Abortion in India – still not a right but a privilege

BY MEENAZ KAKALIA
MAY 3, 2021

Critiquing the recently passed Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021, MEENAZ KAKALIA draws on trends in previous judicial decisions and her own personal experience as an advocate who has filed several petitions on behalf of women seeking termination of their pregnancies beyond the prescribed period. She explains why medical boards that have now been made a permanent feature of the Act, are problematic, and recommends that abortions should be made a right for women, solely determined by expectant mothers on the basis of informed consent.

THE Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021 received Presidential Assent on 25th March 2021. The Act amends the original enactment of 1971 to increase the number of weeks within which a woman can terminate her pregnancy, and provides for certain circumstances in which a pregnancy can be terminated at any stage.

Continued: https://www.theleaflet.in/abortion-in-india-still-not-a-right-but-a-privilege/

USA – A new, racialized assault on abortion rights is headed to the Supreme Court

Opinion by Melissa Murray
April 18, 2021

A federal appeals court last week allowed an Ohio law to take effect that bars doctors from performing abortions on women who choose to end their pregnancies because the fetus has Down syndrome. The law presents a head-on challenge to the right to abortion that could soon land at the Supreme Court — this time interlaced with sensitive questions of race and eugenics.

Such intrusive “reason bans,” which have been enacted around the country, are controversial — and almost immediately challenged — because they prohibit abortion before fetal viability. Most courts have applied the Supreme Court’s long-standing precedents to strike down such bans.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/18/new-racialized-assault-abortion-rights-is-headed-supreme-court/

Row over ruling on ‘eugenic abortion’ disturbs Lower House session

27.10.2020

Tuesday’s Lower House proceedings were disrupted by opposition MPs of the Left (Lewica) and Civic Coalition (KO) who protested the Constitutional Court’s ruling on “eugenic abortion” that had triggered public protests in some major Polish cities. The misconduct urged the deputy Lower House speaker to call for the guards to alleviate the tense situation.

The Lower House two-days-long session begun on Tuesday with the house’s Deputy Speaker Ryszard Terlecki of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party commenting on Left and KO MPs’ facemasks that were marked with the Red Lightning – the symbol of the Women’s Strike movement that has been protesting the ruling of the Constitutional Court on “eugenic abortion” for the past couple of days.

Continued: https://polandin.com/50520063/row-over-ruling-on-eugenic-abortion-disturbs-lower-house-session

Protesters gather after Polish court supports almost total ban on abortion

Curbing access to procedure a long-standing ambition of country's ruling party

Thomson Reuters
Posted: Oct 22, 2020

Protesters gathered across Poland on Thursday after the Constitutional Tribunal ruled that abortion due to fetal defects was unconstitutional, banning the most common of the few legal grounds for ending a pregnancy in the largely Catholic country.

After the ruling goes into effect, abortion will only be permissible in Poland in cases of rape, incest or when a mother's health and life are in danger, which make up only about two per cent of legal terminations conducted in recent years.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/poland-court-abortion-law-1.5773722

Poland’s top court rules out abortions due to fetal defects

Monika Scislowska, The Associated Press
Published Thursday, October 22, 2020

WARSAW, POLAND -- Poland's top court ruled Thursday that a law allowing abortion of fetuses with congenital defects is unconstitutional, shutting a major loophole in the predominantly Catholic country's abortion laws that are among the strictest in Europe.

Two judges in the 13-member constitutional Court did not back the majority ruling. Activists deplored the decision, and the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner wrote on Twitter that it was a "sad day for women's rights."

Continued: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/poland-s-top-court-rules-out-abortions-due-to-fetal-defects-1.5156017

Poland rules abortion due to foetal defects unconstitutional

Constitutional court’s ruling could pave way for governing PiS party to move ahead with legislative ban

The Guardian
Thu 22 Oct 2020

Poland’s constitutional tribunal has ruled that abortion due to foetal defects is unconstitutional, rejecting the most common of the few legal grounds for pregnancy termination in the predominantly Catholic country.

The
chief justice, Julia Przyłębska, said in a ruling that existing legislation –
one of Europe’s most restrictive – that allows for the abortion of malformed
foetuses was “incompatible” with the constitution.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/22/poland-rules-abortion-due-to-foetal-defects-unconstitutional

USA – ‘Personhood’ Film Shows the Cost of the Push for Fetal Rights

‘Personhood’ Film Shows the Cost of the Push for Fetal Rights
“If [the personhood movement] succeeds, the people who get pregnant are going to lose their fundamental rights… to privacy, to equality, to due process of law.”

Nov 7, 2019
Elizabeth Dawes Gay

Premiering this week, Personhood is the latest film highlighting the state of reproductive rights in the United States and how efforts to undermine the constitutional right to abortion cause unnecessary harm. In addition to exposing how fetal “personhood”—or the anti-abortion idea of legal protection for fetuses—immediately threatens the lives and well-being of pregnant people, the documentary film covers important issues concerning what the future could hold if state and federal policy continues in this trajectory. Personhood serves as a reminder that more organizing and political activism are needed to meet the challenges ahead.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2019/11/07/personhood-cost-push-fetal-rights/

USA – Clarence Thomas tried to link abortion to eugenics. Seven historians told The Post he’s wrong.

Clarence Thomas tried to link abortion to eugenics. Seven historians told The Post he’s wrong.

By Eli Rosenberg
May 30, 2019

In the opinion he wrote on the Supreme Court’s recent decision about two abortion laws, Justice Clarence Thomas reached back into history.

Thomas argued that the door for abortion rights was opened by the eugenics movement — the now-discredited pseudoscience obsessed with the genetic fitness of white Americans that was popular in the early 20th century — to raise alarm about abortion rights now.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/05/31/clarence-thomas-tried-link-abortion-eugenics-seven-historians-told-post-hes-wrong/?utm_term=.9554b6ed7982

USA – Why draconian anti-abortion laws are likely doomed

Why draconian anti-abortion laws are likely doomed

By Carliss Chatman
Wed May 29, 2019

(CNN)The Supreme Court provided a strong illustration Tuesday of the approach the majority of the court may take when it comes to the abortion issue: avoid making a decision unless it is absolutely necessary.

The court decided 7-2 to uphold an Indiana law specifying requirements for disposing of fetal remains by abortion providers. But it also declined to consider the portion of the law that bars abortion providers from terminating pregnancies because of fetal characteristics, like gender, race or disability. In doing so, the justices are signaling that the recent draconian abortion laws will not succeed in overturning settled law on a woman's right to abortion.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/29/opinions/supreme-court-abortion-fight-chatman/index.html