The International Movement Behind Anti-Abortion Activism

It’s fueled by racism, says Professor Carol Mason in her new book.

Eleanor J. Bader
Jun 12, 2025

In From the Clinics to the Capitol: How Opposing Abortion Became Insurrectionary, Carol Mason, a professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Kentucky, draws a through line that connects both domestic and international anti-abortion activism to an ascendant network of white supremacist, Christian nationalist and authoritarian movements.

It’s a scary read, grounded in Mason’s three decades of attendance at rightwing events and perusal of scores of books, articles and pamphlets penned by anti-abortion conservatives. Her goal? To understand the ideology and motivating factors that have propelled the movement for the past half century.

Continued: https://indypendent.org/2025/06/the-international-movement-behind-anti-abortion-activism/

‘We’re ready to fight’: activists brace as US anti-rights figures descend on Africa

Ultra-conservative campaigners fly in for ‘family values’ conferences to share tactics with African allies who oppose abortion and LGBTQ+ rights

Jessie Williams
Fri 9 May 2025

Advocates for sexual, reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights in Africa are bracing themselves for an influx of some of the most powerful, ultra-conservative campaigners from the US, Poland, Switzerland and the Netherlands over the coming months.

The prominent campaigners, who all oppose abortion, transgender and LGBTQ+ rights, and are against sexuality education, are due to speak at a series of conferences focused on African “family values” and “national sovereignty”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/may/09/africa-family-values-anti-rights-conferences-conservative-christian-abortion-lgbtq-gender-uganda-kenya-rwanda

09.05.2025

Commentary

Africa Christian Professionals Forum

Alliance Defending Freedom

Ann Kioko

Anti-Homosexuality Act

Austin Ruse

Bettina Roska

Center for Family and Human Rights

Christian Council International

CitizenGO

Fatima Maada Bio

Henk Jan van Schothorst

Joy Asasira

Julius Maada Bio

MSI Reproductive Choices

National Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission

Nelly Munyasia

Okwara Masafu

Pan-African Conference on Family Values

Purposeful

Ramatu Bangura

Reproductive Health Network Kenya

Saoyo Tabitha Griffith

Sarah Shaw

Sharon Slater

Southern Poverty Law Center

Women’s Probono Initiative

Trump’s Return Invigorates Global Anti-Abortion Drive

Not everything termed ‘Geneva’ advances human rights

Jan 06, 2025
Asia Sentinel

The global movement to undermine and restrict access to safe abortion, which went relatively dormant during the Biden interregnum that began in 2020, looks likely to return along with Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency. Although the returning president shied away from the anti-abortion crusade as a political liability during his 2024 campaign and may well remain silent domestically, internationally it is likely to return in the form of the regressive Geneva Consensus Declaration.

The Declaration was introduced two weeks before Trump left office in 2020 by his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and adopted by 39 countries under the pretext of “promoting women’s health and strengthening the family.” The Biden administration immediately took the US out of the Declaration upon taking office. Having frustrated the anti-abortion forces in the US during his campaign, Trump is likely to make up to them on the international front, according to the medical anthropologist Lynn Morgan in a telephone conversation from Mount Holyoke College, a private women's liberal arts school in Massachusetts.

Continued: https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/trump-return-invigorate-global-anti-abortion-drive

What African feminist movements are up against in 2023

Emboldened by the overturning of Roe v Wade, Western conservative movements are dialling up their Africa campaigns

Joy Asasira
28 December 2022

This year’s most notable decision affecting gender justice – the overturning of federal protection of the right to abortion in the US – happened more than 6,000 miles from Africa, but its impact was felt here too.

The US Supreme Court’s decision will affect legal, policy and public service spheres on the African continent. It will also intensify the ideological war to control women’s bodies and push LGBTIQ citizens further to the margins.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/african-feminism-2023-threats/

Kenya: The New Cold War Over Access to Safe Abortion in Kenya

22 SEPTEMBER 2022
Inter Press Service

By Stephanie Musho and Ritah Anindo Obonyo

Nairobi — Fatuma is a 24 year old girl from Korogocho, an informal settlement
in Nairobi. She died in December 2021, from complications arising from an
unsafe abortion. Her friend and a few of her neighbors found her bleeding
profusely and unable to move. They rushed her to the hospital. Unfortunately,
she died before she could see the doctor.

Unfortunately, Fatuma's story is common for girls and women in Kenya. In fact,
at least 7 of them die every day from complications arising from unsafe
abortion. Worse still, is that with current trends - where 700 girls between
the ages of 10 and 19 are getting pregnant daily; the harrowing statistics on
abortions are likely to be worse. If Fatuma knew where she could access safe
abortion services, she would not have died.

