Kenya – One is too many women to lose to unsafe abortion

Thursday, September 28, 2023

By Wangari Ireri, Programme Manager, TICAH

Lack of access to safe abortion due to known barriers remains unacceptably high. Unsafe abortion is a public health concern, and according to the Ministry of Health’s 2013 Magnitude and Incidences of Unsafe Abortion in Kenya study, unsafe abortion in the country is among the highest in Africa. Maternal mortality is high at approximately 6,000 deaths per year, 17 per cent of which are due to complications from unsafe abortion.

Continued: https://nation.africa/kenya/blogs-opinion/blogs/one-is-too-many-women-to-lose-to-unsafe-abortion-4383168

28.09.2023

Opinion

African Population and Health Research Centre

International Safe Abortion Day

Magnitude and Incidences of Unsafe Abortion in Kenya

I’m Ready to Talk About My Abortion

BY KERRY WASHINGTON
SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

In my late 20s, I made the difficult and very private decision to have an abortion. About a decade later, I played a character that was the first woman to be shown undergoing an abortion procedure on network television. As women, it is our right to choose what happens to our bodies, our lives, and our futures. It is also up to us to decide when, how, and with whom we share our stories.

While, as an actor, I was proud to portray a woman exercising her right to choose, in real life I never talked about my own abortion publicly. My shame and embarrassment inspired a private silence that hid my personal truth and made me complicit in a culture of secrecy that shames women, our bodies, our choices, and our power. As I was writing my memoir, however, I realized how important it is to speak openly about experiences that have been kept in the dark, because when we do so we liberate ourselves and each other.

Continued: https://time.com/collection/time100-voices/6316450/kerry-washington-abortion-story-book/

26.09.2023

Opinion

abortion story

celebrity abortions

celebrity support for abortion rights

Kerry Washington

women's abortion stories

United States

Activism

Human Rights

There Are Now Tests That Can Detect If Someone Took Abortion Pills

The chilling development comes out of Poland, where prosecutors have already used the tests to investigate pregnancy outcomes, reports the New York Times.

By Susan Rinkunas, Jezebel
Sept 14, 2023

Scientists in Poland have reportedly developed lab tests that can detect whether people have taken abortion pills—and those tests are already being used to investigate pregnancy outcomes under the country’s abortion ban. This is an alarming development, to say the least, and unfortunately, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before a U.S. state replicates the effort.

According to a bone-chilling piece in the New York Times, Polish scientists have developed tests that can identify both mifepristone and misoprostol, the drugs typically used in a medication abortion. (Though some people do use misoprostol alone.) The studies were part of a research project funded by the Polish government where researchers were able to find evidence of misoprostol in the placenta and mifepristone in a woman’s blood sample. A spokesperson for a prosecutor’s office in Wroclaw confirmed to the Times that Polish authorities have already used the tests to investigate pregnancy outcomes.

Continued; https://jezebel.com/there-are-now-tests-that-can-detect-if-someone-took-abo-1850839647

Anti-choice states aren’t satisfied. Now they want to punish traveling for abortions

A husband who doesn’t want his wife to get an abortion could sue the friend who offered to drive her, according to this legislation’s own architect

Moira Donegan
Tue 12 Sep 2023

How free can any woman be in a country where her right to control her body and family depends on the jurisdiction where she happens to live? Republicans are looking to find out. Over the past few weeks, as Republican officials in anti-choice states seek to make their abortion bans enforceable and compel women into childbirth, a new front has opened up in the abortion wars: roads. The anti-choice movement, through a series of inventive legal theories and cynical legislative maneuvers, is now attacking women’s right to travel.

In a court filing last month, the Alabama attorney general, Steve Marshall, wrote that he believed his office had a right to prosecute those who help women travel across state lines in search of an abortion. The filing comes in a lawsuit from two women’s health clinics and an abortion fund, which sued Marshall after he publicly stated his intention to criminally investigate organizations like theirs, which provide financial and logistical help to pregnant patients seeking to leave the state. In his response, Marshall unequivocally stated that Alabama, which bans all abortions with no rape or incest exemption, views any effort to help women cross state lines as a “criminal conspiracy”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/12/anti-choice-states-arent-satisfied-now-they-want-to-punish-traveling-for-abortions

12.09.2023

traveling for abortion

Reassessing India’s Abortion Laws: A Call for Change

Kanav Narayan Sahgal
SEPTEMBER 2, 2023

Nearly two decades ago, the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment in Suchita Srivastava & Anr vs Chandigarh Administration. The judgment stayed the orders of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, which had ruled that a ‘mentally retarded woman‘ who was raped while residing in a government-run welfare institution in Chandigarh should undergo a medical termination of pregnancy (MTP). The woman in question was an orphan who had been abandoned by her parents at an early age and was under the guardianship of the Missionaries of Charity, New Delhi.

Despite her willingness to bear a child, the High Court ruled in favour of the proposed abortion. However, the Supreme Court held that her pregnancy could not be terminated without her consent, as doing so would not serve her best interest. The Court emphasized that a woman’s right to make reproductive choices is an essential aspect of ‘personal liberty‘ under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. This right allows women to choose whether to procreate or refrain from procreating, with the key consideration being respect for their privacy, dignity, and bodily integrity. Any restrictions on reproductive choices should only be in line with the provisions of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971.

