Women’s council plans to address 12-week limit and poor national coverage
Tue, Apr 26, 2022
Cormac McQuinn
Politicians will hear calls for a less restrictive abortion regime, including extending the current 12-week limit to allow terminations on request “up to viability”.
The National Women’s Council (NWC) and the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) will suggest reforms to the rules on abortion when representatives appear before the Oireachtas Health Committee on Wednesday.
By Ram Kumar Kamat
Apr 03, 2022
KATHMANDU, APRIL 2 - Even one year after Nepal accepted the Human Rights Council's universal periodic review recommendation that it should decriminalise abortion, the government has not taken any concrete steps to amend the prevailing laws that criminalise abortion.
In 2018, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Committee had also recommended that Nepal fully decriminalise abortion in all cases and legalise it at least in the cases of health complications of the mother.
Continued: https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/govt-not-serious-about-decriminalising-abortion
Amy Booth, The Lancet WORLD REPORT| VOLUME 399, ISSUE 10328, P899
MARCH 05, 2022
The ruling consolidates Latin America's swing towards pro-choice, following similar recent decisions in Argentina and Mexico. Amy Booth reports.
Colombia's constitutional court has decriminalised elective abortion up to 24 weeks, giving the country some of the most liberal abortion legislation in Latin America. The ruling deepens a trend towards legalisation in a region where the procedure was almost universally banned until recently. Following extensive and litigious negotiations, the court announced its 5–4 verdict on Feb 21, 2022. Outside the courthouse, feminist campaigners clad in the emerald green of Latin America's green tide pro-choice movement hugged each other and jumped for joy, many bursting into tears.
Continued: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00416-0/fulltext
January 19, 2022
Christopher Barbara, obo Doctors for Choice – St Julian’s
John Pace (January 11) called me “malicious” and a “bad loser” for asking for the decriminalisation of abortion in Malta. Such insults do not deserve a reply but I will address his false claim that Malta’s abortion law is a “successful deterrent”.
It is not. Because in the age where everyone has access to the internet, or knows someone who has, it only takes a few seconds of online searching to learn that abortion pills can be purchased and delivered to Malta and can successfully end an early pregnancy at home. Before abortion pills could be delivered through online telemedicine, women in Malta used to be regularly referred to legal or not-so-legal clinics abroad.
Continued: https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/letters-to-the-editor-january-19-2022.928633
The Irish Family Planning Association has called for a full decriminalisation of services
Cate McCurry
Jan 3, 2022
Ireland’s abortion laws are still failing women who struggle to access services, a family planning group has said, because of a lack of provision and time restrictions on terminations.
Niall Behan, chief executive of the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), called for a full decriminalisation of abortion services in the country.
Mara Malagodi, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law
November 10, 2021
Recent legal changes in a number of jurisdictions that have entirely decriminalised abortion are steeped in the language of gender constitutionalism and human rights – whether these changes have taken place via constitutional litigation or statutory reform. As a result, the campaigns for complete decriminalisation in other jurisdictions have now begun to engage in a pragmatic comparative law exercise to advance their cause. Activists deploy the legal arguments and strategies marshalled in those jurisdictions that have completely removed abortion from the purview of their criminal laws alongside domestic constitutional principles and international human rights standards. As such, we are witnessing a global cross-pollination of legal ideas anchored in substantive notions of gender equality and human dignity to challenge legal restrictions to women’s bodily autonomy.
Abortion is the only medical procedure that continues to be consistently treated as a crime around the world. Even those jurisdictions that have partially liberalised their legal regimes continue to criminalise abortion outside of the terms explicitly provided by law. Only a handful of jurisdictions such as China (1979 – excluding Hong Kong and Macau), Canada (1988), Northern Ireland (2019), New Zealand (2020), and Australia (2021), have entirely removed abortion from the purview of their penal laws. Canada did so via constitutional litigation, while the other jurisdictions via statutory reform.
Continued: https://www.iconnectblog.com/2021/11/gender-equality-and-the-complete-decriminalisation-of-abortion/
‘Many women in Colombia are forced to have their rapist’s baby,’ says lawyer
Maya Oppenheim, Women’s Correspondent
Oct 30, 2021
Abortion could be decriminalised in Colombia in the next month as landmark decisions to legalise pregnancy terminations in Latin America have a “ripple effect” across the region, campaigners said.
Colombia decriminalised pregnancy terminations for women whose life or health is at risk, or in cases where there are fatal foetal abnormalities, or if the pregnancy is the by-product of rape or incest, back in 2006.
"Women must have the right to decide about their own bodies—that is a human right."
JULIA CONLEY, Common Dreams
June 9, 2021
Several international lawmakers and leaders joined rights activists Wednesday in a call for all legal barriers to abortion care to be removed worldwide, demanding clinics that were shut down during the pandemic be reopened and for a "global campaign of factual and unbiased information" to counter well-funded anti-choice groups.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo was among the signatories of the letter organized by the SheDecides movement, as well as equality ministers from France, Canada, and Norway; Parliament members from Belgium and Zimbabwe; and international development ministers from Sweden and the Netherlands.
Continued: https://www.laprogressive.com/legal-barriers-to-abortion/
By Jurgen Balzan
May 29, 2021
Decriminalising abortion is the first basic essential step, ADPD leader Carmel Cacopardo said as he insisted that the debate should centre around empathy.
“Decriminalising abortion with respect to women is the first basic essential step which requires urgent action in Malta. It is essential as women who undergo abortion need the protection of the state and not being threatened with prosecution and persecution,” Cacopardo said, criticising the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party for stonewalling the debate.
Continued: https://newsbook.com.mt/en/women-should-not-be-prosecuted-over-abortion-adpd/
May 18, 2021
Jessica Arena
When independent MP Marlene Farrugia presented a private member’s bill proposing the decriminalisation of abortion in Malta, temperatures soared, as vested parties on both sides made the case on why abortion should or should not be legislated.
However, there is a key difference between decriminalisation and legalisation.
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