Belgium – Greens call Justice Minister’s abortion proposal ‘grossly inadequate’

Saturday, 6 June 2026
By The Brussels Times with Belga

The Belgian opposition party Groen has criticised Justice Minister Annelies Verlinden’s proposal to extend the abortion limit to 14 weeks, calling it insufficient.

Verlinden, a member of the CD&V party, has drafted legislation to increase the legal limit for abortion from 12 to 14 weeks. She has also proposed an exception allowing abortions up to 18 weeks for rape victims. Additionally, the plan includes reducing the mandatory reflection period from six days to two. According to Verlinden, the proposal is a compromise intended to navigate ideological divisions within the government.

Continued: https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/2176873/greens-call-justice-ministers-abortion-proposal-grossly-inadequate

06.06.2026

Whose choice is it? The unseen side of Australia’s abortion debate

Some pregnant people face harassment and bullying from family members pushing for termination.

6 June 2026
By Rachael Knowles

A political debate around abortion has fired up again in Australia, but some say the issue isn’t just about access – it's about autonomy.

Muktesh Chibber has dedicated her life to supporting migrant women.

The couple and family relationships psychotherapist and mediator, who provides culturally sensitive counselling, says pregnant migrant women face "enormous pressure" from spouses and extended family.

Continued: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/migrant-women-unheard-in-abortion-debate/2iz4v0ynx

06.06.2026

Family Planning Australia

John Ruddick

Muktesh Chibber

Multicultural Centre for Women's Health

Anti-abortion fight evolves into ‘noxious brew’

By Kat Wong
June 5 2026

Anti-immigrant rhetoric is playing a growing role in the pro-life movement as conservative politicians attempt to revive their attacks on abortion rights.

The debate over reproductive healthcare has returned to the national spotlight after One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce spoke at an anti-abortion rally outside NSW Parliament as his party rides a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment to new polling highs.

While the anti-abortion movement has a long history in Australia, this latest push appears to have a new, racialised tilt.

Continued: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9287146/anti-abortion-fight-evolves-into-noxious-brew/

05.06.2026

sex selection abortion

sex-selective abortion

Latin American Feminists Train U.S.-Based Doulas on New Mifepristone Protocol for Second-Trimester Abortions

U.S. abortion doulas are turning to decades of Latin American feminist expertise to make second-trimester medication abortions safer, less painful and more accessible

June 5, 2026
by Carrie N. Baker

Across the world, women living in countries that ban licensed clinicians from performing abortions have always found ways to access abortion outside of the medical system. Today, abortion pills have made it much safer.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and many states banned abortion, U.S.-based activists turned to Latin American feminists who have run collectives supporting women seeking abortions outside of the medical system for decades.

With their guidance, U.S.-based activists have created their own feminist collectives that now serve thousands of women and girls each month in 38 states that ban and restrict abortion access, including the entire Southeast and much of the Midwest of the country. These collectives provide free abortion pills and the doula support to see them through.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2026/06/05/two-mifepristone-home-self-managed-abortion-pills-later-late-term-second-trimester-pregnancy/

‘Family values’ African charter condemned by rights groups as regressive and dangerous

Draft treaty claims sexual and reproductive health and rights are an existential threat to the African family

Isabel Choat
Fri 5 Jun 2026

An African treaty that rejects longstanding international human rights obligations moved a step closer to becoming policy this week as governments across the continent met in Ghana.

The draft African charter on family, sovereignty and values, seen by the Guardian, asserts that African values and culture are under attack from “foreign ideologies” and urges states to withdraw from any agreements that do not align with the principles of the charter, including the 2003 Maputo protocol, which promotes gender equality and protects the reproductive and health rights of women and girls.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jun/05/ghana-african-charter-family-values-gender-women-sex-lgbtq-reproductive-rights

Poetry can give voice to Ireland’s unspoken abortion stories

Christina Hennemann
June 5, 2026

I moved to Ireland in 2019, a year after abortion had become legal. As a woman born and raised in Germany, reproductive rights had never been a concern for me. I knew that if needed it, I had the option of termination.

