until

11977 Search results found:


JD Vance decried as extremist over attack on UK abortion clinic safe zones

US vice-president’s comments, part of a wide-ranging tirade against Europe, called inaccurate and misogynistic

Alexandra Topping
Sat 15 Feb 2025

JD Vance has been labelled an “extremist” after he launched a broadside against the UK’s efforts to protect women seeking an abortion.

The US vice-president’s criticisms of UK and Scottish policies on safe access zones around abortion clinics – part of a wide-ranging tirade against Europe on Friday – were derided as inaccurate and misogynistic by a number of groups, politicians and governments.

Heidi Stewart, the chief executive of Bpas, the UK’s leading provider of abortion services, said safe zones – buffer areas of 150 metres around abortion clinics designed to stop women being harassed with leaflets, shown pictures of foetuses, or having to pass by vigils – were vital to protect women’s access to essential healthcare in an “overwhelmingly pro-choice country”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/15/jd-vance-decried-as-extremist-over-attack-on-uk-abortion-clinic-safe-zones


Polish activist’s conviction for sending woman abortion pills overturned

Feb 14, 2025
Notes from Poland

Justyna Wydrzyńska, an activist who was convicted two years ago for providing abortion pills to a pregnant woman, has succeeded in having the conviction annulled.

An appeals court found that the presence of the judge who issued the initial verdict – who had been appointed by a judicial body rendered illegitimate due to the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government’s reforms – resulted in the lower court being incorrectly composed when it ruled on the case.

The decision means that the case will now return to that lower court, where Wydrzyńska will face a repeat of the initial trial. Under Poland’s strict abortion laws, helping someone obtain an abortion is punishable by up to three years in prison.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/02/14/polish-activists-conviction-for-sending-woman-abortion-pills-overturned/


The doctor indicted by Louisiana for prescribing abortion pills saved my life

Margaret Carpenter’s devotion to her patients should be celebrated, not criminalized

By Maya Gottfried
Feb. 14, 2025

Margaret Carpenter, based in New Paltz, New York, has been indicted for prescribing abortion pills to a person in Louisiana — where nearly all abortions are illegal, even in cases of rape or incest. It isn’t the only legal threat she faces: In December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Carpenter for sending abortion pills to someone in the state. On Thursday, a judge fined her more than $100,000 and ordered her to stop prescribing and mailing abortion drugs to Texas patients.

I know Carpenter as “Dr. Maggie.” She has been a hero of mine for a long time, but not just for standing up for people’s rights to reproductive health. When I was 35, she helped save my life.

Continued: https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/14/margaret-carpenter-abortion-pills-louisiana-new-york-shield-law/


Family Planning And The Politics Of Reproduction In India 

Family planning practices have both implicitly and explicitly played a role in defining the construct of the 'modern woman,' and how women are represented, regulated, and monitored through their reproductive and sexual capacities.

by Abirami M   
Feb 14, 2025 

In India, a woman’s body is not entirely her own—it is a site of social politics, of state intervention, and of deeply entrenched class and gender hierarchies. Family planning practices have both implicitly and explicitly played a role in defining the construct of the ‘modern woman,’ and how women are represented, regulated, and monitored through their reproductive and sexual capacities. From colonial-era anxieties about Indian fertility to post-independence sterilisation campaigns disproportionately targeting Dalit and Adivasi women, reproductive policies have long been a means of controlling marginalised communities rather than empowering them. 

Colonial legacies of family planning 
To truly grasp the complexities of reproductive rights and sexualities in India, mapping its history is a good place to start. Taking its roots in the colonial era, British administrators argued that Indian marital, sexual, and familial practices were responsible for Indian impoverishment. Among some Indian intellectuals and reformers, anxieties about overpopulation and focus on numbers as a mode of governance produced a new reproductive politics that linked reproductive rights to the economy.

Continued: https://feminisminindia.com/2025/02/14/family-planning-and-the-politics-of-reproduction-in-india/


LIFE empowers young women to prevent unsafe abortion

February 14, 2025
by Chinyere Okoroafor

No fewer than 40 young women from that ages of 15 – 35 years have been trained on the importance of reproductive health and the dangers of unsafe abortion in Lagos by Leadership Initiative for Youth Empowerment (LIFE).

