UK – Elliot Benham and Sophie Harvey deny illegal abortion

Feb 16, 2023

A man and a woman have pleaded not guilty to illegally aborting a baby and concealing the birth of a child.

Elliot Benham, from Wingfield, Swindon and Sophie Harvey, from St Mary's Road, Cirencester, are also charged with illegally disposing of a baby's body.  The charges relate to alleged actions between September and December in 2018.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-64661344


UK – Pair charged with illegally aborting baby in Gloucestershire

Jan 3, 2023
By Sammy Jenkins, BBC News

A man and a woman have been charged with illegally aborting a baby and concealing the birth of a child.

Elliot Benham from Wingfield, Swindon and Sophie Harvey, from St Mary's Road, Cirencester, were also charged with illegally disposing of a baby's body.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-64155166


Zimbabwe – Cooperation needed in dealing with illegal abortions

9 Sep 2022

The illegal abortion services through online platforms should be put to a stop immediately and individuals behind the practice arrested and prosecuted.

this paper reported on Tuesday that while abortion is illegal in the country, the dodgy individuals demand up to US$100 for pills to induce termination of pregnancies with promises of further treatment to clean the womb.

Continued: https://www.chronicle.co.zw/comment-co-operation-needed-in-dealing-with-illegal-abortions/


Nebraska woman charged with helping daughter have abortion

Investigators uncovered Facebook messages in which the two allegedly discussed using medication to induce an abortion.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Aug 9, 2022

OMAHA, Nebraska — A Nebraska woman has been charged with helping her teenage daughter end her pregnancy at about 24 weeks after investigators uncovered Facebook messages in which the two discussed using medication to induce an abortion and plans to burn the fetus afterward.

The prosecutor handling the case said it’s the first time he has charged anyone for illegally performing an abortion after 20 weeks, a restriction that was passed in 2010. Before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, states weren’t allowed to enforce abortion bans until the point at which a fetus is considered viable outside the womb, at roughly 24 weeks.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/09/nebraska-woman-charged-with-helping-daughter-have-abortion-00050763


Before Roe v Wade fell, Gerri Santoro’s death galvanised America’s abortion movement. This is her story

Jade Macmillan and Joanna Robin in Washington DC
Sat 25 Jun 2022

A woman lies dead on a motel room floor, her naked body hunched over a blood-soaked towel.

She died alone, abandoned by her lover after a failed self-induced abortion in 1964.

Her name was Gerri Santoro.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-26/before-roe-v-wade-gerri-santoro-galvanised-abortion-movement/101168136


South Africa – When all else fails: Why people opt for backstreet abortions

Mohale Moloi & Yolanda Mdzeke
8 Jun 2022

Waiting for the bus? Chances are you will see an advert promising “cheap, fast, pain-free abortions”. Browsing through your local paper’s classifieds you might well spot a similar ad there. Going online? The adverts for abortion services frequently pop up there, too.

But these ads are usually not for legitimate abortions despite abortions having been legal in South Africa since 1996.

Continued: https://mg.co.za/health/2022-06-08-when-all-else-fails-why-people-opt-for-backstreet-abortions/


How will laws against abortion be enforced? Other countries offer chilling examples

In Argentina, midwives were prosecuted. In Brazil, clinics were raided. In Rwanda, hundreds of women went to jail

By GILLIAN KANE
MAY 25, 2022

Within the next month it is very likely the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate the federal constitutional right to an abortion. When that happens, dormant trigger laws in many states will immediately go into effect and abortion will become a crime. Because abortion will be regulated at the state level, enforcement and penalties will vary greatly. Kentucky, South Dakota, North Dakota, Tennessee, South Carolina and Missouri are just some of the states that would make providing an abortion a felony, with penalties including jail time up to 20 years. Other states, too impatient to wait for the court decision, have already moved to increase penalties for either having or providing an abortion. Louisiana attempted to classify abortion as a homicide, although lawmakers there have since walked back the effort. Texas is uniquely punitive, criminalizing abortion after six weeks and incentivizing enforcement through the private sector by offering bounties of $10,000 cash to deputized ordinary citizens who can sue anyone involved in providing an abortion.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2022/05/25/how-will-laws-against-abortion-be-enforced-other-countries-offer-chilling-examples/


India – Illegal abortion centre unearthed in Jalna, seven booked

Seven people were booked after an illegal abortion centre was unearthed in Jalna district of Maharashtra, officials said on Saturday.

30 APR 2022

In the raid that was carried out by a team led by the civil surgeon and police on Friday night in Dhawaleshwar area here, a female fetus, medicines, abortion kits, a register were seized, they said.

 "A woman who was present at the centre to undergo medical termination of a female fetus has been shifted to a nearby hospital. The main accused is a BAMS doctor who ran away with a sonography machine while the raid was underway," an official said.

Continued: https://www.outlookindia.com/national/maha-illegal-abortion-centre-unearthed-in-jalna-seven-booked-news-194193


How California Created The Nation’s Easiest Abortion Access — And Why It’s Poised To Go Further

By Kristen Hwang | CalMatters
Apr 21, 2022

By this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court will issue a decision on the most consequential challenge to Roe v. Wade since the landmark ruling in 1973 guaranteed the constitutional right to obtain an abortion.

If federal abortion protections are eliminated or severely weakened— as legal experts expect — a cascade of absolute bans will follow in more than a dozen states. Already, six more states are considering so-called “trigger bans” in the lead-up to this summer’s decision, while dozens of other state legislatures are considering 15-week bans, abortion pill bans and bans modeled after Texas’ controversial law that allows private citizens to sue anyone who helps someone obtain an abortion after six weeks.

Continued: https://laist.com/news/health/how-california-created-the-nations-easiest-abortion-access-and-why-its-poised-to-go-further


France – ‘Illegal abortions are not an old story for many women’

Audrey Diwan on her new film, Happening, based the 2000 memoir by celebrated French writer Annie Ernaux

April 18, 2022
Tara Brady

Following in the footsteps of Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Audrey Diwan’s powerful period drama makes a devastating case for sexual and reproductive freedom.

Adapted from L’Événement, the 2000 memoir by celebrated French writer Annie Ernaux, Happening recounts the author’s desperate attempts to get an abortion when she was a promising young student in 1964, a decade before France legalised abortion in 1975.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/illegal-abortions-are-not-an-old-story-for-many-women-1.4851768