Europe – Reproductive Rights: “Law Can Be an Instrument for Transformative Change”

Nov 28, 2024

On 6 December 2024, Sciences Po’s Gender Studies Programme and Law School will hold a Symposium on Reproductive Rights. In order to better understand the goals of the symposium and what it will entail, its two organisers, Helena Alviar García, full professor at the Sciences Po Law School, and Marie Mercat-Bruns, Full University Professor at the Cnam and affiliated to Sciences Po Law School, have answered some questions.

Why are reproductive rights important?
Marie Mercat-Bruns: Reproductive rights are essential to understand the current trends we face with regard to issues of gender equality, privacy and freedom to control one’s body. But beyond, the individual choice of women to procreate or not lies the question of structural inequalities to access contraception, health care, work-life balance and equal opportunity all over the globe. Beyond the intimate question of self-determination and risks of physical harm linked to the criminalisation of abortion, lies the question of access to justice, judicial power and the limits of the democratic process in preserving rights of women or transgender persons, acquired in some countries, more than forty years ago.

Continued: https://www.sciencespo.fr/ecole-droit/en/news/reproductive-rights-law-can-be-an-instrument-for-transformative-change/

28.11.2024

Events/Campaigns

EU Fundamental Rights Charter

Symposium on Reproductive Rights

‘Beyond Borders’ gives U.S. state lawmakers a global human rights perspective on abortion

Ipas
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2024

In the nearly two years since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion in the United States, the abortion landscape has become fragmented and increasingly polarized. In more than half of the 50 U.S. states, abortion is now completely banned, heavily restricted or under legal threat.

With that divided landscape as a backdrop, dozens of U.S. state-level lawmakers gathered recently with abortion rights advocates and human rights experts from the United States and ten other countries to share ideas and strategies for expanding abortion access in legally restrictive settings.

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/beyond-borders-gives-u-s-state-lawmakers-a-global-human-rights-perspective-on-abortion/

POLAND: URGENT SOLIDARITY REQUESTED

Bill banning all abortions falls by large majority, but a second one passed the first round

DECEMBER 3, 2021

International Campaign for Safe Abortion

Polish Women’s Strike activists spilled red paint and left slogans saying
“Don’t ask for my blood Poland” on cardboard outside Polish ruling party (PiS)
offices in different cities in Poland over last weekend in anticipation of the
upcoming week in the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, where two
anti-abortion bills are tabled for this week. It’s a Ministry of Health decree
, they have put it on their website until 6 December for comments. The 16-page
text of the government’s abortion bill can be found here in
Polish.

A bill tabled
for 30 November aims to create a Polish Institute of Family and
Demography, led by right-wing fundamentalist parliamentarian Bartłomiej
Wróblewski, the same person who tabled the motion to the Constitutional Court
that resulted in the October 2020 ban on abortion.
Their goal is an increase in Poland’s birth rate, which they hope to achieve by
limiting the number of divorces and creating what they call the “proper social
context”. It allows women to be investigated if they were known to be pregnant
and are no longer pregnant. This bill was passed by only one vote of 205 to
204, with 24 abstentions. It will now go to a committee.

Continued: https://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/news/poland-urgent-solidarity-requested/

Philippines – Women’s rights orgs urge authorities to decriminalize abortion

By KAELA MALIG, GMA News
Published May 25, 2021

Women's rights organizations urged legislators to decriminalize abortion as women continue to die from unsafe abortion complications.

In a media workshop on Tuesday, EnGendeRights executive director Atty. Claire Padilla said that the restrictive 1930 Revised Penal Code abortion law has not stopped the number of women from inducing abortion but has only endangered lives of hundreds of women who undergo unsafe abortions due to several personal reasons.

Continued: https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/788842/women-s-rights-orgs-urge-authorities-to-decriminalize-abortion/story/

Women's rights orgs urge authorities to decriminalize abortion

By KAELA MALIG, GMA News
Published May 25, 2021

Women's rights organizations urged legislators to decriminalize abortion as women continue to die from unsafe abortion complications.

