Decriminalising abortion in Asia: Perspectives from India and Nepal

Decriminalising abortion encourages access to safe abortion and proper post-abortion care. It does not mean that the law would no longer regulate abortion, but that no one would be punished for providing or having an abortion, and the law provides a positive framework to ensure access to safe abortion.

RADHIKA SAXENA AND PRABINA BAJRACHARYA
MAY 28, 2023

“FIFTEEN-year-old Sita (name changed), who got pregnant due to rape, ended her pregnancy by consuming medical pills her father obtained from a local pharmacist. Sita’s district court statement noted that she sought an abortion to safeguard her and her family’s reputation. The court convicted Sita of illegal abortion and sentenced her based on her admission.” – Center for Reproductive Rights & Forum for Women, Law and Development, Decriminalization of Abortion in Nepal: Imperative to Uphold Women’s Rights, 2021

The ability to make and exercise decisions about one’s body, sexuality and reproduction is at the core of gender, economic and social justice. Under international human rights law, States are obliged to respect, protect and fulfil rights related to sexual and reproductive health, including the rights to life, health, privacy, information, freedom from ill-treatment, non-discrimination and equality. States are also required to guarantee access to quality sexual and reproductive health information and care, including abortion services.

Continued: https://theleaflet.in/decriminalising-abortion-in-asia-perspectives-from-india-and-nepal/

Abortion clinics in 3 states sue to protect pill access

Abortion providers in three states filed a lawsuit Monday aimed at preserving access to the widely used abortion pill mifepristone

By MATTHEW PERRONE and DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press
May 8, 2023

Abortion providers in three states filed a lawsuit Monday aimed at preserving access to the abortion pill mifepristone, even as the drug is threatened by a separate Texas lawsuit winding its way through U.S. court system.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia on behalf of clinics in Virginia, Montana and Kansas, is the latest legal action over the decades-old pill, which is part of the two-drug regimen used in most U.S. abortions.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/abortion-clinics-3-states-sue-protect-pill-access-99181828

08.05.2023

News

Blue Mountain Clinic

Center for Reproductive Rights

Whole Woman’s Health Alliance

USA – ‘I’ll lose my family.’ A husband’s dread during an abortion ordeal in Oklahoma

May 1, 2023
Selena Simmons-Duffin

Before February, Jaci Statton wasn't particularly focused on Oklahoma's abortion bans. "I was like, 'Well, that's not going to affect me. I won't ever need one,' " she says.

She's 25 and lives in central Oklahoma with her husband, Dustin, and their three kids — two 7-year-olds and an 8-year-old. They are a blended family with two kids from Jaci's previous marriage and one from Dustin's.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/01/1172973274/oklahoma-abortion-ban-exception-life-of-mother-molar-pregnancy

USA – Abortion-rights attorneys help patients and providers navigate legal chaos

BY: SOFIA RESNICK
APRIL 20, 2023

These days Kylee Sunderlin is often the first person people will talk to about needing or wanting to terminate a pregnancy, even though she’s not a nurse or doctor or a loved one. She’s a lawyer.

This is Sunderlin’s third year overseeing a national hotline dedicated to helping people navigate legal questions around abortion in their states. Calls have been at an all-time high, she said, as have callers’ fear and confusion.

Continued; https://georgiarecorder.com/2023/04/20/abortion-rights-attorneys-help-patients-and-providers-navigate-legal-chaos/

#EmbraceEquity: Women’s access to sexual and reproductive health and rights in humanitarian settings

March 8, 2023
Aude Langlois, Senior Communications and Marketing Coordinator, FIGO

To mark International Women’s Day 2023, FIGO is highlighting the need to embrace equity in women’s health care. Women and girls in crisis settings are at heightened risk of having limited access to essential health care – including sexual and reproductive health services. To defend the rights of women and girls in humanitarian contexts, it is essential to promote and protect the provision of health services.

