USA – An emboldened anti-abortion faction wants women who have abortions to face criminal charges

By CHRISTINE FERNANDO
April 12, 2025

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Kristan Hawkins, president of the national anti-abortion group Students for Life, tours college campuses, she has grown accustomed to counterprotests from abortion rights activists.

But more recently, fellow abortion opponents, who call themselves abortion abolitionists, are showing up to her booths with signs, often screaming “baby killer” at her while she speaks with students. Hawkins has had to send alerts to donors asking them to help pay for increased security.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-abolitionists-trump-roe-criminal-homicide-d6d5c7a05419fe9ded04271cb517b001

USA – Lawmakers Are Trying to Hold Crisis Pregnancy Centers to Account

Post-Dobbs, the GOP has given them millions in taxpayer dollars.

Laura C. Morel, Mother Jones
April 10, 2025

Last month, during an Indiana state legislative hearing, Republican Sen. Jeff Raatz from Richmond, a small city in the eastern part of the state, discussed a resolution he filed declaring that the state’s General Assembly “strongly supports pregnancy care centers in their unique, positive contributions to the individual lives of women, men, and babies—both born and unborn,” the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported. “We have hospitals in rural Indiana that have no OB-GYNs,” Raatz said during the session. “Why not have an innocent individual stand alongside someone and help them make decisions and connect them with resources?” Abortion is banned in Indiana with limited exceptions.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/04/lawmakers-are-trying-to-hold-crisis-pregnancy-centers-to-account/

‘It’s Happening Even Without You Noticing’: Increasing Barriers to Accessing Sexual and Reproductive Health Care in Romania

7 Apr 2025
reliefweb

(Berlin) – The sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls, including the right to abortion and family planning methods, have been significantly eroded in Romania, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 73-page report, “‘It’s Happening Even Without You Noticing’: Increasing Barriers to Accessing Sexual and Reproductive Health Care in Romania,” documents that, although these rights are partially protected under Romanian law, in practice women and girls are regularly and systematically thwarted in their efforts to exercise these rights.

Continued: https://reliefweb.int/report/romania/its-happening-even-without-you-noticing-increasing-barriers-accessing-sexual-and-reproductive-health-care-romania-enitro

07.04.2025

Woman’s arrest after miscarriage in Georgia draws fear and anger

Experts say the arrest is part of a pattern of criminalizing pregnancy that has accelerated since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

April 5, 2025
By Bracey Harris

On March 20 in rural Georgia, an ambulance responded to an early morning 911 call about an unconscious, bleeding woman at an apartment. When first responders arrived, they determined that she’d had a miscarriage. That was only the start of her ordeal.

Selena Maria Chandler-Scott was transported to a hospital, but a witness reported that she had placed the fetal remains in a dumpster. When police investigated, they recovered the remains and Chandler-Scott was charged with concealing the death of another person and abandoning a dead body. The charges were ultimately dropped; an autopsy determined Chandler-Scott had had a “natural miscarriage“ at around 19 weeks and the fetus was nonviable.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/georgia-arrest-miscarriage-fetal-personhood-rcna199400

Ken Paxton’s latest Texas abortion argument is a breathtaking abdication

If Texans lose their children, their fertility, or even their lives, it’s simply not Texas’ problem.

Nov. 29, 2023
By Andrea Grimes, journalist and activist

“There’s gonna be some hard calls.” That’s how a lawyer with the Texas Attorney General’s office callously shrugged off the question of how, and indeed whether, doctors are allowed to save the lives of pregnant women during a hearing at the state Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Tuesday’s hearing put the state’s disregard for its own responsibility to protect and defend “life” in devastating relief.

Continued: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/texas-abortion-ban-supreme-court-ken-paxton-rcna127147

The women who made painful choices challenge Texas’s severe abortion ban

The state supreme court will consider arguments from 20 women who say they were denied medically necessary abortions

Carter Sherman
Tue 28 Nov 2023

After Danielle Mathisen and her husband realized they would be having a baby girl, they started calling her “Mini”. “We figured she would be a mini-me,” Mathisen said.

For months, Mathisen’s pregnancy appeared normal. Genetic testing went well. Her parents were thrilled – this would be the first grandchild in the family.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/28/texas-supreme-court-hears-extreme-abortion-ban-lawsuit

Gynaecologist charged in Poland with helping patients obtain abortions

NOV 25, 2023
Notes from Poland

A gynaecologist has been charged in Poland with unlawfully helping patients obtain abortions, a crime in Poland that carries a prison sentence of up to three years.

Prosecutors say that the doctor, Maria Kubisa (pictured above), provided women with abortion pills without checking whether doing so was justified under Poland’s strict abortion law. She denies the accusation and says the authorities are trying to “intimidate” her.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/11/25/gynaecologist-charged-in-poland-with-helping-patients-obtain-abortions/

20 women are now suing Texas, saying state abortion laws endangered them

November 15, 2023
Selena Simmons-Duffin

Cristina Nuñez's doctors had always advised her not to get pregnant. She has diabetes, end-stage renal disease and other health conditions, and when she unexpectedly did become pregnant, it made her extremely sick. Now she is suing her home state of Texas, arguing that the abortion laws in the state delayed her care and endangered her life.

Nuñez and six other women joined an ongoing lawsuit over Texas's abortion laws. The plaintiffs allege the exception for when a patient's life is in danger is too narrow and vague, and endangered them during complicated pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/11/15/1213188342/20-women-sue-texas-over-abortion-laws

Nationalist leader convicted for violence against Polish abortion protester “Grandma Kate”

NOV 6, 2023
Notes from Poland

Polish nationalist leader Robert Bąkiewicz has received a binding conviction for his involvement in a “hooligan act” of violence against a prominent protester for women’s and LGBT rights, Katarzyna Augustynek, widely known by her nickname of “Grandma Kate” (Babcia Kasia).

Bąkiewicz, who stood as a candidate for the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party at last month’s parliamentary elections, has dismissed the ruling as a politically motivated decision by a biased judge. He says that he will not comply with the order to undertake community service and pay compensation to his victim.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/11/06/nationalist-leader-convicted-for-violence-against-polish-abortion-protester-grandma-kate/

Ohio: One woman’s story shows why abortion rights matter

Rini Jeffers, The Chronicle-Telegram
Nov 04, 2023

When she found out she was pregnant last year, Katie was thrilled.

She’d always wanted kids, plural, and she and her husband already had a beautiful little girl, born the year before. The first pregnancy had gone normally and their daughter was healthy; there was so much to look forward to for the Lorain County couple.

Then came the blood tests.

Continued: https://chroniclet.com/news/371148/one-womans-story-shows-why-abortion-rights-matter/

04.11.2023