Reproductive control of Indigenous women continues around the world, say survivors and researchers

Survivors of forced sterilization and coerced contraception from Canada, Peru and Indonesia will meet with researchers to share stories, heal and advocate for change.

June 27, 2022
by Gillian Rutherford

Survivors of forced sterilization and coerced contraception from Canada, Peru and Indonesia will gather with academic researchers at a summit in Edmonton this summer to share stories, heal through art and ceremony, and set an agenda for change.

The full extent of reproductive control practices around the world is not known, but they have been historically — and continue to be — targeted at Indigenous, poor and migrant women, according to principal investigator Denise Spitzer, professor in the School of Public Health and former Canada Research Chair in Gender, Migration and Health.

Continued: https://www.ualberta.ca/folio/2022/06/reproductive-control-of-indigenous-women-continues-around-the-world.html

27.06.2022

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Looking back on the successes of the International Safe Abortion Day 2021

10 December 2021
FIGO Advocating for Safe Abortion Project

For International Safe Abortion Day (ISAD), marked on 28 September, the 10 national member societies FIGO supports through its Advocating for Safe Abortion Project developed educational activities and awareness-raising campaigns in their countries and communities.

“International Safe Abortion Day is about making what is often ignored – the preventable pandemic of unsafe abortions - visible. As a committed health care community we come together to demonstrate what solutions must be implemented. Together with our partners, we raise our voices to dismantle abortion-related stigma which is the enemy of women/girls’ right to claim access to safe abortion – time-sensitive essential health care. This year from Latin America to Africa we are proud to share the efforts of our OBGYN member societies, and all that they are doing to stand up for women/girls’ health care and human rights.”
– Jessica Morris, Senior Project Manager, Advocating for Safe Abortion Project, FIGO

Continued: https://www.figo.org/news/looking-back-successes-international-safe-abortion-day-2021

Increase in Maternal Deaths: The Silent Impact of Covid-19 on Latin America

The scale of the health emergency led to restrictions and closures in reproductive health services for months. Artwork by Leila Arenas

International Campaign for Safe Abortion
May 21, 2021

With health systems focused on containing the virus, women have experienced severe hardships when trying to access reproductive health services, such as perinatal care, contraceptive methods and safe abortion services. The monitoring carried out in nine countries in the region is showing that these limitations have led to an increase in maternal deaths. Just in Peru, 433 expectant mothers passed away between January and December of 2020, a number not seen in a decade. This year, more than 90 deaths have been registered up to March 9th. If we continue on this path, specialists asked warn, the indicators could be even worse than those reported during the first few months of the pandemic.

Continued: https://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/21-may-2021?e=372dd34034

Latin America’s fight to legalise abortion: the key battlegrounds

Latin America's fight to legalise abortion: the key battlegrounds
After Argentina rejected a bill to allow abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy, hopes of reform now rest elsewhere

Annie Kelly
Thu 9 Aug 2018

An estimated 6.5 million abortions take place across Latin America each year. Three-quarters of these procedures are unlawful, often performed in unsafe illegal clinics or at home.

Of 33 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, only Cuba, Uruguay and Guyana permit elective abortions. Women also have the right to choose in Mexico City. Elsewhere, however, the right to an abortion is severely restricted, with terminations often permitted in cases of rape, or if the pregnancy will endanger the life of the mother. Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Suriname all have a complete ban on abortion.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/aug/09/latin-america-fight-to-legalise-abortion-argentina-brazil-chile-venezuela-uruguay-colombia-el-salvador-peru

Latin America lagging behind on women’s rights

Latin America lagging behind on women’s rights

By Hugo Sánchez and Julia R. Arévalo
euroefe.es | translated by Freya Kirk
Feb 19, 2018

Imprisoned for having an abortion, forced to keep a child born out of rape, pushed to commit suicide: women still pay a heavy price in Latin America, where several countries’ legislation greatly restricts abortion. EURACTIV’s partner Euroefe reports.

Women’s rights in South America were the main issue during a conference before the 10th Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EUROLAT), held last September in El Salvador. El Salvador is now ranked as the most violent country in the world, mainly due to gang activities.

Continued: https://www.euractiv.com/section/development-policy/news/latin-america-lagging-behind-on-womens-rights/

Peru: New study on abortion pill shows high success, low rate of complications

New study on abortion pill shows high success, low rate of complications
by Ariana Eunjung Cha
January 11, 2018

Abortion is legally restricted in Peru, forcing women who want to end their pregnancies to seek other means. (Mariana Bazo/Reuters)

Ever since the abortion pill RU-486 began to hit the market in the 1980s, questions have lingered about its safety, especially for women who take it in countries where terminating an unwanted pregnancy is restricted and they cannot openly seek help from a medical professional if something goes wrong.

As reports of deaths and injuries grew in the early 2000s and the pill became a big political issue, studies were launched to try to get more data on the safety question. The results are starting to come out.

