Malaysia Punishing Women For Abortion Is Not The Answer

The Galen Centre calls for law reform, after a Melaka court sentenced a 21-year-old woman to jail for self-managed abortion. Abortion has been lawful in Malaysia since 1989 when Section 312 of the Penal Code was amended to allow termination of pregnancy.

By Azrul Mohd Khalib
23 May 2025

The recent nine-month custodial sentence imposed by the Ayer Keroh Magistrate’s Court on a young woman who ended a five-month pregnancy with medication obtained online, highlights the urgent need to modernise laws that continue to criminalise women while failing to address the root causes of unplanned pregnancies.

No woman or girl should face prison for exercising autonomy over her body. Malaysia’s Penal Code still contains provisions dating back from and written in the 19th century. They do not reflect current medical practice, World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations, human-rights standards, or the realities faced by women, especially young women, the poor and the unmarried.

Continued: https://codeblue.galencentre.org/2025/05/punishing-women-for-abortion-is-not-the-answer-azrul-mohd-khalib/

The Dark State Of Abortion Rights In El Salvador, And First Signs Of Light

Although the last Salvadorian woman imprisoned on charges linked to abortion was released in December, 11 similar cases are currently pending in the country. Human rights activists acknowledge the progress made, and the work that remains to be done to overturn strict anti-abortion laws.

Mariana Escobar Bernoske
March 09, 2024

BOGOTÁ — In December 2023, Lilian was the last Salvadoran woman to regain her freedom after spending seven years in prison for an obstetric emergency. In 2015, the courts found her guilty of "murdering" her unborn baby by planning an abortion, when in fact, a tear in her uterus had caused the death. Medics had to give her three blood transfusions to stabilize her.

El Salvador is one of Latin America's most restrictive states in terms of women's sexual and reproductive rights. Abortion is banned as the state considers persons to exist from the moment of conception, contrary to the advice of international human rights groups. Under this strict ban, women who have had pregnancy complications, miscarriages or prenatal deaths to be charged with premeditating abortion.

Continued: https://worldcrunch.com/culture-society/abortion-righs-el-salvador

Welcome to El Salvador where a miscarriage sends you to jail

Tuesday, January 23, 2024
By Moraa Obiria, The Nation

What you need to know:
The country in Central America has laws tormenting women and girls with the harshest abortion laws under the sun.
Should a woman abort, regardless of circumstances, the law sends them to jail for between two to eight years.
A 19-year-old woman who miscarried after a rape ordeal was charged with aggravated homicide-intentional and premeditated killing of another person - and jailed for 30 years.

Continued: https://nation.africa/kenya/news/gender/welcome-to-el-salvador-where-a-miscarriage-sends-you-to-jail-4499792

23.01.2024

Commentary

1956 Penal Code

jailing women for abortion

Mario Soriano

Moraa Obiria

total abortion ban

United Nations Population Fund

UK – Telling health staff not to report women for suspected illegal abortions has firm legal basis

There is no general obligation to contact police about a crime and the royal college is within its rights to tell its members not to do so

Haroon Siddique, Legal affairs correspondent
Mon 22 Jan 2024

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ call for abortion to be decriminalised – and announcement that it will tell its members not to report women to police if they believe they may have illegally ended their pregnancies – is a significant intervention in the debate.

Concerns about the existing laws in England and Wales came to the fore last year when a woman was sentenced to more than two years in prison for procuring drugs to induce an abortion after the legal limit, which is generally 24 weeks.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/proposed-guidance-to-health-staff-not-to-report-suspected-pregnancy-termination-to-police-may-be-lawful

El Salvador woman freed after abortion conviction

17th January 2024
By Leonardo Rocha

A Salvadoran woman has been freed from prison more than seven years after she was convicted for having an abortion.

The 28-year-old, identified only as Lilian, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2015.

She gave birth to a girl in a public hospital in 2015, but the baby suffered health complications and died there three days later.
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Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-68014699

17.01.2024

News

30-year jail sentence for miscarriage

aggravated homicide

jailing women for abortion

Lilian in El Salvador

UK – Jailing women for abortion ‘unlikely to be just’

Oct 18, 2023
By Susie Rack & PA Media, BBC News, West Midlands

A senior court has said jailing women for abortion-related crimes was "unlikely" to be a "just outcome" after a mother's sentence was reduced.

