Brazil’s Supreme Court to vote on decriminalising abortion

Sept 22, 2023

By Katy Watson, BBC News, South America

Brazil's Supreme Court has started voting on whether to decriminalise abortion. However, the session was quickly postponed after a minister called for the vote to take place in person instead of via video - and no new date has yet been set.

Currently, abortion is only allowed in three cases: that of rape, risk to the woman's life and anencephaly - when the foetus has an undeveloped brain. If the Supreme Court votes in favour, abortion will be decriminalised up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-66881900

Americans Deserve Better Than Abortion Pill Misinformation

Self-managed abortion through pills is safe, private and effective. Media outlets have a role to play in stopping the spread of misinformation.

9/16/2023
by JENNIFER LINCOLN

Since the fall of Roe, there have been countless attempts to chill speech about abortion, and misinformation has run rampant. Just last month, a prominent newspaper published one of the most egregious examples yet: an op-ed by David Reardon titled “Coercive Abortions Are at the Heart of the FDA Abortion Pill Case.”

Reardon holds a degree from Pacific Western University, an unaccredited correspondence school that closed in 2006 after a lawsuit from the state of Hawaii. Medical professionals and researchers have repeatedly criticized his research for methodological flaws and biases—and reproductive health experts have argued that his conclusions are not supported by scientific evidence.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/09/16/mail-order-abortion-pills-safe/

16.09.2023

anti-choice disinformation

anti-choice extremism

anti-choice lies

anti-choice misinformation

refuting anti-choice lies

In Poland, Testing Women for Abortion Drugs Is a Reality. It Could Happen in the U.S.

Sept. 14, 2023
By Patrick Adams

Nearly three years ago, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal effectively ended legal abortion in the country. Since then, the Polish government has vigorously repressed the nation’s reproductive rights movement and ramped up surveillance of women who are suspected of terminating their pregnancies. Authorities have violently dispersed demonstrations, threatened activists with prison time and ordered doctors to record all pregnancies in a new national database.

Even before Roe v. Wade was overturned last summer, Poland’s draconian crackdown, which was spearheaded by the governing right-wing Law and Justice party, should have been alarming to American supporters of abortion rights. It was always possible that some aspects of what has happened there could happen here.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/14/opinion/abortion-pills-testing-poland.html

USA – Anti-Abortion Centers Spent Over $600M in One Year. That’s the Tip of the Iceberg.

Documents reviewed by Rewire News Group suggest the total may have been closer $1 billion. Where is all that "crisis pregnancy center" money going?

AUG 30, 2023
GARNET HENDERSON, Rewire News Group

“Crisis pregnancy centers,” or anti-abortion centers, are known for deceiving and manipulating people seeking information about abortion. They often pose as legitimate abortion clinics, intentionally obscuring their real purpose. They promote dangerous medical misinformation such as abortion pill “reversal.” They also discourage safer sex practices, and because few of them are actual medical facilities, they don’t adhere to medical standards for confidentiality and safety.

For example, a Massachusetts woman sued a CPC in June for failing to diagnose her ectopic pregnancy, which resulted in an emergency surgery and the loss of her fallopian tube. Months earlier, a Kentucky nurse came forward to reveal that a CPC where she had volunteered was failing to properly sterilize its transvaginal ultrasound equipment.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2023/08/30/anti-abortion-centers-spent-over-600m-in-one-year-thats-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/

This U.S.-based ‘hate group’ is using a shadowy network of lawyers and doctors to infiltrate Canada

The Alliance Defending Freedom has deep and surprising connections in Ottawa

By Kevin Maimann
August 9, 2023

A right-wing Christian organization behind successful efforts to roll back LGBTQ2S+ and abortion rights in the U.S. has been working in Canada for years. And while it has racked up some “successes” in this country, it’s near impossible to tell what the group is up to because of Canada’s lax finance laws, leading to calls for greater transparency.

The non-profit Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has been a central player in efforts to limit the rights of women, queer and trans people in the U.S. since the 1990s. The organization has been so pervasive and effective in its campaigns to malign LGBTQ2S+ people that it was classified as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The ADF has intervened in numerous high-profile court cases including the recent Supreme Court case 303 Creative, which limited the purview of anti-discrimination legislation, and Dobbs earlier this year, which overturned the right to abortion in the U.S. The ADF is on a roll, with no sign of slowing down. The Guardian reported in June the ADF plans to use “model legislation” and lawsuits to overturn same-sex marriage, enact a total abortion ban and strip away trans rights in the U.S.