Continued at source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/01/11/new-study-on-abortion-pill-shows-high-success-low-rate-of-complications/

Chile: the long road to abortion reform

Chile: the long road to abortion reform

August 25, 2017 6.51am EDT
Cordelia Freeman

Chile had one of the most restrictive abortion policies in the entire world. After years of campaigning, Chile’s president, Michelle Bachelet, has finally pushed through a bill that will allow the termination of a pregnancy in three cases – when the woman’s life is in danger, when a foetus is unviable, or in cases of rape.

Judges in the constitutional court ruled in favour by six to four in a vote that reflected the wider mood on the matter. Among the general public, 70% supported the bill.

Continued at source: The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/chile-the-long-road-to-abortion-reform-82990

“Niñas, No Madres” (Girls, Not Mothers) regional campaign, Latin America

“Niñas, No Madres” (Girls, Not Mothers) regional campaign, Latin America

by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion
July 28, 2017

Planned Parenthood Global, Amnesty International, Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida Mexico (GIRE) and Latin American Campaign against Unsafe Abortion (CLACAI) have joined efforts to raise awareness on forced motherhood and its impact on girls’ lives and futures across Latin America through the “Niñas, No Madres” (Girls, Not Mothers) regional campaign. The campaign calls for comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and safe, legal abortion services to end forced motherhood in girls in Latin America.

In the framework of the International Day of Action for Women’s Health, the campaign launched a call to women to share on social media what was their dream when they were girls, along with a childhood photo. The response was amazing: women from all over the region lit up social media with the hashtag #NiñasNoMadres. The timelines, full of cute pictures, brought attention to the toll that forced motherhood has taken on thousands of girls in the region. More than 40 national and international media outlets published pieces about the campaign, including Huffington Post, BuzzFeed and AJ+.

Latin America is the only region in the world where births among girls under 15 years old is on the rise. Forced motherhood in girls is an urgent public health and human rights problem.

In Guatemala, five girls under the age of 14 become pregnant every day. In Nicaragua, the number of pregnant girls aged 10-14 years old increased 47% from 2001 to 2009. In Ecuador, pregnancy among girls under the age of 15 has increased by 74% in the last decade. In Peru, every year, more than 1,100 births are to girls 12-13 years old.

Planned Parenthood Global has produced the report “Stolen Lives” in English and Spanish, which summarizes qualitative and quantitative research conducted in Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Peru to document the dire physical, mental, and social health consequences of forced pregnancy on girls living in these countries. This report was used as input for the Hemispheric Report on Sexual Violence and Child Pregnancy recently released by the Organization of American States’ Committee of Experts of the Follow-Up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI), which issues recommendations to States, including “ensuring that all pregnancies in girls are considered high risk and allowing legal termination of pregnancy.”

Join us in demanding a better future for girls in Latin America. Follow the campaign on Facebook @ninasnomadres and visit http://www.ninasnomadres.org for more information.

SOURCE: Planned Parenthood Global, email 17 July 2017

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Source: International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/ninas-no-madres-girls-not-mothers-regional-campaign-latin-america/

How a UN Committee’s Ruling on Abortion in Ireland Holds Countries Accountable

How a UN Committee’s Ruling on Abortion in Ireland Holds Countries Accountable

Jan 27, 2017, 6:02pm Jamie J. Hagen

The case of Amanda Mellet, who had to leave Ireland to get an abortion due to a fatal fetal condition, has created a roadmap for advocates to call out the prohibition and criminalization of abortion by any country as a violation of human rights.

By now, the stories of people denied access to abortion in Ireland and facing financial, physical, and emotional hardships as a result are likely well known to reproductive rights advocates. Last year, for the first time, one Irish woman took it upon herself to appeal to the United Nations that, in being denied access to a safe and affordable abortion, her human rights were violated by the constitution of her home nation. The UN Human Rights Committee agreed that she faced “discrimination and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment” because of Ireland’s ban on most abortions; in response, Ireland has paid her financial reparations. Now, her case has created a roadmap for advocates to call out the prohibition and criminalization of abortion by any country as a violation of human rights.

[continued at link]
Source, Rewire: https://rewire.news/article/2017/01/27/how-a-un-committees-ruling-on-abortion-in-ireland-holds-countries-accountable/

Looking at How Abortion Restrictions Endanger Women’s Lives

By Moira Donegan , December 1, 2016, New Yorker

In 2006, a Polish woman named Justyna heard a rumor about a new abortion pill. The thirty-year-old mother of three was eleven weeks along in a new pregnancy, and her marriage wasn’t going well. Abortion in Poland is illegal in most circumstances, but after several weeks she was able to get the pills. She took them at home, while her kids were down the hall. She didn’t tell anyone, not even her husband; she’s now divorced. “It took me two weeks to process all the feelings, but then I felt released,” she told the Spanish photographer Laia Abril. “I feel able to make my own decisions.”

[continued at link]

Source: New Yorker