Continued: https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2023/09/reassessing-indias-abortion-laws-a-call-for-change/

02.09.2023

Opinion

Gujarat high court

Indian penal code

Medical Termination Of Pregnancy (MTP) Act

MTP Act

rape and abortion

Samir J. Dave

Suchita Srivastava vs Chandigarh Administration

X vs The Principal Secretary Health

USA – We Need Courageous Leaders Who Stand Up to Anti-Abortion Extremists

Anti-abortion violence has increased significantly since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Our political leaders must not cower.

9/2/2023
by CARRIE N. BAKER

While headlines focus on politicians’ efforts to ban abortion at the state and national levels, anti-abortion forces are also working at the local level to erode abortion access—even in deep blue states such as Massachusetts. In addition to pumping massive funds into anti-abortion fake clinics in blue states, they are also working to block municipal protections for abortion healthcare by using threats and legal intimidation.

Recently, in the progressive Western Massachusetts city of Easthampton, both the mayor and city council president—both Democrats that claim to support abortion rights—voted against an ordinance to protect access to reproductive healthcare and gender-affirming care. The ordinance was supported by over 20 reproductive and trans rights groups in the community, who were perplexed and frustrated by their actions.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/09/02/anti-abortion-massachusetts/

Indiana is the crossroads of America’s abortion debate and our future is bleak

Drs. Caroline Rouse and Sherrine Ibrahim, Indianapolis Star
Sep 1, 2023

Ever since Indiana’s near-total abortion ban went into effect, we find ourselves counting.

Counting the weeks since four judges with no medical training stripped Hoosiers of their bodily autonomy. Counting the days of travel more patients will endure and the thousands of dollars they’ll spend – on gas, hotels, childcare – to seek safe, evidence-based health care outside of Indiana. Counting the hours that high-risk patients will wait until their lives are sufficiently “at risk” before we are allowed to intervene. Counting the minutes we have to grieve the unnecessary, preventable suffering before pulling ourselves together and jumping back into this crisis that could have – should have – been avoided.

We are maternal-fetal medicine subspecialists, which means we care for Indiana’s sickest pregnant patients. We routinely care for patients with serious medical complications such as severe heart disease, cancer, uncontrolled diabetes, and hypertension. We also diagnose complex fetal anomalies, including those that are lethal, as well as conditions that develop during pregnancy that might risk a patient’s life or their fetus. For our patients, abortion is a critical health care service.

Continued: https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2023/09/01/america-abortion-debate-indiana-is-crossroads-bleak-future/70727114007/

01.09.2023

Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine

Ohio – An abortion saved my life and made the family I have now possible

"For my own life and my family’s, I did what I never thought I would have to do – I ended the pregnancy," Emily Savors

Emily Savors, Guest Columnist
Aug 31, 2023

As a mother of two beautiful daughters, I can say with confidence that the incredible family I currently have would not be possible without abortion. My pregnancy journey has been incredibly long and difficult — it is the reason why my two daughters are nearly nine years apart.

It was early 1997, and I was newly married with a 4-year-old daughter from a previous marriage. My husband and I wanted more children, and by late spring, I was pregnant. My first pregnancy being uneventful, we settled in for an easy few months with expectations of a baby due in March 1998.

Continued: https://www.dispatch.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2023/08/31/ohio-mother-how-an-abortion-saved-my-family/70711306007/

31.08.2023

Opinion

abortion is life-saving

abortion story

Emily Savors

women's abortion stories

USA – The oxymoron at the heart of GOP abortion ‘compromise’

Opinion by Mary Ziegler
Tue August 29, 2023

The South Carolina Supreme Court’s recent abortion decision is a reminder of the importance of state constitutional law in the post-Roe era. By upholding a six-week ban virtually identical to one struck down by the same court in January, this ruling means that South Carolina will go from a state that welcomed abortion seekers from across the region to one where the procedure is available for only as little as a week after a person confirms a pregnancy.

But the court’s decision — and the legislative strategy behind the law that the court upheld — is also a perfect reflection of an evolving Republican strategy to push back on abortion: paying lip service to the importance of reproductive liberty with exceptions or rhetorical flourishes while offering no real access at all.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/29/opinions/abortion-ban-south-carolina-gop-strategy-ziegler/index.html

29.08.2023

Opinion

anti-choice deception

anti-choice disinformation

anti-choice hypocrisy

anti-choice legislative strategy

Republicans Are Wrong on Abortion—and They Know It

The GOP presidential candidates are trying really hard to confuse voters on abortion. But Americans are not buying it.

Aug 25, 2023
ANGELA VASQUEZ-GIROUX

When Fox News began the Republican debate on Wednesday night with a video introduction noting that voters have mobilized to protect abortion access in elections since the fall of Roe, they admitted the truth: When it comes to abortion access and our right to control our own bodies, they are on the wrong side of the American people.

After a few rounds of bickering and infighting, the debate moderators pressed the candidates on their abortion stances. Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, and others responded by letting loose every piece of anti-abortion disinformation in the party’s arsenal—from pushing falsehoods about abortion later in pregnancy, to ignoring the science to justify bans before many people even know they are pregnant, to peddling the lie that most voters support bans.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/republican-debate-wrong-abortion/

25.08.2023