In a 17-page ruling, the Court of Appeal explained why Carla Foster's prison term was lowered from 28 months to 14 months suspended in July.

The mother-of-three from Staffordshire had admitted illegally procuring abortion pills during lockdown.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-67148851

19.10.2023

News

British Pregnancy Advisory Service (

Carla Foster

jailing women for abortion

Nebraska Mom Gets 2 Years in Prison After Buying Abortion Pills for Her Teen Daughter

“Here's the audacity: Self-managed abortion is not even a crime in fucking Nebraska,” an advocate told Jezebel. The case is a harbinger of more criminalization.

By Susan Rinkunas
Sep 22, 2023

On Friday, a Nebraska judge sentenced Jessica Burgess to two years in prison after she bought abortion pills for her teen daughter and helped bury the fetal remains in early 2022, according to reporters from Norfolk Daily News and Courthouse News. The sentencing went forward without a court-ordered psychological evaluation that the judge canceled for lack of funding last week. Burgess had faced up to five years in prison after she accepted a plea deal. With good behavior, she could be released in a year.

Burgess pled guilty in July to three charges (tampering with human remains, false reporting, and abortion after 20 weeks’ gestation) in exchange for prosecutors dropping two others (concealing the death of another person and abortion by someone other than a licensed physician). States have criminalized people for their pregnancy outcomes for decades—even, as in this case, while Roe v. Wade stood—but advocates worry these types of charges, against people seeking abortion and those who help them, will only become more frequent as millions of people live under state abortion bans.

Continued: https://jezebel.com/nebraska-abortion-case-mom-sentenced-1850864511

UK – The fight to repeal one of the most outdated abortion laws in the world

By Sana Noor Haq and Niamh Kennedy, CNN

Fri June 23, 2023

Hundreds of protesters lined the street outside the UK’s High Court on Saturday holding picket signs that read “Our bodies, Our right to decide,” before marching through the streets of central London demanding reformed abortion laws for women in England and Wales.

Earlier this month, a British woman who used medication to terminate a pregnancy after the UK’s legally allowed limit was sentenced to 28 months in prison under Victorian-era legislation, in a case that has sparked calls for an overhaul of reproductive justice laws in the country. The woman, who has three children, will serve 14 months in custody and the remainder on license after her release.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/23/uk/abortion-decriminalization-reproductive-justice-protests-intl-gbr/index.html

COPS AND REPUBLICANS ARE CRIMINALIZING PREGNANT PEOPLE WITHOUT ROE

by Meg O’Connor
Jun 21, 2023

Abortion opponents have long claimed they only want to criminalize providers, not pregnant people. In a 2023 statement entitled, “Why women are not, and should not be, prosecuted for abortion,” anti-abortion group Americans United for Life said that prosecuting women “for the crime of abortion is unwise and contrary to the goals of the movement.”

This is untrue: even while Roe v. Wade was in place, thousands of people were criminalized for having miscarriages, stillbirths, or abortions. And, in the year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, abortion opponents have prosecuted more women for their pregnancy outcomes and introduced laws allowing criminal charges against people who get abortions.

Continued: https://theappeal.org/police-republicans-criminalize-pregnant-people-roe-abortion/

21.06.2023

Commentary

Celeste Burgess

Chelsey Redmon-Zellers

jailing women for abortion

Jessica Burgess

Meg O'Connor

prosecuting women for abortion

punishing women for abortion

UK – Thousands march to decriminalise abortion after woman jailed for ending pregnancy after legal limit

Campaigners stress ‘abortion is healthcare, not a crime - we should not be policing people’s bodies’

Tara Cobham
June 17, 2023

Thousands of protesters calling for the decriminalisation of abortion have marched in central London following outrage at the conviction of a woman for ending her pregnancy beyond the legal cut-off of 24 weeks.

Campaigners stressed that “abortion is healthcare, not a crime”, after Carla Foster, 44, was this week sentenced to 28 months in jail, having obtained drugs to end her pregnancy at 32 to 34 weeks during lockdown.

Continued: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/abortion-rights-march-london-woman-jailed-b2359503.html

17.06.2023