USA – Confusing abortion bans hurt patients. But there’s a cost to making them clearer.

What the debate over “clarification” laws reveals about America three years out from Roe.

by Rachel Cohen Booth
Jul 1, 2025

By the time Republican Rep. Kat Cammack arrived at a Florida emergency room, she was facing an urgent medical crisis: Her pregnancy, then five weeks along, had become ectopic and now threatened her life. It was May 2024, and though Florida’s new and particularly restrictive six-week abortion ban did allow abortion in cases like hers, Cammack said she spent hours convincing hospital staff to administer the standard treatment for ending nonviable pregnancies. Doctors expressed fears about losing their licenses, prompting Cammack to pull up the legislation on her phone to show them that her case fell within legal parameters.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/abortion/418140/abortion-bans-clarification-texas-tennessee-kentucky-reproductive-rights-roe

Center to Defend Landmark Decision in Kenya Guaranteeing Abortion Access for Survivors of Sexual Violence

Anti-rights groups seek to overturn a 2019 judgment in the case of a 14-year-old girl who died as a result of an unsafe abortion in Kenya.

Center for Reproductive Rights
June 10, 2025

In 2019, the High Court of Kenya affirmed that the Kenyan Constitution guarantees survivors of sexual violence access to safe and legal abortion care. The historic decision came in a case brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights and its partners on behalf of the family of JMM, a 14-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted, became pregnant, and died from complications of an unsafe abortion.

The Center is expected to be at the Kenya Court of Appeal in the coming weeks to defend that judgment from anti-rights groups that are asking the Court to overturn it. In appealing the High Court’s decision in the case, FIDA-Kenya and others v. Attorney General and others, the Kenyan Christian Professional Forum and the Kenya Attorney General argue that abortion is not a constitutional right.

Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/jmm-fida-appeal-abortion-kenya/

10.06.2025

Commentary

Center for Reproductive Rights

High Court of Kenya

JMM

Kenya Court of Appeal

Kenyan Christian Professional Forum

Martin Onyango

Salima Namusobya

Standards and Guidelines for Reducing Morbidity and Mortality from Unsafe Abortion in Kenya

Experts Gather for Screening and Discussion of New Documentary on Abortion Reform in Nepal

Event in Kathmandu organized by the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Nepal-based Forum for Women, Law and Development.

May 30, 2025

The Center for Reproductive Rights and the Nepal-based Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD) marked the release of a new documentary on Nepal abortion reform by hosting a screening and panel discussion in Kathmandu.

The documentary, Collective Voyage: A Tireless Journey for Ensuring the Right to Safe Abortion in Nepal, showcases Nepal’s remarkable 25-year journey from abortion as a crime to what is now a fundamental, constitutional right.

Continued; https://reproductiverights.org/documentary-launch-abortion-reform-nepal/

30.05.2025

Film, Art, Books

Anubha Rastogi

Center for Reproductive Rights

Clara Rita Padilla

Collective Voyage: A tireless journey for ensuring the right to safe abortion in Nepal

Dr. Gauri Pradhan

Forum for Women Law and Development

The Right to Abortion in Nepal: A Decades-Long Journey

New documentary showcases the progress of abortion from criminalization to a fundamental, constitutional right.

05.29.2025
Center for Reproductive Rights

Two decades ago in Nepal, a woman seeking an abortion would be denied care—and if she managed to obtain care outside the legal medical system, she’d likely be imprisoned. But today, the right to abortion is guaranteed in Nepal’s Constitution and legislation.

How was that progress accomplished?

Find out about the decades-long struggle for legal abortion protections in the new documentary Collective Voyage: A tireless journey for ensuring the right to safe abortion in Nepal. The film showcases how advocates, legal experts, health workers, policymakers, and others worked diligently over a 25-year period to ensure abortion became a fundamental human right for women in Nepal.

Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/nepal-documentary-abortion-rights/

29.05.2025

Film, Art, Books

abortion law reform

Center for Reproductive Rights

Collective Voyage: A tireless journey for ensuring the right to safe abortion in Nepal

Forum for Women Law and Development

Unmuting abortion conversation in Kenya

Behind each statistic is a woman or girl navigating stigma or neglect by the systems meant to protect her

by DORIS OMAO
22 May 2025

In Kenya today, nearly 800,000 women make a silent, dangerous journey each year.

According to the recently released national report by the Ministry of Health, African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), and the Guttmacher Institute, an estimated 792,694 induced abortions occurred in 2023, equivalent to 57 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age.

These numbers should jolt us into action. Behind each statistic is a woman or girl navigating misinformation, stigma, policy ambiguity, or outright neglect by the systems meant to protect her.

