Biden’s Budget Is an Opportunity to Promote and Protect Abortion Access

1/9/2023
by BETHANY VAN KAMPEN SARAVIA

Abortion is healthcare, and access to healthcare is a human right everyone is entitled to, no matter their income, hometown, race or gender—and now more than ever, the American people agree with this.

Abortion was one of the defining issues of the midterm elections. It was the number one issue for almost one-third of all voters according to exit polls, and every single ballot initiative addressing abortion was a resounding victory. (“It turns out women enjoy having human rights, and we vote,” Hillary Clinton tweeted.)

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/01/09/biden-budget-2024-abortion-hyde-weldon-amendment/


Latin American feminists vow to continue fight for abortion rights in 2023

Sexual and reproductive rights activists in the region say ‘our struggle continues’ to maintain progress so far

Angelina De Los Santos, OpenDemocracy
3 January 2023

Last year, while US conservatives led the Supreme Court to remove constitutional protection for abortion, feminists across Latin America and the Caribbean moved several governments in the opposite direction.

But the powerful movement behind such progressive change faces difficult challenges in 2023, including safeguarding hard-won rights and overcoming the disparity of abortion policies between different countries.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/latin-america-caribbean-abortion-rights-feminists/


The fight for women’s rights is a fight against authoritarianism

Ma, Women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch
Jan 2, 2023

We know progress is never linear, and defence of human rights can be a difficult task. Women’s rights gains, however, are particularly fragile. Often disguised in concepts that are presented as harmless, such as the protection of the family and children, or the protection of societal traditions, governments limit women’s autonomy, as if these restrictions were not politically motivated and did not amount to human-rights violations.

Examples of egregious restrictions on women’s rights are not hard to find. The Chinese government’s population policies treat women as “wombs” subject to forced abortions or forced pregnancies depending on the “needs” of the country; Iran’s morality police have brutally enforced compulsory hijab laws on women; Qatar criminalizes extramarital sex where pregnancy acts as evidence against women; Russia and Turkey are deliberately walking back protections against domestic violence; in Afghanistan, the Taliban are once again denying women and girls education, work and most basic freedoms.

Continued: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-fight-for-womens-rights-is-a-fight-against-authoritarianism/


Lesson from Latin America for U.S. abortion rights movement

Top jurists map out paths taken by Mexico, Colombia to landmark legalization rulings

BY Liz Mineo, Harvard Staff Writer
October 26, 2022

Mexico and Colombia recently legalized abortion in landmark rulings that offer a stark contrast to the Dobbs decision that overturned the right to the procedure in the U.S. A recent event at Harvard Law School looked at the three seismic legal shifts and produced insights that could, organizers say, yield lessons for the U.S. abortion rights movement.

Justices Alfredo Gutiérrez Ortiz Mena of the Supreme Court of Mexico and Natalia Ángel Cabo of the Colombian Constitutional Court last week laid out the factors that led to the rulings in their respective countries in a panel on reproductive justice sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

Continued: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/10/lesson-from-latin-america-for-u-s-abortion-rights-movement/


Mexican, Colombian Supreme Court Justices Discuss Path to Abortion Rights at Petrie-Flom Center Forum

By Julian J. Giordano, Asher J. Montgomery
Oct 24, 2022

Supreme Court justices from Mexico and Colombia, Alfredo Guitérrez Oritz Mena and Natalia Ángel Cabo, discussed abortion rights in their respective countries at a panel hosted on Friday by the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School.

The panelists discussed decisions issued by the Supreme Courts of both Mexico and Colombia in the last two years that expanded abortion access. In September 2021, the Supreme Court in Mexico ruled in September 2021 that it is unconstitutional to punish abortion as a crime. Colombia’s top court issued a ruling in February that legalized abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/10/24/latin-american-abortion-rights-talk/


US abortion restrictions are unlikely to influence international trends, which are largely becoming more liberal

July 12, 2022
Martha Davis

The Supreme Court’s June 24, 2022, ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade is already having profound effects across the United States, from Florida to Wisconsin. And the ruling also bucks a clear worldwide trend. In countries from Iceland to Zambia, abortion restrictions have been lifted over the last two decades, not tightened.

Today, only 24 countries out of 195 prohibit abortion, representing just 5% of women of reproductive age globally. Twice that many countries have made it easier to legally get an abortion in the past 20 years.

Continued:  https://theconversation.com/us-abortion-restrictions-are-unlikely-to-influence-international-trends-which-are-largely-becoming-more-liberal-186181


How Mexico’s Top Justice, Raised Catholic, Became an Abortion Rights Champion

Influenced by feminists close to him, the chief of the country’s Supreme Court helped pave the way for decriminalization of the procedure.

By Natalie Kitroeff
July 9, 2022

MEXICO CITY — When the chief justice of Mexico’s Supreme Court began voting in favor of abortion rights, his toughest opponents were the people closest to him.

His sister asked why he wanted to kill babies. His brother, a civil engineer, lost clients. Friends prayed for his religious conversion in group chats.

Unlocked:   https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/09/world/americas/mexico-abortion-chief-justice.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iWka3DKDm4TiPsSGYyMvE7IaLBibNIomDGWVN5KN_omTvto0u5YOQlmSwilrN6GhY8ZIi4474KvW2d8l7T8YYcFyx64JG-oNLU4g7SloxONNDX3C6KL03QjLQl6qMRifEWt2XwP2vyTFuFqiNF73PshVZx7QD4KdzDK66ezc2h2MN2Cah3Y7wIkCaoOCXyIw4nqu_9Xex5SCFnGUHp6_W4_jdpcM9scN631RAUyLIu82f5CTzw1c_r6QsE5VIPWlL51sL_SqRXqycG-x_U-F6Q8r6r9Pa6IIFljGIHaDrwCZmNW&smid=url-share


What the U.S. can learn from abortion rights wins in Latin America

July 7, 2022
Ailsa Chang, Jonaki Mehta, Justine Kenin
6-Minute Listen, with transcript

Maria Antonieta Alcalde is the director of IPAs in Central America and Mexico, an organization that promotes safe and legal abortion access around the world. She joined All Things Considered to share perspectives from her own work, and to give insight on what the movement in the U.S. could do next.

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/07/1110123695/abortion-roe-latin-america-green-wave


IN PHOTOS: Here’s how green became the colour of abortion rights

By Amanda Connolly, Global News
Posted July 6, 2022

From the streets of Poland to crowds in Argentina, Mexico and, most recently, the United States following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, abortion rights protests have something in common: the colour green.

Green banners, snapping in the air. Green scarves, green bandanas, green shirts.

Continued: https://globalnews.ca/news/8970022/green-colour-of-abortion-rights/


El Salvador – Abortion laws: The women jailed for suffering miscarriages

By Valeria Perasso and Fernando Duarte
Jun 30, 2022

Karen was sentenced to 30 years in prison in El Salvador in 2015 after being accused of having an abortion

When Karen woke up in an El Salvador hospital, she
noticed that she was handcuffed to a bed and there were police officers by her
bedside.

"There were a lot of people around and they were saying I had taken my
baby's life and that I was going to 'pay for what I had done'," Karen
tells BBC 100 Women.

Continued:  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-61995250