New Rio de Janeiro law requires public hospitals to display anti-abortion signs

Opponents view the controversial act as part of a growing trend across Brazil to further restrict abortion access

Tiago Rogero in Rio de Janeiro
Thu 19 Jun 2025

A new law has just come into force in Rio de Janeiro requiring all public hospitals and clinics run by the municipal government to display anti-abortion signs bearing messages such as: “Did you know that the unborn child is discarded as hospital waste?”

Reproductive rights activists view the act as the latest example of a growing trend across Brazil to further restrict access to abortion in a country that already has some of the world’s most restrictive laws.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/19/rio-de-janeiro-anti-abortion-signs


Court upholds Polish mayor’s decision to dissolve anti-abortion protest over image of foetus

Mar 17, 2025
Notes from Poland

A court has upheld a decision by the city of Toruń to dissolve an anti-abortion protest because it featured a graphic image purporting to show an aborted foetus.

The organiser of the protest has condemned the ruling, which she says “violates the constitution, the law, freedom of speech and freedom of religion”.

But the city’s mayor welcomed the court’s decision, saying that, while he supports free speech, it must be expressed in a manner consistent with the law and without violating the dignity of others.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/03/17/court-upholds-polish-mayors-decision-to-dissolve-anti-abortion-protest-over-image-of-foetus/


Canada – Why anti-abortion groups should not be teaching sex-ed

Unlike abortion clinics, so-called “crisis pregnancy centres” are not subject to any sort of regulation.

by Julia Moraes, Rabble.ca
September 24, 2024

As we move back into the school year, there is a growing concern among parents and educators that students aren’t getting the sex-ed that they deserve. Over the years, a growing number of anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centres” (CPCs) have been delivering sex education in public schools using a biased, religiously-based perspective that can be misleading and stigmatizing.

Crisis pregnancy centres often present themselves as impartial medical clinics or counselling centres for pregnant individuals. In reality, most CPCs are anti-abortion organizations with religious affiliations whose primary objective is to dissuade pregnant people from exercising their choice to terminate their pregnancy.

Continued: https://rabble.ca/feminism/why-anti-abortion-groups-should-not-be-teaching-sex-ed/


Ethiopia – Fertile Ground

Anti-abortion campaigners have their sights set on Ethiopia – a progressive outlier in a region marred by restrictions. Who’s behind the emboldened ‘pro-life’ movement and what’s at stake for women’s rights amid a myriad of other challenges? Bethany Rielly, Maxine Betteridge-Moes and Maya Misikir report from Addis Ababa.

New International
14 June 2024

‘Pray to end abortion in Ethiopia’ reads the bumper sticker on a taxi parked outside a family planning clinic in the bustling heart of Addis Ababa. Jarring but easily dismissed, it’s an old tactic which anti-abortion groups have used the world over.

According to staff at the clinic, the driver used to rent a room in a building across the road. He recruited a worker from a nearby cafe to recite Bible verses to service users at the clinic. Using toy foetuses as props, the duo would implore people to ‘choose life’. The building has since been demolished as part of a massive city-wide redevelopment project, but this seemingly small act of protest is linked to a much larger and sturdier movement taking hold in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa.

Continued: https://newint.org/interactives/2024/fertile-ground/index.html


U.S states are already collecting more abortion data. And HIPAA won’t always keep it private.

BY: KELCIE MOSELEY-MORRIS
JUNE 1, 2024

Years before the Dobbs decision that struck down U.S. constitutional abortion rights, providers like Dr. Kylie Cooper were already uncomfortable with some of the reporting requirements for abortion procedures in states where they practiced.

Cooper was a maternal-fetal medicine specialist for several years in Idaho before she reluctantly left the state in 2023 because of the near-total abortion ban that is now in place. But when abortion was still legal, she was required to fill out a form and submit it to the state with information about the patient and the procedure, including the physician’s name and when it occurred. While the law said that the information would be aggregated and could not identify individual patients, Cooper never felt sure about how it would be used or how secure the data would be kept.

