Today is Honduran Women’s Day: an unjust Constitutional amendment that disregards women’s lives must be rejected

Press release, 25 January 2021: for immediate publication
Somos Muchas

After the decision by the Argentine Congress on 29 December 2020 to legalise abortion for both public health reasons and in support of women’s rights, everyone is waiting to see what the rest of Latin America will do. Responses from Mexico, Brazil, Jamaica – and now Honduras – have already become public. The response from the Congress of Honduras is bad news for all women and girls in the country and in the region – it shows a complete disregard for Honduran women’s health and lives. Yet ironically, it is due to be ratified on Honduran Women’s Day without consultation and with undue haste.

In every country in Latin America, there is a strong women’s movement that has been calling for safe and legal abortion for many years. Although legal reform has been slow, due to the powerful influence of conservative religious and political forces, many changes have still taken place.

Continued: https://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/press-release-somos-muchas?e=372dd34034

Argentina’s abortion law enters force under watchful eyes

BY ALMUDENA CALATRAVA, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted Jan 23, 2021

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Argentina’s groundbreaking abortion law goes into force Sunday under the watchful eyes of women’s groups and government officials, who hope to ensure its full implementation despite opposition from some conservative and church groups.

Argentina became the largest nation in Latin
America to legalize elective abortion after its Senate on Dec. 30 passed a law
guaranteeing the procedure up to the 14th week of pregnancy and beyond that in
cases of rape or when a woman’s health is at risk.

Continued: https://www.citynews1130.com/2021/01/23/argentinas-abortion-law-enters-force-under-watchful-eyes/

Honduras: UN experts deplore further attacks against right to safe abortion

United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
19 January 2021

GENEVA – UN human rights experts* today condemned a proposed bill that would basically block any potential progress on women's and girls' sexual and reproductive rights in Honduras, a country where one in four girls has been pregnant at least once before reaching age 19**.

The Constitutional amendment presented by a
deputy from the National Party and Vice-President of the Honduran Congress on
11 January would incorporate the absolute prohibition of abortion in article 67
of the national Constitution.

Continued: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26675&LangID=E

19.01.2021

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Before he stormed the Capitol, ex-W.Va. lawmaker harassed women at an abortion clinic

By Samantha Schmidt and Caroline Kitchener
Jan. 16, 2021

Derrick Evans walked with his phone out in front of him, camera facing forward, as he advanced on the patient in the abortion clinic parking lot. Surrounding the car, clinic volunteers tried to shield the patient with umbrellas and their own bodies. It was no use: On this February morning in 2019, Evans captured the patient on Facebook live, streaming to tens of thousands of followers.

“You will not do this in secret in West Virginia,” Evans said. He wore a “Make America Great Again” hat, as he did every week when he protested outside the Women’s Health Center, the only abortion clinic left in the state.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/16/derrick-evans-abortion-clinic/

How Anti-Abortion Terrorism Fueled The MAGA Attack On The Capitol

LAUREN RANKIN
LAST UPDATED JANUARY 15, 2021

Last week, the world watched in horror as a pro-Trump mob, urged by the President himself, attacked the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Thousands of angry people, rushed the Capitol building, overwhelming the law enforcement officers who were staged outside. They smashed windows and broke down doors; thousands of them flooded into the Capitol building itself. For several hours, they occupied congressional offices and triumphantly paraded through the House and Senate floors, wreaking havoc and calling for violence against and death for politicians and police officers, alike. By the end of the seditious melee, five people were dead.

One of the people there was John Brockhoeft, who posted online about his presence at the Capitol. Brockhoeft isn’t just any Trump supporter. He’s also a convicted anti-abortion terrorist.

Continued: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/01/10265551/anti-abortion-terrorism-capitol-riot-attack

Long Before the Capitol Riot, Anti-Abortion Extremists Showed Us the Dangers of Inflammatory Propaganda

It’s no coincidence several “pro-life” activists were in DC last week.

BECCA ANDREWS, Mother Jones
Jan 14, 2021

A week after the violent insurrection at the Capitol, we’re learning more and more about the people who charged the building. And recent reporting from Vice, Jezebel, and others reveal there were quite a few anti-abortion extremists at the pro-Trump rally, if not in the Capitol afterward as well. You’re probably thinking, hmm, ok, that makes sense—and it does! But the overlap of these universes cannot simply be boiled down to the fact that Trump supporters are more likely to strongly oppose abortion.

The violence we saw at the Capitol—and the inflammatory rhetoric and disinformation that led up to it—in fact mirrors what’s been plaguing the debate around abortion for several years.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/01/anti-abortion-extremists-capitol-riot-trump-propaganda-abby-johnson/

Anti-Abortion Activists Were All Over the Capitol Riots

“A young woman was just shot in the neck beside me in the Capitol Building,” tweeted one anti-abortion activist known for creating "Baby Lives Matter" murals.

By Carter Sherman
12.1.21

When a single shot rang out during the Capitol riot and struck Ashli Babbitt, anti-abortion activist Tayler Hansen was filming.

“A young woman was just shot in the neck beside me in the Capitol Building,” he wrote on Twitter, where he appeared to be filming just steps away from the shooting inside the Capitol Building. Then he shared a second video showing Babbitt on the floor with blood streaming down her face, as panicked people attempted to save her.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ad73w/anti-abortion-activists-were-all-over-the-capitol-riots

Abortion Providers Watching Capitol Violence Say They’ve ‘Seen This Rage Before’

From fire bombings, shootings, and ceaseless harassment, anti-abortion violence has wreaked havoc on clinics for decades.

Jan 8, 2021
Caroline Reilly

Trump supporters laid siege to our nation’s capital on Wednesday, storming past
a flaccid and enabling law enforcement presence in an attempt to stage a coup.
As they were filling the halls of Congress—stealing lecterns and paintings, and
taking selfies at Nancy’s Pelosi’s desk—pundits lamented: This is not America;
this is not who we are. Some even marveled at the cooperation from law
enforcement, wondering how security could have been so lax.

Unfortunately, abortion providers are all too familiar with the sort of
violence that played out at the Capitol.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2021/01/08/abortion-providers-watching-capitol-violence-say-theyve-seen-this-rage-before/

British pro-life group propagates viral misinformation about New Zealand’s abortion laws

AFP New Zealand, Taylor Thompson Fuller
Published on Monday 30 November 2020

A video posted by a British pro-life group on Facebook that contains multiple misleading claims about New Zealand’s abortion laws has been viewed tens of thousands of times. The video includes a false suggestion that abortion in New Zealand is “available on-demand, for any reason, up to birth”. Similar claims were published in multiple other anti-abortion posts shared in the United States.

The video was published by Right To Life UK here on Facebook on October 14, where it has been viewed more than 120,000 times.

Continued: https://factcheck.afp.com/british-pro-life-group-propagates-viral-misinformation-about-new-zealands-abortion-laws