20 March 2023
by Robert Armour
Ministers are being urged by campaigners to review the charitable status of ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ giving unethical advice to pregnant woman.
These centres are organisations outside the NHS that offer advice to women with unplanned pregnancies. Many are registered charities.
Continued: https://tfn.scot/news/charity-urges-urgent-review-of-charity-status-for-crisis-pregnancy-centres
NPR | By Ari Shapiro, Matt Ozug, Karen Zamora
Published March 17, 2023
Podcast interview - 5:25 mins
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Poland's abortion laws are some of the most restrictive in Europe. Abortion is almost entirely illegal. Helping someone end a pregnancy can lead to jail time. One year ago, we first heard from an activist in Poland - the first woman to face criminal charges under Polish abortion law for helping a woman in an abusive relationship obtain abortion pills.
JUSTYNA WYDRZYNSKA: She was begging us, please help me somehow.
SHAPIRO: Well, this week, Justyna Wydrzynska received her sentence. A judge in Warsaw gave her eight months of community service. And she joins us now. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
WYDRZYNSKA: Thank you. Thank you for invitation.
Justyna Wydrzynska was convicted on Tuesday, three years after providing a woman with abortion pills.
By Gouri Sharma
Published On 15 Mar 2023
A Polish activist found guilty of facilitating an abortion has told Al Jazeera that she plans to appeal her sentence in a case that is testing the nation’s strict abortion laws.
On Tuesday, a court in the capital, Warsaw, convicted Justyna Wydrzynska three years after she sent the pills to a woman who was reportedly in an abusive relationship. Alongside eight months of community service, she was handed a fine, and will now have a criminal record.
Justyna Wydrzynska sentenced to community service after telling court she sent pills to victim of domestic violence
Weronika Strzyżyńska and agencies in Warsaw
Tue 14 Mar 2023
A court in Poland has convicted an activist for helping a pregnant woman access abortion pills, sentencing her to eight months of community service in a landmark case over abortion rights in the predominantly Catholic country.
“I do not feel that I am facing the court alone,” said Justyna Wydrzynska at the hearing on Tuesday. “Behind me are my friends and hundreds of women I have not had the luck to meet yet.”
Concerns that Scotland lagging behind rest of UK as anti-abortion protests continue outside clinics
Libby Brooks Scotland correspondent
Mon 13 Mar 2023
Pro-choice campaigners are urging all Scottish National party leadership candidates to commit to accelerating the imposition of protest-free buffer zones around abortion clinics, as healthcare professionals describe the “remorseless” impact of anti-choice activity on their working lives.
Amid growing concern that Scotland is trailing behind the rest of the UK, after safe access zones passed their final parliamentary hurdle in the Commons last week, there was a protest and counter-protest outside the Sandyford clinic in Glasgow at the weekend. The clinic offers a range of services including abortion, support for sexual assault victims and transgender healthcare.
Issued on: 10/03/2023
Romain BRUNET
During a speech given on International Woman’s Day, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the decision to put forward a bill enshrining abortion rights in the country's constitution. Despite being lauded by women’s rights groups, changing the constitution may be more difficult than it appears.
Perhaps in an attempt to divert attention from the backlash his government is facing over the recent pension reform proposal, Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday, March 8 announced his intention to cement abortion rights in the French constitution as he paid tribute to feminist activist Gisèle Halimi, who greatly influenced the passing in 1975 of the Veil Act granting women the right to abortion and contraception.
BMJ 2023; 380 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.p563
Published 08 March 2023
Matthew Limb
The UK government is facing fresh pressure to overhaul abortion law after new research found strong backing among women and healthcare professionals for change.
The Shaping Abortion for Change (Sacha) study, led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), recommended allowing nurses and midwives to authorise an abortion, prescribe abortion drugs, and perform vacuum aspirations as they do in miscarriage care. If adopted, this would mean scrapping the requirement under the Abortion Act 1967 for two doctors to authorise an abortion.
Continued: https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p563
Images of the Croatian protest were later edited out of an official Parliament video.
BY EDDY WAX
MARCH 9, 2023
BRUSSELS — The European Parliament removed a video it posted online to mark International Women’s Day Wednesday that contained images of a rally against abortion.
For a few seconds, the video showed an image of an anti-abortion protest in Croatia featuring a man holding a placard with the slogan: “Nine weeks from conception, it already sucks its thumb.”
MAR 8, 2023
Notes from Poland
Parliament has rejected a bill that would have introduced jail terms for “publicly promoting or calling for abortion” or providing information about how women can obtain abortions in Poland or abroad.
While the legislation – which was submitted to parliament as a so-called citizen’s legislative initiative supported by public signatures – was rejected by a large majority of MPs, over half of members of the conservative ruling coalition’s caucus voted either to allow it to proceed or abstained from voting.
Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/03/08/polish-parliament-rejects-law-banning-promotion-of-abortion/
March 8, 2023
Gregory Warner
6-minute listen with transcript
When Russia invaded Ukraine, the supply of abortion pills dwindled. NPR reporters follow a secret effort to resupply doctors and help women with pregnancies made complicated by war.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
This story takes us to the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a covert effort to resupply Ukrainian doctors with abortion pills. The story comes from our podcast, Rough Translation. Because of the secrecy of the doctor's mission and because of medical privacy, most of the people in this story are referred to by just one name or, in one case, no name at all. Here is Rough Translation host Gregory Warner and reporter Katz Laszlo.
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