Polish court rejects claim against police who made woman strip after taking abortion pills

Sep 28, 2024
Notes from Poland

A court has rejected a claim by a woman who accused police of abusing their powers during a controversial and widely reported case last year in which they intervened after she had taken abortion pills. Parts of the interaction – in which she was ordered to strip – were caught on film and broadcast by the media.

In its justification for exonerating the police – obtained by newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza – the court argued that the woman had “an interest in portraying herself as a victim of police brutality”, perhaps in order to obtain compensation, and that she had sought to publicise the case in the media.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/09/28/polish-court-rejects-claim-against-police-who-made-woman-strip-after-taking-abortion-pills/

28.09.2024

News

anti-choice callousness

USA – How promises of a ‘post-Roe future’ have fallen short

By Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN
Sun September 22, 2024

Weeks after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, a then-little-known Republican congressman from Louisiana introduced a short bill that proposed amending the Social Security Act to ensure child support payments be made for an “unborn child.”

“The Unborn Child Support Act” has gone nowhere. But the congressman has. He’s Mike Johnson, now the speaker of the House. More than two years after the Dobbs decision and nearly a year into a job that gives him control over which legislation get debated and voted on, Johnson hasn’t touched the bill or any of its provisions.

Continued: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/22/politics/abortion-dobbs-promises-republicans/index.html

Afraid to Seek Care Amid Georgia’s Abortion Ban, She Stayed at Home and Died

Candi Miller’s family said she didn't visit a doctor “due to the current legislation on pregnancies and abortions.” Maternal health experts deemed her death preventable and blamed Georgia’s abortion ban.

by Kavitha Surana
Sept. 18, 2024

Candi Miller’s health was so fragile, doctors warned having another baby could kill her.

“They said it was going to be more painful and her body may not be able to withstand it,” her sister, Turiya Tomlin-Randall, told ProPublica.

But when the mother of three realized she had unintentionally gotten pregnant in the fall of 2022, Georgia’s new abortion ban gave her no choice. Although it made exceptions for acute, life-threatening emergencies, it didn’t account for chronic conditions, even those known to present lethal risks later in pregnancy.

Continued; https://www.propublica.org/article/candi-miller-abortion-ban-death-georgia

Brazilian rape victims who have abortions may face longer in jail than rapists

Proposed law would further limit access to abortion for the 75% of reported rape victims in Brazil who are under 18

Diana Cariboni
20 June 2024

Abortion is illegal in Brazil with only three exceptions: risk to the life of the pregnant person, fetus anencephaly (a condition in which parts of the fetus’ skull and brain don’t develop) and rape. In these cases, people can seek an abortion with no time limits.

But a new bill that Brazilian conservatives are attempting to push through seeks to declare all abortions performed after week 22 of the pregnancy as homicide – and punishable with prison terms of up to 20 years.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/brazil-new-anti-abortion-law-homicide-child-rape-victims-prison-longer-abusers/

‘They have no options’: Texas court dims hope of timely abortion care for high-risk patients

Kristen Anaya was told she must be on the cusp of death before doctors would give a life-saving abortion

Mary Tuma
Sat 8 Jun 2024

After four rounds of in vitro fertilization, Kristen Anaya and her husband were elated to discover Anaya was finally pregnant - with a baby girl - last April. The 42-year-old Dallas-area woman called IVF a “long and emotional journey”. Despite the cost and struggle, the process was well worth it for Anaya, who wanted to grow her family.

However, the good news would give way to an unexpectedly grueling and traumatic pregnancy that forced her to suffer for days before receiving care, due to Texas’s severe abortion bans.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/08/texas-abortion-high-risk-patients

Sanwo-Olu keeps mum on suspended Lagos abortion guidelines two years after

2nd June 2024
By Angela Onwuzoo

Two years after the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, directed the suspension of the implementation of the state’s new policy guidelines on the provision of safe abortions, the governor has yet to lift the suspension despite appeal by stakeholders.

Some stakeholders who spoke exclusively with PUNCH Healthwise on the need for the governor to reinstate the guideline without further delay, revealed that cases of unsafe abortion in the state had assumed a worrisome dimension due to the economic hardship.

Continued: https://punchng.com/sanwo-olu-keeps-mum-on-suspended-lagos-abortion-guidelines-two-years-after/

Louisiana’s move to criminalize abortion pills is cruel and medically senseless

Louisiana, with one of the US’s worst maternal mortality rates, wants to make abortion medication a ‘controlled substance’

Moira Donegan
Wed 29 May 2024

This week, Louisiana moved to expand the criminalization of abortion further than any state has since before Roe v Wade was decided. On Thursday, the state legislature passed a bill that would reclassify mifepristone and misoprostol – the two drugs used in a majority of American abortions – as dangerous controlled substances.

Under both state and federal classifications, the category of controlled substances includes those medications known to cause mind-altering effects and create the potential for addictions, such as sedatives and opioids; abortion medications carry none of this potential for physical dependence, habit-forming or abuse. The move from Louisiana lawmakers runs counter to both established medical opinion and federal law.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/29/louisiana-abortion-pill-law

Tennessee woman denied abortion after fetus’ ‘brain not attached’ slams state ban

State lawmakers ‘don’t see the mourning and the grieving that these moms’ experience after getting a heartbreaking diagnosis, Breanna Cecil tells Kelly Rissman

May 13, 2024

A Tennessee woman who was denied an abortion despite a fatal abnormality says the state’s anti-abortion laws resulted in her losing an ovary, a fallopian tube and her hopes for a large family.

“The state of Tennessee took my fertility from me,” Breanna Cecil, 34, told The Independent. She added that state lawmakers “took away my opportunity to have a family like my own biological family because of these horrible laws that they put in place.”

Continued: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/tennessee-denied-abortion-ban-lawsuit-b2529144.html

Brittany Watts, Ohio woman charged with felony after miscarriage at home, describes shock of her arrest

by Jericka Duncan, Rachel Bailey, Cassandra Gauthier and Hilary Cook
January 26, 2024
Video interview: 10 minutes

When Brittany Watts woke up at her Warren, Ohio, home on Sept. 22, 2023, she knew she was miscarrying.

Her 22-week-old fetus had been declared nonviable by doctors several days prior. Bleeding and in pain, she spent a total of 19 hours in the hospital over a span of two days, begging to be induced.
But an ethics group at Mercy Health - St. Joseph Warren Hospital had concerns about Ohio's abortion laws and how they applied to Watts' case, ultimately resulting in hours of delayed care.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brittany-watts-the-ohio-woman-charged-with-a-felony-after-a-miscarriage-talks-shock-of-her-arrest/

Do pregnant women have a right to urgent medical care? No, according to a US court

Federal judges sided with a Texas law that allows the state to push pregnant patients to the brink of death before allowing medically necessary abortion

Moira Donegan
Wed 10 Jan 2024

Do doctors have an obligation under federal law to keep their patients alive, even if their patients happen to be pregnant women? Do doctors have an obligation to prevent maiming – or irreversible organ damage, or other kinds of serious bodily harm – and if so, does that obligation extend even to women? Do women have a right to access medically necessary care even if they are pregnant? No, according to the US fifth circuit court.

That’s the conclusion reached by a three-judge panel recently in Texas v Becerra, a case in which Texas sued the Biden administration over guidance that directed all hospitals receiving federal funds to perform “necessary stabilizing treatment” on patients – including abortions on pregnant patients undergoing medical emergencies.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/10/pregnant-women-urgent-medical-care-us-court-texas