Trump reinstates the ‘global gag rule’ on abortion

The move, announced in a presidential memorandum Friday, revives a policy that Trump and many other Republican presidents have implemented.

Shefali Luthra, Reproductive Health Reporter
January 24, 2025

President Donald Trump has directed his administration to block global aid recipients from telling patients about abortion — a move that could weaken reproductive health care worldwide.

The move, announced in a presidential memorandum Friday, revives a policy known as the “global gag rule” that Trump and many other Republican presidents have implemented. Already, contractors that receive U.S. foreign aid money cannot use it to directly support abortion services. But they can tell people the option is available.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2025/01/trump-reinstates-the-global-gag-rule-on-abortion/

Anti-AIDS program in peril after US finds nurses in Mozambique provided abortions

By Simon Lewis and Patricia Zengerle
January 16, 2025

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The flagship U.S. aid program on HIV/AIDS is in jeopardy, a senior Republican warned on Thursday, after U.S. officials said four nurses in Mozambique performed abortions that are banned under the multibillion-dollar program that has saved millions of lives globally.

Service providers that get funding through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) are barred from providing abortion services under rules against U.S. foreign assistance being used for abortion-related activities, but the program has still faced criticism from anti-abortion Republicans.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/anti-aids-program-peril-after-us-finds-nurses-mozambique-provided-abortions-2025-01-16/

16.01.2025

anti-choice stupidity

President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief

Swiss esports event cancelled after host team founder’s anti-abortion comment

By Euronews with AP
18/11/2024

An event billed as Switzerland's biggest esports competition has been cancelled after the host team's founder posted an anti-abortion comment on social media, triggering outrage that led three rival squads to pull out.

The “Take the Throne” event, involving a video game that features cars that score goals with a ball like in soccer, was to take place on 23 November at the Batiment des Forces Motrices venue in Geneva.

The uproar erupted after BDS team founder Patrice Bailo de Spoelberch - the initials of his surname form the name - posted the following on social media: “A woman who dares to use abortion should lose the right to ever have children.”

Continued: https://www.euronews.com/culture/2024/11/18/swiss-esports-event-cancelled-after-host-team-founders-anti-abortion-comment

18.11.2024

anti-choice stupidity

Patrice Bailo de Spoelberch

Take the Throne event

Europe

Switzerland

Activism

With Roe Gone, Some House Republicans Back Away From National Abortion Ban

Nearly three dozen House Republicans who supported a federal abortion ban in the last Congress have yet to sign on this year, reflecting a shifting political calculus after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

By Annie Karni
Jan. 12, 2024

In 2021, Representative Michelle Steel, a California Republican whose district President Biden won in 2020, cosponsored the Life at Conception Act, a bill to recognize a fertilized egg as a person with equal protections under the 14th Amendment.

It was a year before the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade. Ms. Steel was one of 166 House Republicans — then roughly three-quarters of the conference — who would ultimately sign on to the legislation, which amounted to a nationwide abortion ban. She did so just weeks after it was introduced.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/us/politics/house-republicans-abortion-ban.html

Wisconsin’s dangerous abortion restrictions threatened my life and will continue to harm women

Hannah Thompson

NOVEMBER 13, 2023

Nearly a year and a half after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban went back into effect, it may be easy for some to forget the harm that the ban has been inflicting. But as anti-abortion lawmakers in our state continue to pass legislation to obstruct and stigmatize abortion, I can’t forget what these restrictions do to women like me.

I was 19 weeks pregnant when I went into previable preterm labor with advanced cervical dilation: Our son had not developed enough to survive outside of my womb. My husband and I would inevitably lose him. We couldn’t imagine that our state’s laws would create a situation that would nearly cost me my life in the process.

Continued: https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2023/11/13/wisconsins-dangerous-abortion-restrictions-threatened-my-life-and-will-continue-to-harm-women/

13.11.2023

anti-choice callousness

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice hatred

anti-choice ignorance

anti-choice misogny

anti-choice stupidity

Dr. Kristin Lyerly

Hannah Thompson

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin

Wisconsin abortion ban

USA – Tuesday’s Election Results Show Women Will Fight for Abortion Rights

Women don't want men making laws getting between us, our families, and our doctors.

NANCY BRAUS, Common Dreams
Nov 12, 2023

It is clear that the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court caught the Republicans completely off guard, even though they have been working to take away the rights of women since before they killed the Equal Rights Amendment.

The right must have thought that stealing the basic rights to bodily autonomy and to determining the size of one's own family would be upsetting at first, but then we would all get over it. The pundits always say that Americans have a short span of attention, especially when it comes to politics, so it appears that the forced birthers didn't have a clue about the buzz saw they were about to confront.

Continued: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/tuesday-election-abortion-rights

An Alabama woman was imprisoned for ‘endangering’ her fetus. She gave birth in a jail shower

Exclusive: Ashley Caswell, one of a growing number of jailed pregnant women in Etowah county, is suing officials after she was denied care

Sam Levin in Los Angeles
Fri 13 Oct 2023

In March 2021, sheriffs in Etowah county, Alabama, arrested Ashley Caswell on accusations that she’d tested positive for methamphetamine while pregnant and was “endangering” her fetus.

Caswell, who was two months pregnant at the time, became one of a growing number of women imprisoned in the county in the name of protecting their “unborn children”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/13/alabama-pregnant-woman-jail-lawsuit

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

USA – House Passes Defense Spending Bill That Limits Abortion, Halts Diversity Efforts

July 14, 2023
Associated Press

The House passed a sweeping defense bill Friday that provides an expected 5.2% pay raise for service members. But the bill strays from traditional military policy with Republican additions that block abortion coverage, diversity initiatives at the Pentagon and transgender care that deeply divided the chamber.

Democrats voted against the package, which had sailed out of the House Armed Services Committee on an almost unanimous vote weeks ago before being loaded with the GOP priorities during a heated late-night floor debate this week.

Continued: https://www.voanews.com/a/house-passes-defense-spending-bill-that-limits-abortion-halts-diversity-efforts-/7181554.html

Military service members had out-of-state abortion costs covered. The House just voted to eliminate that.

An amendment to the 2024 defense spending bill would further limit abortion access for nearly half of all women currently serving in America’s active duty military — who already have restrictions based on the state in which they are stationed.

Mariel Padilla
July 13, 2023

After the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization landed last year, ending the federal right to an abortion, the Biden administration issued new rules to assist service members and military dependents who had to travel across state lines for abortion services.

However, House members voted 221-213 Thursday night to pass an amendment eliminating these abortion provisions from the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual defense spending bill. It was part of a hotly contested debate over the bill, which ultimately passed Friday along partisan lines, 219 to 210.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2023/07/house-votes-to-eliminate-abortion-provisions-in-2024-defense-bill/

13.07.2023