Continued: https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2024/06/01/states-are-already-collecting-more-abortion-data-and-hipaa-wont-always-keep-it-private/


‘Extreme’ US anti-abortion group ramps up lobbying in Westminster

The UK branch of the Alliance Defending Freedom has increased its spending and is forging ties with key MPs

Shanti Das, Home affairs correspondent
Sat 6 Apr 2024

A rightwing Christian lobby group that wants abortion to be banned has forged ties with an adviser to the prime minister and is drawing up ­policy briefings for politicians.

The UK branch of the US-based Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has more than doubled its spending since 2020 and been appointed a stakeholder in a parliamentary group on religious freedoms in a role that grants it direct access to MPs.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/06/extreme-us-anti-abortion-group-ramps-up-lobbying-in-westminster


Argentina’s Milei tells school kids abortion is ‘murder’

Buenos Aires (AFP) – President Javier Milei said he considers abortion, which is legal in Argentina, to be "murder", in a speech to high school students on Wednesday.

March 6, 2024

The 53-year-old libertarian, who is known to be anti-abortion but has not publicly spoken about the issue at length since taking office, was addressing young people at a Catholic school in Buenos Aires where he had studied.

"I warn you that to me abortion is murder ... and I can prove it to you from a mathematical, philosophical and liberal perspective," he said in a speech two days before International Women's Day.

ontinued: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240306-argentina-s-milei-tells-school-kids-abortion-is-murder


Global: People defending abortion rights are being ‘stigmatised, abused, discriminated against, even killed’ – major new report

24 November 2023
Amnesty International

People who are defending the right to have an abortion and those who provide them, and related essential services are being stigmatised, intimidated, attacked and subjected to unjust prosecutions, making this work increasingly difficult and dangerous to carry out, said Amnesty International in a major new report today (24 November).

In the 59-page report, An Unstoppable Movement: A global call to recognise and protect those who defend the right to abortion, reveals how many healthcare workers, activists and advocates around the world face abuse, arrest, prosecution and imprisonment for supporting the right of women, girls and people who can become pregnant to access abortions.

Continued: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/global-people-defending-abortion-rights-are-being-stigmatised-abused-discriminated


USA – ‘Pro-Life’ Propaganda Wants to Fool You About Abortion Pills

We must be free to make our own abortion decisions—including how and where we access abortion pills.

AUG 15, 2023
ERIN MATSON

As we enter year two of a post-Roe v. Wade world, it would be easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of attacks anti-abortion activists have launched since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned abortion rights. From abortion bans, to clinic harassment, to the criminalization of pregnant people and medical providers, it can be hard to keep track of all the ways in which reproductive freedom is under attack.

Particularly now, as we await the outcome of a lawsuit brought by abortion opponents to target mifepristone, one of two drugs used in a medication abortion, anti-abortion activists are using junk science to target medication abortion in a backdoor attempt to circumvent democracy and advance an aggressive nationwide abortion ban.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2023/08/15/pro-life-propaganda-wants-to-fool-you-about-abortion-pills/


USA – The GOP’s Plan to Ban Birth Control (Part I)

Redefining Contraception as 'Abortion'

JESSICA VALENTI
AUG 14, 2023

For years, feminists have warned that Republicans want to ban birth control. We’ve pointed to legal and cultural trends showing how contraception is in danger, only to be told again and again that we’re overreacting or being hysterical. Remember how well it turned out when our warnings about Roe were ignored?

This disbelief over the danger to contraception isn’t just run-of-the-mill misogyny—though that’s certainly part of it. Some people simply can’t comprehend why lawmakers who claim to be against abortion would prohibit birth control, which prevents unwanted pregnancies. They haven’t caught onto the fact that Republicans’ real end goal is a return to traditional gender roles, and that overturning Roe was simply a means to that end.

Continued: https://jessica.substack.com/p/the-gops-plan-to-ban-birth-control