Continued: https://xtramagazine.com/power/politics/alliance-defending-freedom-adf-hate-group-canada-gerald-chipeur-255467

UK – Is scandal-hit anti-abortion charity operating in secret under new name?

NHS websites are still signposting pregnant people to ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ despite warnings from campaigners

Nandini Archer
1 August 2023

An anti-abortion charity that claimed to have shut down following a scandal nine years ago may have resurfaced as a directory of so-called ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ (CPCs), an openDemocracy investigation has discovered.

And at least half a dozen government websites are still signposting people to the controversial centres, despite accusations that workers at some CPCs try to talk vulnerable people out of having abortions.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/government-nhs-crisis-pregnancy-anti-abortion/

How Meta Created a Wild West for Abortion Misinformation

New cases from Meta’s Oversight Board highlight Meta’s haphazard approach to reproductive health.

BY JENNIFER NEDA JOHN
JULY 31, 2023

In March, a member of an anti-abortion Facebook group shared a post describing what it claimed was “pro-abortion logic”: “We don’t want you to be poor, starved or unwanted. So we’ll just kill you instead.”

That same month, another Facebook user shared a link to a news article covering a South Carolina bill that would have criminalized abortion as homicide, thus making it eligible for the death penalty. In the caption, the user criticized lawmakers’ logic that “it’s wrong to kill so we are going to kill you.” On Instagram, another post struck the same tone, criticizing the idea of being “so pro-life” that “we’ll kill you dead if you get an abortion.”

Continued: https://slate.com/technology/2023/07/abortion-misinformation-meta-oversight-board.html

Outcry in Poland after claims that prosecutors drained cesspit in abortion probe

Reproductive rights dominate pre-election debate in Poland after reports of law enforcement targeting women for suspected abortions.

BY WOJCIECH KOŚĆ
JULY 27, 2023

WARSAW — The political row over sexual and reproductive rights in Poland has reignited after local media reported Wednesday that a woman who miscarried had her house’s cesspit drained in search of the fetus on orders of a prosecutor seeking to find out if the miscarriage was in fact an abortion.

The report is the latest in a series of high-profile incidents concerning Polish authorities’ heavy-handedness around abortion laws and has sparked public outcry ahead of the country’s general election in October.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-abortion-probe-outrage-prosecutors-drain-cesspit/

Nearly two years after Texas’ six-week abortion ban, more infants are dying

By Isabelle Chapman
Thu July 20, 2023

Texas’ abortion restrictions – some of the strictest in the country – may be fueling a sudden spike in infant mortality as women are forced to carry nonviable pregnancies to term.

Some 2,200 infants died in Texas in 2022 – an increase of 227 deaths, or 11.5%, over the previous year, according to preliminary infant mortality data from the Texas Department of State Health Services that CNN obtained through a public records request. Infant deaths caused by severe genetic and birth defects rose by 21.6%. That spike reversed a nearly decade-long decline. Between 2014 and 2021, infant deaths had fallen by nearly 15%.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/20/health/texas-abortion-ban-infant-mortality-invs/index.html

Women suing Texas over abortion bans give emotional testimony

The fifth woman's testimony will be heard on Thursday.

By Nadine El-Bawab and Mary Kekatos
July 19, 2023
Four plaintiffs began the first day of testimony Wednesday as part of a lawsuit filed against the state of Texas, saying the state's abortion bans put their lives in jeopardy.

The women are some of the 15 individuals party to the lawsuit who have alleged they were denied lifesaving emergency care due to Texas' abortion laws.

Lawyers representing the women are seeking a preliminary injunction on Texas' abortion laws that would allow for lifesaving abortions. They are asking the court to provide a "remedy applied to patients whose life, health or fertility is at risk from an emergent medical condition," Molly Duane, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights and lead attorney on the case, said during opening statements Wednesday.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/women-suing-texas-abortion-bans-court-testify/story?id=101487004