The increased vulnerability of women and girls in humanitarian crises
In crisis settings, women and girls face significant hardships when trying to access sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Chronic fragility and displacement among women and girls puts them at high risk of unwanted pregnancy by increasing their risks of sexual violence, transactional and coercive sex, human trafficking, and other forms of sexual exploitation and violence.

Continued: https://www.figo.org/news/embraceequity-womens-access-sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-rights-humanitarian-settings

Abortion Legal Assistance Network Launched: ‘A Strong Defense Against Bullies’

A new alliance of reproductive rights groups aims to “help those involved with abortion care navigate [a] confusing and hostile legal landscape and to provide a strong defense against bullies.”

2/22/2023
by CARRIE N. BAKER, Ms. Magazine

Six leading reproductive rights organizations announced on Feb. 22 the formation of a new Abortion Defense Network to connect people facing legal threats related to abortion with attorneys who can provide legal advice and representation in civil and criminal proceedings.

“The overturning of Roe v. Wade has unleashed nonstop legal chaos and confusion,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Abortion providers, doctors and even family members of people seeking abortion care are unsure what they might be prosecuted for. Many states have conflicting and overlapping abortion bans that make it nearly impossible to know what is legal and what is not. People are worried they may be prosecuted even for helping someone find abortion services across state lines.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/02/22/abortion-defense-lawyer-courts-assistance/

Here’s What States Are Doing to Abortion Rights in 2023

In the first full legislative session after Roe v. Wade was overturned, states across the country are looking to further restrict or better protect abortion rights. ProPublica looked at what abortion legislation is on the table in 2023.

by Megan Rose
Feb. 8, 2023

For 50 years, Roe v. Wade shut down the biggest ambitions of the anti-abortion movement. Last summer, the Supreme Court overturned that decision, unleashing a flurry of abortion legislation across the nation. And anti-abortion advocates have eager partners in Republican-controlled legislatures across the country.

“It’s exciting because our hands have been untied,” Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said. “We’re going to see what we can do and do it.”

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/us-abortion-legislation-2023

A Trump-appointed Texas judge could force a major abortion pill off the market

February 1, 2023
Sarah McCammon

A case before a federal judge in Texas could dramatically alter abortion access in the United States – at least as much, some experts say, as the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision last year, which overturned decades of abortion-rights precedent.

A decision is expected soon in the case challenging the Food and Drug Administration's approval more than 20 years ago of the abortion drug mifepristone, which a growing number of patients use to terminate pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/01/1153593174/mifepristone-abortion-pill-federal-texas-lawsuit-restrict-access-nationwide

State Abortion Rulings Post-Dobbs Begin Defining Scope of Rights

Jan. 17, 2023
Mary Anne Pazanowski

State top courts have begun weighing in on whether their laws provide greater protection for abortion rights than the federal constitution, with mixed results.

A majority of South Carolina’s Supreme Court justices recently held that the state constitution’s guarantee against unreasonable invasions of privacy extends to abortion. But the Idaho Supreme Court reached the opposite conclusion, holding that there’s no fundamental right to abortion in the state constitution.

Continued:: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/state-abortion-rulings-post-dobbs-begin-defining-scope-of-rights

17.01.2023

American Civil Liberties Union

anti-choice restrictions

Brennan Center for Justice

Center for Reproductive Rights

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

USA – The new front in the right’s war on abortion

Abortion pills are at the heart of the fight over abortion access in a post-Roe world.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Jan 9, 2023

The Biden administration helped expand access to medication abortion last week, with the US Food and Drug Administration finalizing a rule to make the pills more readily available in pharmacies. But this effort to help patients get pills to end a pregnancy could be dwarfed by a major push to restrict access to the medication from anti-abortion leaders and their Republican allies.

As lawmakers head back to state legislatures this month, many for the first time since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, Republicans face new pressure to restrict access to the combination of abortion-inducing drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, used typically within the first 10 to 12 weeks of a pregnancy. Medication abortion has become the most common method for ending pregnancies in the United States, partly due to its safety record, its lower cost, diminished access to in-person care, and greater opportunities for privacy.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/9/23540562/abortion-pills-medication-dobbs-roe-mifepristone