thu 5 Feb 2026

Townsville hospital is investigating an alleged privacy breach after anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe said a “whistleblower” had sent her an image containing distressing and sensitive abortion content.

Howe posted a video on social media that included a picture of a 16-week-old foetus that she said was taken inside the hospital’s Butterfly Room, a place for grieving parents, saying “Samuel” was “born alive” after an abortion.

No evidence was given to support that claim and Howe has been contacted for comment. Multiple health experts have previously said claims by anti-abortion activists that large numbers of babies are “born alive” after abortions are misleading, including in evidence to a state and federal parliamentary inquiry.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/05/anti-abortion-activist-joanna-howe-foetus-photo-ntwnfb

05.02.2026

Dr Nisha Khot

Joanna Howe

Kieran Keyes

Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

The Abortion Ban That Didn’t End Abortion in Poland

Five years after Poland's top court gutted abortion rights, access to legal procedures has quietly expanded – but only for women who learned to work within a system designed to say ‘no’.

Ada Petriczko
February 4, 2026

Edyta was 29 weeks pregnant when the MRI results came back. She opened the report in a hospital corridor in Warsaw. Missing temporal bone. Disrupted neuronal migration. Abnormalities in the corpus callosum.

“I just stood there. I couldn’t move,” she tells BIRN. “The entire pregnancy everyone kept saying nothing was wrong – and then suddenly my baby's brain wasn’t developing normally.”

Continued: https://balkaninsight.com/2026/02/04/polands-precarious-post-abortion-ban-compromise-leaves-women-at-mercy-of-the-system/

New Foreign Aid Rules Will Threaten Lives

The Trump Administration is expanding foreign aid restrictions on abortion, transgender health care, and DEI initiatives.

by Susana T. Fried, Alicia Ely Yamin - The Progressive Magazine
February 4, 2026

On January 23, Vice President J.D. Vance launched the Trump Administration’s new plan to “promote families and human flourishing.” But rather than being, as he claimed, “pro-life,” these rules will threaten the lives of people around the world, especially women and people who don’t fit into the administration’s narrow, unscientific categories of gender.

The first of the new restrictions on foreign aid announced by Vance extends the existing Mexico City Policy prohibitions on abortion funding to encompass not just global health assistance but all non-military foreign assistance—including U.S.-based nonprofits and government-to-government funding. Known to critics as the “Global Gag Rule,” recipients receiving funding from the U.S. government are prohibited even from tapping other donors to provide information or education regarding women’s health. This expansion will severely limit access to abortion and the full range of sexual and reproductive health care, even in humanitarian emergencies.

Continued: https://progressive.org/op-eds/new-foreign-aid-rules-will-threaten-lives-fried-yamin-20260204/

04.02.2026

Promoting Human Flourishing in Foreign Assistance

U.S. Agency for International Development

Pressure mounts on Commission as 170 groups back EU abortion initiative

Commission faces 2 March deadline on ‘My Voice, My Choice’ initiative

Thomas Mangin, Euractiv
Feb 4, 2026

Pressure is mounting on the European Commission after 170 civil society organisations wrote to Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday, urging her to follow up on the “My Voice My Choice” initiative, which aims to facilitate and safeguard access to abortion across the EU.

The signatories seek to push the European executive to establish a support fund for access to abortion, in line with the demands set out in the “My Voice, My Choice” initiative. The Commission must decide by 2 March whether it intends to give legal follow-up to this European Citizens’ Initiative, which gathered more than one million signatures in 2025.

Continued: https://www.euractiv.com/news/pressure-mounts-on-commission-as-170-groups-back-eu-abortion-initiative/

04.02.2026

News

European Citizens’ Initiative

European Commission

funding for abortion

Hadja Lahbib

My Voice My Choice campaign

Civil society open letter to the European Commission in support of My Voice, My Choice

February 4, 2026

Today, 170 civil society organisations from across all 27 EU Member States published an open letter calling on the European Commission to respond positively and decisively to the European Citizens’ Initiative My Voice, My Choice. The signatories urge the Commission to commit to a concrete legislative proposal establishing EU financial support to ensure access to safe and legal abortion care within the EU, addressing persistent inequalities and cross-border barriers that continue to affect women’s health, rights, and dignity.

letter follows…
Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/news/civil-society-open-letter-european-commission-my-voice-my-choice/

04.02.2026