Continued: https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/788842/women-s-rights-orgs-urge-authorities-to-decriminalize-abortion/story/

25.05.2021

Events/Campaigns

News

1930 Revised Penal Code

Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights

FDA Allows Telemedicine Abortion During Pandemic

4/19/2021
by CARRIE N. BAKER

Last Monday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued long-awaited guidance lifting a restriction on the abortion pill mifepristone for the duration of the COVID-19 public health emergency. The move permits telemedicine abortion, a combination of medication abortion—using pills to end a pregnancy—and telemedicine, which allows health providers to supervise the use of abortion pills via videoconferencing or telephone consultations.

Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting FDA commissioner, wrote in a letter to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine that the FDA will waive a requirement that clinicians dispense the abortion pill mifepristone to their patients in a clinic or hospital setting. The letter said research studies on telemedicine abortion “do not appear to show increases in serious safety concerns occurring with medical abortion as a result of modifying the in-person dispensing requirement during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2021/04/19/fda-telemedicine-abortion-pill-mifepristone/

Barbara Kruger’s ‘Your Body is a Battleground’ poster appears in Poland as protests flare up over abortion ban

Graphic work was last shown in the country nearly 30 years ago when women’s rights were also under attack

ANNY SHAW

15th December
2020

As protests ramp up against the right-wing Polish government’s tightening of
already restrictive abortion laws, Barbara Kruger’s seminal 1989 poster, Your
Body is a Battleground, has once again gone on show in the eastern European
country.

Over the past two weeks, more than 100 posters have been distributed in the
streets of Szczecin, considered one of Poland’s most liberal cities, as part of
a project by the TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art.

Continued; https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/barbara-kruger-s-your-body-is-a-battleground-poster-goes-on-show-in-poland-as-protests-flare-up-over-abortion-ban

15.12.2020

Poland Constitutional Tribunal

Stanislaw Ruksza

TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art

Women's March in Washington

Your Body is a Battleground

“They’re uncompromising”: How the young transformed Poland’s abortion protests

Four years ago, Polish women went on strike over an abortion ban. Now, a younger, fiery generation has joined them.

Magdalena Muszel, Grzegorz Piotrowski
11 December 2020

The protests in Poland over the government’s plans to further tighten abortion restrictions began in October – they haven’t stopped since. Now, some are calling it the “cardboard revolution” in reference to the handmade placards that have become a distinctive feature of the protests. But what’s novel about the movement isn’t the ubiquitous signage – it’s the young age of its participants.

When looking through the crowds at the protests, it quickly becomes clear that most participants appear to be in their early twenties. That might explain the radicalism of the movement’s chants and slogans, but also it’s creativity and spontaneity.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/theyre-uncompromising-how-the-young-transformed-polands-abortion-protests/

Model Anja Rubik poses naked on three covers for Vogue Poland’s Power of Women issue to protest against country’s new tighter abortion laws

By LATOYA GAYLE
27 November 2020

Social media users have praised Vogue Poland for supporting pro-choice campaigners following the ruling to ban abortions in Poland in all but exceptional cases.

Polish model Anja Rubik, 37, stripped off to appear on three different covers for the glossy publication entitled 'The Power of Women', in response to the country now having some of the most draconian abortion laws in Europe, which sparked nationwide protests last month.

Continued: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8990693/Vogue-Poland-shows-support-pro-choice-following-abortion-ban.html

27.11.2020

Poland Constitutional Tribunal

Double healthcare spending and create a secular state: abortion protest leaders unveil demands

NOV 3, 2020

The main organisers of ongoing demonstrations against an anti-abortion ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal have unveiled a set of political demands.

All-Poland Women’s Strike (Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet, OSK), a social movement, has been the primary force behind what are believed to be the largest protests in Poland since the fall of communism in 1989. Its red lightning bolt logo has become the demonstrators main symbol.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/11/03/double-healthcare-spending-and-create-a-secular-state-abortion-protest-leaders-unveil-demands/

Women’s Strike presents plan for Friday abortion protest

The movement's Klementyna Suchanow warned that demonstrators could be exposed to provocateurs, and advised to report any acts of aggression.

OCTOBER 29, 2020

The Women's Strike movement has presented plans for a mass demonstration on Friday against a recent court ruling that could lead to a near-total ban on abortion.

Last Thursday Poland's constitutional court ruled that a 1993 law permitting abortion when there is severe damage to the foetus was unconstitutional. The verdict sparked mass protests which are continuing throughout the country.

Continued: https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/womens-strike-presents-plan-for-friday-abortion-protest-17170

29.10.2020