I wasn’t aware of my privilege at the time. But when I made Ireland my home, I realised the weight of choosing to live in a country with such a conflicted relationship with reproductive rights.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/poetry-can-give-voice-to-irelands-unspoken-abortion-stories-282813

05.06.2026

abortion poetry

Amelia Loulli

An Irish Woman Travels to England

Waking Again to Savita Halappanavar

Australia – GPs urged to raise alarm on another abortion restriction bill

By Alyssa Talakovski
05 June 2026

A South Australian upper house MP plans to introduce her third bill in under two years to restrict late-term abortions, but local GPs have an advocacy plan of their own.

Upper House MP Sarah Game, formerly of One Nation, wants to ban abortions after 25 weeks unless necessary to save the mother’s life.

SA-based sexual health GP Dr Clare Keogh warned The Medical Republic the proposal may deter vulnerable patients from seeking care.

Continued; https://www.medicalrepublic.com.au/gps-urged-to-raise-alarm-on-another-abortion-restriction-bill/126296

05.06.2026

The Growing Acceptance of a Movement That Wants to Punish Women for Abortion

Once considered the far fringe of antiabortion politics, abortion abolitionists are gaining influence in legislatures, Republican Party politics and the broader antiabortion movement.

June 4, 2026
by Shoshanna Ehrlich

When South Carolina’s abortion abolitionist bill, the Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 1095), was voted out of committee and onto the full Senate floor in late April—“an unprecedented move toward locking up women who have an abortion,” according to Dana Sussman in Slate—it raised a question: How much influence have abortion abolitionists gained within the broader antiabortion movement?

Abortion abolitionists, who seek to criminalize abortion without exceptions and punish women who obtain abortions as murderers, have long been considered the outer fringe of the antiabortion movement. Their roots can be traced to what Colleen Scerpella described in The Prospect as “a new generation of mostly white, male, conservative Baptists, Presbyterians and Christian Reconstructionists”—or what she calls “extreme Christian patriarchy.”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2026/06/04/abortion-abolition-punish-women-republican-south-carolina/

05.06.2026

‘If not now, when?’: Melinda French Gates on acting without fear as a philanthropist in the Trump era

By Emma Hinchliffe
June 4, 2026

It has been two years since Melinda French Gates left behind the Gates Foundation, which she co-founded with her former husband, Bill Gates. With an estimated net worth of $19.2 billion, she now has full control over how her philanthropic resources are used for the first time in her career—no husband or cofounder to debate.

“It’s very freeing,” she says.

So what is she doing with that freedom? She’s showing other billionaires how to spend their money—starting with addressing a lack of funding for women’s health in the U.S. and around the globe.

Continued: https://archive.is/jOVky
(https://fortune.com/2026/06/04/melinda-french-gates-pivotal-interview-womens-health-philanthropy-billionaires-trump/)

04.06.2026

Center for Reproductive Rights

Gates Foundation

Mackenzie Scott

Melinda French Gates

National Women’s Law Center

One Nation’s lurking attachment to the fringe anti-abortion movement sounds like the start of a horror movie

Australians who don’t want to find themselves victims should read the whole screenplay before accepting the part

Van Badham
Thu 4 Jun 2026

Australia’s right-wing populist One Nation party is enjoying a well-publicised poll bump, so it’s time to talk horror movies. We’ll employ our horror metaphor set before the monster has revealed itself, but as dark forces are growing more manipulative and insidious.

Not getting nearly enough play in the sensationalistic coverage around the conspicuously revived Pauline Hanson project is her party’s closeness to Australia’s fringe anti-abortion movement.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/04/one-nation-fringe-anti-abortion-movement-horror-ntwnfb

04.06.2026