The silent crisis: Abortion and reproductive rights in Turkmenistan

Turkmen women today are worse off than their grandmothers.

Aigerim Turgunbaeva
Aug 5, 2025

An overly restrictive reproductive health framework in Turkmenistan is contributing to societal dysfunction, rights advocates contend.

Turkmenistan’s population growth rate has been stagnating in recent years, falling to its lowest level (1.84 percent) in 2023 since the hardship years following the Soviet Union’s breakup in the 1990s. A decade ago, the growth rate stood at 2.29 percent. The country’s authoritarian-minded leadership is resorting to draconian policies to force women to have more babies out of an apparent desire to bolster population growth. Access to reproductive health information is limited in the country, and only an estimated 47 percent of women are using contraceptives. Since the adoption of amendments in 2015, abortion is legal in Turkmenistan only up to the fifth week of pregnancy—a timeframe before many women even know they are pregnant. The five-week limit is the lowest in the world.

Continued: https://eurasianet.org/the-silent-crisis-abortion-and-reproductive-rights-in-turkmenistan

06.08.2025

Commentary

5-week abortion ban

Amnesty International

Aynabat Yaylymova

domestic abuse

Progres Foundation

UN Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

Canada – She Wanted to End Her Pregnancy. Her Abusive Partner Took Her to Court

The legal case that won Canadian women the right to abortion

by Karin Wells
Jun. 4, 2025

They met at a RadioShack in Montreal in November 1988. She was barely twenty, a waitress new to the city. He was five years older, a big man, six foot three, with a moustache. He seemed nice enough.

Chantale Daigle might have been a young, small-town girl—she was from Chibougamau, eight hours north of Montreal—but she knew her own mind. She lived with Jean-Guy Tremblay for five months, and it turned out he was not so nice. She got pregnant. One night, he knocked her to the ground and said that he would “bring her into line once and for all.”

Continued: https://thewalrus.ca/she-wanted-to-end-her-pregnancy-her-abusive-partner-took-her-to-court/

Abortion Bans Are Empowering Abusive Men—and Prominent ‘Pro-Life’ Activists Are Representing Them

Murder is a leading cause of death for pregnant women. The anti-abortion movement wants to hand more power to abusive men anyway.

May 8, 2024
by JILL FILIPOVIC

The way abortions bans are designed and written allow for all kinds of horrors: women losing their organs, women bleeding out without help, women losing their lives. But they’re also written to empower abusive men. After all, the very foundation of an abortion ban is an assumption that a woman’s body does not belong to her. Abusive men agree. And so it’s perhaps not a huge surprise that several men have indeed taken advantage of these laws in an effort to control their ex partners. And it’s also not particularly surprising—although it is appalling—that they’ve found support and legal representation from some of the most powerful people in the U.S. anti-abortion movement.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/05/08/abortion-bans-violence-against-women-ex-boyfriend-husband-abuse/

USA – How abortion bans are undercutting efforts to prevent domestic violence

OB-GYNs are often the first or only doctors to learn if a patient is facing intimate partner violence. As they leave places with abortion bans, domestic violence victims are feeling the impacts.

By Jennifer Gerson, Shefali Luthra
November 13, 2023

As more abortion bans have gone into effect across the country, it has become far more difficult to perform a standard element of gynecological care: screening patients for domestic abuse.

Research shows that OB-GYNs are often the first or only doctors to learn if a patient is facing intimate partner violence. While women of all ages experience intimate partner violence, it is most prevalent among women of reproductive age, the people most likely to see an OB-GYN. Meanwhile, abortion bans have contributed to reproductive health care providers leaving states, retiring early or declining to practice where the procedure is restricted.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2023/11/abortion-bans-hindering-domestic-violence-screenings-prevention/

“The case of Carla Foster proves that in the UK, abortion is essentially criminal”

The 44-year-old mother of three was sentenced to 28 months in prison for having an abortion past the legal time limitations. Her story brings to light the deeply troubling reality for women in Britain

BY MARISA BATE
16 JUNE 2023

By now I’m sure you’re familiar with the case of Carla Foster, a 44-year-old mother of three who took abortion pills at home past the legal time limitations, resulting in the miscarriage of a 32-34 week old foetus. This week, she was sentenced to 28 months in prison under an Act from 1861. She will serve 14 months in custody, separated from her three children, one of whom the judge described as having “special needs, which means that he is particularly reliant upon your love and support”. The judge also made plain that Foster was vulnerable. The abortion took place during the first lockdown, a frightening and confusing time for us all, and a time when telemedicine abortion care was introduced as in-person clinics closed. Foster had moved back in with her former but now estranged partner, before discovering she was pregnant with a child from another man.

Continued: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/culture-news/a44210247/carla-foster-abortion-opinion/

16.06.2023

Opinion

Carla Foster

domestic abuse

intimate partner violence

jailing women for abortion

Justice Edward Pepperall

Marisa Bate

Prison Reform Trust

telemedicine abortion

Women face ‘catastrophic’ risks as thousands of sexual health clinics close

Women face 'catastrophic' risks as thousands of sexual health clinics close

Amber Milne
April 9, 2020

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - More than 5,600 sexual health clinics have shut due to the new coronavirus, risking more deaths from unsafe abortions and denying women access to HIV tests and drugs, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) said on Thursday.

The world’s largest sexual and reproductive health charity said COVID-19 lockdowns, social distancing and staff shortages had closed about one in seven of its members’ clinics, which also offer gender-based violence support and abortion care.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-women-trfn/women-face-catastrophic-risks-as-thousands-of-sexual-health-clinics-close-idUSKCN21R39C