Continued: https://www.the-star.co.ke/opinion/2025-05-22-omao-unmuting-abortion-conversation-in-kenya

22.05.2025

Commentary

Abuja Declaration

African Population and Health Research Center

Center for Reproductive Rights

USA – Abortion providers challenge FDA’s remaining mifepristone restrictions in federal court

“It’s really important that we protect … safe access to medication abortion no matter where people live — Virginia is playing a key role in the South right now,” Whole Woman’s Health Alliance founder and president Amy Hagstrom Miller said Monday.

By: Sofia Resnick and Charlotte Rene Woods
May 19, 2025

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Abortion pills — and questions over their inherent safety — were back in federal court Monday. Unlike a lawsuit rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, plaintiffs this time are not anti-abortion activists arguing medication abortion should be banned, but abortion providers arguing the remaining restrictions should be lifted to match the drug’s 25-year record of safety and efficacy.

The suit seeks to make abortion pills more accessible by removing several existing restrictions on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s mifepristone-misoprostol regimen first approved in 2000. The drug was approved under the FDA’s drug safety program called Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS), provisions of which have been steadily eliminated over time but not fully.

Continued: https://virginiamercury.com/2025/05/19/abortion-providers-challenge-fdas-remaining-mifepristone-restrictions-in-federal-court/

‘A direct attack’: US, European anti-rights groups descend on ‘family values’ events in Africa

Ultra-conservative groups from the US and Europe are attending a “family values” conference in Kenya this week – one of several planned in Africa this year – in what activists are describing as a “direct attack” on LGBT and women’s rights.

17/05/2025
By: Joanna YORK

The Pan-African conference on Family Values began in Nairobi on Monday with a call to wage a “biblical” fight for the family unit from Anne Mbugua, chairperson of event organiser the Africa Christian Professionals Forum.

The conference is one of several planned across Africa this year, backed by wealthy US ultra-Christian groups, including Family Watch International, Christian Council International, the Center for Family and Human Rights, and the Family Policy Institute.

Continued: https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20250517-a-direct-attack-us-european-anti-rights-groups-descend-on-family-values-events-in-africa

USA – RFK Jr. Is Coming for Abortion Pills

And he’s relying on bogus science to make his case.

Julianne McShane, Mother Jones
May 15, 2025

Earlier this month, the Trump administration scored seemingly positive headlines when it asked a federal court to dismiss a case brought by three Republican states seeking to restrict telehealth access to mifepristone, the first of two drugs used in a medication abortion.

Several news outlets claimed in headlines that the administration would “defend” access to the pills, despite the fact that Project 2025 and several of Trump’s top appointees have made it clear that they believe access to mifepristone—which, along with the second drug, misoprostol, now account for more than 60 percent of all abortions that occur nationwide—should be drastically rolled back, as I have previously reported. In reality, the administration merely argued the states do not have standing to sue and did not weigh in on the underlying issue of access to the pills.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/05/rfk-jr-is-coming-for-abortion-pills/

Inside a Czech Abortion Network Offering Pregnant Women from Poland a Lifeline

Apr 29, 2025
By Tamara Davison

Eva Ptasková was waiting in a dimly lit parking lot near the Czech-Polish border at 4 a.m. for someone she’d never met.

“It was empty and dark,” Ptasková recalled about the unusual mid-pandemic encounter, adding that she kept her colleague on the phone for safety.

Eventually, a figure exited a taxi and clambered into Ptasková’s car — a woman from Poland, who had traveled to the neighboring Czech Republic for an abortion. With just hours to spare before the appointment, Ptašková listened to the woman recount her life story as they drove through the night. It was the first time the Polish woman, who was already a mother to a young baby, had left her homeland.

Continued: https://www.moretoherstory.com/stories/inside-a-czech-abortion-network-offering-pregnant-women-from-poland-a-lifeline

Under Idaho’s abortion ban, a family confronts life-or-death reality — and a crisis of faith

As judges weigh the limits of medical exceptions, Idaho’s abortion ban is being tested — in courts, hospitals and patients’ lives

By Kelsey Turner
Apr 18, 2025

Desi Ballis didn’t understand why her doctor needed her to go to Utah.

She lay on an exam table in Boise, her pregnant belly wet with ultrasound gel. At 38, she’d done various genetic tests that confirmed her baby was developing normally. Its small features looked perfect on the screen.

But her baby wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Her 20-week ultrasound in February 2024 showed findings of hydrops fetalis, an often lethal condition where fluid builds up in the fetus’ body, according to Desi’s medical records. Her baby would almost certainly die before delivery. If she remained pregnant, Desi risked dying, too.

Continued: https://www.investigatewest.org/investigatewest-reports/under-idahos-abortion-ban-a-family-confronts-life-or-death-reality-and-a-crisis-of-faith-17865090