The three day capacity building workshop On Amplifying female voices in demanding accountability on preventable maternal deaths held at Sunfit, Amuwo-Odofin, Lagos.

It aimed at equipping young individuals with the knowledge to make informed decisions about their bodies and reproductive choices which will help reduce the number of deaths from unsafe abortions. The project aims to build the capacity of 40% of participants to educate others and create awareness.

Continued: https://thenationonlineng.net/life-empowers-young-women-to-prevent-unsafe-abortion/


USA – Anti-Abortion Activists See Their Moon-Shot Goal Within Reach

And we’re already experiencing the consequences.

By Mary Ziegler
Feb 14, 2025

In 2022 the Louisiana Legislature became the first to advance a bill to criminalize abortion seekers. While conservative states often punish women for pregnancy-related conduct, as the group Pregnancy Justice documents, jurisdictions that ban abortion have been careful to stress that they don’t punish women for abortion itself. And when Louisiana came close to doing that, the most powerful national anti-abortion organizations moved to kill the bill, arguing that the movement was united in viewing women as victims, not perpetrators, of abortion.

That might have been it: The movement’s powers that be had spoken, and the case was closed. But this legislative session has already seen a wave of bills authorizing the punishment of abortion patients, proposed by so-called abortion abolitionists, who argue that their bills are the only way for the anti-abortion movement to be logically consistent, as well as morally (and biblically) justified.

Continued; https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/anti-abortion-legislation-fetal-personhood.html


Abortion bans in US led to more births and infant deaths, especially among vulnerable groups

By Deidre McPhillips, CNN
February 13, 2025

Abortion bans in the United States are exacerbating existing health disparities as births increase in high-risk populations and infant mortality rises disproportionately, new research suggests.

In 14 states that implemented complete or 6-week abortion bans after the Supreme Court Dobbs decision revoked the federal right to abortion, the fertility rate increased 1.7%, leading to about 1 additional birth for every 1,000 women of reproductive age, according to a study published Thursday in the medical journal JAMA. A corresponding study from the same research team found that the rise in infant mortality was even more significant, spiking nearly 6% in the states that implemented bans.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/13/health/abortion-bans-lead-to-births-infant-deaths/index.html


Polish court orders retrial in hot-button abortion case

Warsaw (AFP) – A Polish court on Thursday ordered a retrial in the case of an activist found guilty of aiding a woman to terminate her pregnancy, in a symbolic step for Poland's abortion rights movement.

Feb 13, 2025

Justyna Wydrzynska was sentenced to community service in 2023 in the first such case concerning an activist in the EU country, which has a near-total abortion ban and outlaws abortion assistance.

…But an appeals court on Thursday overturned "the contested judgment in its entirety", judge Rafal Kaniok said, citing doubts over the independence of the presiding judge who delivered the sentence.

Continued: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250213-polish-court-orders-retrial-in-hot-button-abortion-case


Republican States Claim Zero Abortions. A Red-State Doctor Calls That ‘Ludicrous.’

By Sarah Varney
February 13, 2025

In Arkansas, state health officials announced a stunning statistic for 2023: The total number of abortions in the state, where some 1.5 million women live, was zero.  In South Dakota, too, official records show zero abortions that year. And in Idaho, home to abortion battles that have recently made their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the official number of recorded abortions was just five.

In nearly a dozen states with total or near-total abortion bans, government officials claimed that zero or very few abortions occurred in 2023, the first full year after the Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion rights.

Those statistics, the most recent available and published in government records, have been celebrated by anti-abortion activists. Medical professionals say such accounts are not only untrue but fundamentally dishonest.

Continued: https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/zero-abortion-counts-republican-states-challenged/


Germany Fails to Advance Critical Abortion Law Reform

Statement from the Center for Reproductive Rights on stalled abortion law reform in Germany

Feb 12, 2025

The Center for Reproductive Rights expresses deep disappointment over the failure of Germany’s Legal Affairs Committee to advance a cross party proposal aimed at modernising the country’s outdated abortion laws and improving access to essential reproductive care.

Introduced in November, the proposal sought to fully legalise abortion on request up to 12 weeks and remove the mandatory three-day waiting period, among other key reforms. It followed a report from a government-appointed expert commission, released last year, which highlighted how Germany’s current abortion law falls short of international human rights and public health standards.

Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/germany-fails-abortion-law-reform/