BY SKYE WHEELER AND KELLY DAVIS, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS
05/06/23
In Pittsburgh, people breathe air that is suffused with toxic matter, according to the American Lung Association.
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that in 2019, Pittsburgh was determined to be the worst place for Black women and birthing people to live. Most would think these things are not connected, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Inter-American Court Ruling Could Set Precedent in Latin America and the Caribbean
March 23, 2023
(Washington, DC) – An Inter-American Court of Human Rights hearing on the case of Beatriz, who was denied an abortion by El Salvador despite her high-risk pregnancy, will highlight the dire consequences of a law that completely bans abortion and is an opportunity for a step forward in the protection of reproductive rights in the region, Human Rights Watch said today.
“This is the first time the Inter-American Court will discuss the consequences of the total criminalization of abortion,” said Cristina Quijano Carrasco, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Its ruling on El Salvador, which has some of the world’s strictest anti-abortion laws, would set a precedent in Latin America and the Caribbean when it comes to abortion if a women’s life is in danger or if a fetus cannot survive outside the womb.”
Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/23/el-salvador-court-hears-case-total-abortion-ban
Justyna Wydrzynska sentenced to community service after telling court she sent pills to victim of domestic violence
Weronika Strzyżyńska and agencies in Warsaw
Tue 14 Mar 2023
A court in Poland has convicted an activist for helping a pregnant woman access abortion pills, sentencing her to eight months of community service in a landmark case over abortion rights in the predominantly Catholic country.
“I do not feel that I am facing the court alone,” said Justyna Wydrzynska at the hearing on Tuesday. “Behind me are my friends and hundreds of women I have not had the luck to meet yet.”
Exclusive: letter from human rights groups says overturning of the constitutional right violates US’s obligations as a UN member state
Poppy Noor
Thu 2 Mar 2023
Top human rights organizations are calling on the United Nations to intervene over the destruction of abortion rights in the US.
In a letter shared in advance with the Guardian and sent on Thursday by nearly 200 organizations and experts, the authors detail how, since the overturning of the federal constitutional right to abortion in June 2022, some 22 million women and girls of reproductive age live in states where abortion access is now either banned or inaccessible.
Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/02/destruction-us-abortion-laws-human-rights-violation-un
By Hilary Matfess, Robert Nagel
Sunday, February 12, 2023
In December 2022, Reuters released a shocking report detailing a forced abortion campaign by the Nigerian government that targeted women who were impregnated by members of Boko Haram. The report suggests that the program involved at least five hospitals and five military bases and affected roughly 10,000 women over the course of nearly a decade, which would almost certainly require a degree of oversight and endorsement by senior authorities in the Nigerian government. The accounts from women who were subjected to these forced abortions are harrowing; they reported being given pills or injections to induce abortions without understanding what effect the treatment would have. The program was reportedly justified as a means of eradicating the threat of future insurgents and operated despite Nigeria’s strict regulations on abortion. The Nigerian government has denied these allegations. But in a conflict that has been marked by distressing levels of gender-based violence—including the abduction of women and girls into the ranks of the insurgents—the report added another dimension of systematic state violence against Nigerian women
Continued: https://www.lawfareblog.com/contextualizing-nigerian-governments-forced-abortion-program
By Mariel Yacolca Maguina
Feb 11, 2023
Until 2019, abortions weren’t widely legal anywhere in Latin America except for Cuba and Uruguay; whereas, in the United States, Roe v. Wade widely legalized abortions throughout the country in 1973. Within the last two years, however, countries in Latin America made advances in reproductive rights while the U.S. became increasingly restrictive and finally overturned Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs v. Jackson case. How have the United States and Latin America diverged in their approach to reproductive rights?
In 2015, Argentinian feminists marched with the slogan #NiUnaMenos [“Not one (woman) less”] and started demanding action against gender-based violence and for the end to abortion restrictions. In order to obtain support from the population, #NiUnaMenos framed the issue of abortion as a social justice problem that disproportionally affected low-income women who could not afford safe illegal abortions and often died during clandestine procedures. According to The Economist, upper and middle-class women could get safe illegal abortions by taking misoprostol, which cost about 112 USD, or a surgical abortion which cost 1000 USD. If there were complications, wealthy women could access private healthcare; whereas, low-income women had to seek aid at public hospitals, where the staff was likely to report them.
Continued: https://www.mironline.ca/the-state-of-reproductive-rights-in-the-americas/
In a new report about minors denied abortions in Florida, judges evidently deemed one kid too shy to be mature enough for an abortion, and another too curt.
By Carter Sherman
February 9, 2023
Just a few days before her 15th birthday, the 14-year-old appeared in front of a Florida court and asked for permission to get an abortion.
This girl said that her mother lived in Guatemala and that she had lost touch with her father after he moved away—making it likely impossible for her to get their permission to get an abortion, which minors are required to do under Florida law.
Continued: https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k8gxq/judges-denied-14-year-old-abortion
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.
Letter Concerning the Use of Federal Aid in Abortion Surveillance
Human Rights Watch
December 8, 2022
Dear President Biden, We the undersigned civil and human rights, civil liberties, and reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations write to express our concern that existing forms of federal assistance to state and local law enforcement will be used to support state and local surveillance and investigations of reproductive health activities. We urge you to take steps to prevent this.
Your Administration has expressed its strong commitment to protecting access to reproductive health care, including abortion, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The White House has declared that it is “committed to doing everything in his power to defend reproductive rights and protect access to safe and legal abortion.”[1] As part of its effort to defend access to abortion and other reproductive health care, federal resources should in no way aid or supplement states' criminal investigations of reproductive health decisions. Several states have already taken action to prevent their own state resources from being used in such a matter.[2]
Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/08/letter-concerning-use-federal-aid-abortion-surveillance
December 6, 2022
BY NINIEK KARMINI
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP)—Indonesia’s Parliament unanimously passed a long-expected revision of the country’s penal code on Tuesday that criminalizes sex outside of marriage for citizens as well as foreigners, prohibits promotion of contraception, forbids progressive political thought, and bans defamation of the president and state institutions.
The amended code also expands an existing blasphemy law and maintains a five-year prison term for deviations from the central tenets of Indonesia’s six recognized religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.
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