Continued: https://allafrica.com/stories/202209230002.html

Kenya: The new government’s chance to secure reproductive rights

BY STEPHANIE MUSHO
SEPTEMBER 7, 2022

For too long, sexual and reproductive rights in Kenya have operated in a vacuum. Despite the constitution providing for the “highest attainable standard” of reproductive health, legislators have failed to enact any legislation on the issue, shooting down a bill in 2014 and another in 2019. The outgoing administration of Uhuru Kenyatta has opposed the delivery of sex education and contraception to adolescent and failed to support teenage mothers.

This has contributed to several worrying statistics. Kenya has the world’s third highest teenage pregnancy rate. Nearly 100 girls in the country contract HIV each week. Over 2,600 women and girls die annually from complications arising from unsafe abortion.

Continued: https://africanarguments.org/2022/09/kenya-the-new-governments-chance-to-secure-reproductive-rights/

07.09.2022

sexual and reproductive rights

Kenya – the New Government’s Chance to Secure Reproductive Rights

7 SEPTEMBER 2022
By Stephanie Musho

Kenya's sexual health rights are beholden to US decisionmakers. New legislators must take back control.

For too long, sexual and reproductive rights in Kenya have operated in a vacuum. Despite the constitution providing for the "highest attainable standard" of reproductive health, legislators have failed to enact any legislation on the issue, shooting down a bill in 2014 and another in 2019. The outgoing administration of Uhuru Kenyatta has opposed the delivery of sex education and contraception to adolescent and failed to support teenage mothers.

Continued: https://allafrica.com/stories/202209080005.html

Roe v Wade: How its scrapping will affect women worldwide

The US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the longstanding abortion ruling will have a chilling effect on reproductive healthcare provision in low income and middle income countries.

BMJ 2022; 378
doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o1844 (Published 11 August 2022)
Sally Howard, freelance journalist1, Geetanjali Krishna, freelance journalist

In 2018 a reproductive health organisation in Kenya found that anti-abortion advocates had put the address of its reproductive rights helpline on social media. “It was a veiled threat,” its programme manager, Mina Mwangi, tells The BMJ. “They wanted us to know that they knew how to get us.”

On 24 June 2022 the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that protected women’s liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction.1 Sexual and reproductive health rights organisations across the world, including Mwangi’s, feared the effects of the overturning in terms of funding and potential attacks. “We are heightening our security because of how emboldened the opposition are,” Mwangi says, adding that she dreads a potential withdrawal of funds from US non-governmental organisations: her organisation receives over 50% of its funding from US donors.

Continued: https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj.o1844

11.08.2022

Editorial

Featured

2020 Reproductive Healthcare Bill

African Population and Health Research Centre

Legal Action Worldwide

Legal Framework on Abortion

Maputo Protocol

Marie Stopes International

maternal mortality

Maura Daly

Médecins Sans Frontières

Mina Mwangi

Payal Shah

Phonsina Archane

Physicians for human Rights

Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa

Roe v. Wade

Safe Abortion Action Fund

Sally Howard

Sarah Shaw

World Health Organization

The overturning of Roe v Wade could harm women across the world

The US policies on abortion, whether we like it or not, significantly influence how seriously governments around the world take the issue of unsafe abortions.

Stephanie Musho
19 May 2022

A leaked draft of a United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) opinion that would overturn Roe v Wade, a landmark 1973 decision that gave women the constitutional right to abortion, recently put abortion rights once again on the global agenda.

As a human rights lawyer in Kenya, I too am watching the developments in Washington, DC with worry. This is not only because I feel for American women being forced to fight for their right to bodily autonomy, but also because case law in commonwealth jurisdictions such as Kenya is sometimes influenced by decisions taken in US courtrooms.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/5/19/the-overturning-of-roe-v-wade-could-harm-women-across-the-world

UK – Pills in the post: how Covid reopened the abortion wars

As some European countries rolled out ‘telemed’ abortion, others shut down access completely.

by Sarah Hurtes and Daniel Boffey
Wed 21 Apr 2021

Kay, 34, realised her period was late a month into Britain’s lockdown. The coronavirus death count was spiralling across the country. Covid-19 was putting the NHS under unprecedented strain and Boris Johnson had given the British people what he described as “a very simple instruction” in an address to the nation from Downing Street: “You must stay at home.”

A worrying, unsettling time, and Kay, a mother of a six-year-old girl, needed to get hold of a pregnancy test kit. She went online and, two days later, took delivery of the test, learning of a positive result via two pink lines. It was the news she had dreaded.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/21/pills-in-the-post-how-covid-reopened-the-abortion-wars

21.04.2021