Kenya – Timely conversation on reviewing age of consent

For Citizen Digital
Published on: April 21, 2021
By Dr. Stellah Bosire

The controversial debate on age of consent, an emotive matter, recently arose again as I responded to various queries on the relevance of legal reforms in Kenya.

At the crux of this question is the unjust, unnecessary and unrealistic legal statutes which impose harsh and unfair consequences on adolescent young boys engaged in consensual, romantic sexual activity with their adolescent peers. The legal provisions that exist do not appreciate the fact that young adolescents engage in such relationships, and in the eyes of the law, the boy — under the age of 18 years — is culpable of defilement.

Continued: https://citizentv.co.ke/blogs/opinion-timely-conversation-on-reviewing-age-of-consent-10369657/

21.04.2021

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age of consent in Kenya

Dr. Stellah Bosire

Kenya Health Information management System

USA – A new, racialized assault on abortion rights is headed to the Supreme Court

Opinion by Melissa Murray
April 18, 2021

A federal appeals court last week allowed an Ohio law to take effect that bars doctors from performing abortions on women who choose to end their pregnancies because the fetus has Down syndrome. The law presents a head-on challenge to the right to abortion that could soon land at the Supreme Court — this time interlaced with sensitive questions of race and eugenics.

Such intrusive “reason bans,” which have been enacted around the country, are controversial — and almost immediately challenged — because they prohibit abortion before fetal viability. Most courts have applied the Supreme Court’s long-standing precedents to strike down such bans.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/18/new-racialized-assault-abortion-rights-is-headed-supreme-court/

Trump’s promise to overturn Roe v. Wade may still come true

The ruling means the conservative Supreme Court may be able to decide the Constitution does not protect a woman’s ability to have an abortion.

April 16, 2021
By Jessica Levinson, MSNBC Opinion Columnist

This week, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction against an Ohio law that makes it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion if the doctor knows or has reason to believe that a Down syndrome diagnosis, or the possibility of such a diagnosis, influenced the woman’s decision to seek an abortion.

The court ruled 9 to 7 to reverse two lower court decisions that had blocked the 2017 law from going into effect.

Continued: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/trump-s-promise-overturn-roe-v-wade-may-still-come-n1264268

Tory MP’s bill to ban sex-selective abortion is the stinking albatross Erin O’Toole was warned about

Konrad Yakabuski, Globe & Mail
PUBLISHED APRIL 14, 2021

Like
clockwork, the Tory-stalking species known as the stinking albatross returns to
Canada each election season after wintering in warmer climes where the culture
wars occur year-round.

Conservative
Leader Erin O’Toole was hounded this week by journalists seeking his reaction
to a private member’s bill tabled by one of his MPs that would ban
sex-selective abortions. It did not go well, to the delight of Liberal
strategists and horror of Tory ones who fear Mr. O’Toole may have to campaign
with the same smelly bird around his neck that made Andrew Scheer’s 2019
election campaign such a stinker.

Continued: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-tory-mps-bill-to-ban-sex-selective-abortion-is-the-stinking-albatross/

USA – Why the case against abortion is weak, ethically speaking

Many medical procedures are ethically similar to abortion — but without the outcry. Why?

By NATHAN NOBIS - JONATHAN DUDLEY
APRIL 11, 2021

Abortion rights are under attack. But ethics education can help — and defenders of abortion rights should recognize this, before it's too late.

In recent years, over 250 abortion-restrictive laws have been proposed across 45 states. Arkansas and South Carolina are the most recent states to pass laws to ban abortion after 6 weeks into pregnancy, when a "heartbeat" can be detected in the fetus and before many women even know they are pregnant.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2021/04/11/why-the-case-against-abortion-is-weak-ethically-speaking/

It’s Time for the Biden Administration to Let Pharmacists Dispense the Abortion Pill

Making the abortion pill available through pharmacies on prescription can improve abortion access—especially for those without an abortion clinic nearby.

4/6/2021
by DANIEL GROSSMAN and SALLY RAFIE

In the last year, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing inequities to abortion care across the country. Last spring, at least 11 states attempted to exploit the crisis to enact additional abortion restrictions, falsely labeling it non-essential care.

In an attempt to ease abortion access during the pandemic, a federal judge in July 2020 halted the in-person dispensing requirement for the abortion pill to allow patients to receive it by mail. However, this was reversed by the Supreme Court’s decision in January 2021 to once again enforce federal restrictions and clamp down on access to this critical medicine.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2021/04/06/biden-administration-pharmacists-dispense-abortion-pill-pharmacy/

USA – Dear Politicians, Put ‘Safe, Legal, and Rare’ in the Dustbin

I'm asking pro-choice politicians to evolve from this outdated mantra—it's no longer serving you. It never served those of us who have abortions.

Apr 5, 2021
Renee Bracey Sherman

One thing I love about reproductive justice and other radical movements is the ability to evolve. We’re humans—evolution is natural and how we’ve survived. As organizers and political leaders, we have to evolve, learn from our past, and recognize when our good intentions fell short. But in order to do so, we have to shift our perspective and let go of things that no longer serve us.

Today, I am asking pro-choice politicians to evolve and let go of “safe, legal, and rare.” It is no longer serving you, and it never served those of us who have abortions. Let it go.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2021/04/05/dear-politicians-put-safe-legal-and-rare-in-the-dustbin/

05.04.2021

Naral Pro-Choice America

USA – The Authoritarian Plan for a National Abortion Ban

Some on the right want the Supreme Court to go beyond ending Roe.

By Michelle Goldberg, Opinion Columnist, NY Times
April 5, 2021

The anti-abortion movement was never going to stop with overturning Roe v. Wade.

For years, Republicans have argued that their goal was to return the issue of abortion to the states. At no point was this believable; since 1984, the Republican Party platform has called for a constitutional amendment banning abortion. Having spent decades denouncing abortion as a singular moral evil, the anti-abortion movement will not be content to return to a pre-Roe status quo, where abortion was legal in some places but not others.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/opinion/us-abortion-bans.html

Abortion and the right to choice: Is MTP (Amendment) Act 2021 a breakthrough for India?

Gayatri Vinayak
Mon., April 5, 2021

Rajya Sabha recently passed a bill to allow abortions of up to 24 weeks for special categories of women, up from the existing 20 weeks gestation period.

Under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill 2021, which amends the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, special categories of women, including victims of incest, rape victims, minors and differently-abled women, will be allowed to undergo abortion till 24 weeks.

Continued: https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/abortion-and-the-right-to-choice-is-mtp-amendment-act-2021-a-breakthrough-for-india-112220154.html

India – Where is the medical technology in the latest MTP Bill 2020?

March 26, 2021
Jasmine Lovely George

If you read closely the Objective of latest Amendment in the Medical Termination Bill, 2020 you would really think that this Bill had an intention of coming to terms with advancement in medical technology. But that’s not the case. At an age where people are trying to colonise Mars, how difficult would it be to make abortion lot more easier and simpler for women and pregnant folks?

The latest law just made accessing abortion little more difficult.

Continued: https://hiddenpocketscollective.org/2021/03/26/where-is-the-medical-technology-in-the-latest-mtp-bill-2020/

26.03.2021