USA – The New Abortion Restriction No One is Talking About

Anti-abortion laws have traditionally allowed an exception to protect the “life of the mother.” Not anymore.

Opinion by MICHELE DEMARCO
04/28/2022

In 1942, my grandmother lay in a hospital bed in center city Philadelphia waiting to die. She was 26 years old, happily married, and pregnant with her first child. Only something went horribly wrong in the last trimester, and suddenly, both she and the baby were in a fight for life.

My grandfather, distraught but resolved, begged the attending physicians to do whatever it took to save my grandmother’s life, even if that meant the life inside her wouldn’t survive. But in those days that wasn’t always the practice; this was also a Catholic hospital, which forbade such a practice because it was considered tantamount to abortion. My grandfather was told she would be kept comfortable, and they would monitor both mother and baby, but that nothing would be done to privilege her life over that of their unborn child. In the end, my grandmother pulled through — barely — but sadly, the baby did not.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/04/28/the-new-abortion-restriction-no-one-is-talking-about-00028171

Ukrainian refugees reignite abortion debate in Poland

Tuesday, 19 April 2022
By Liv Klingert

The controversial debate on abortion in Poland has been reignited following the arrival of Ukrainian women refugees who have been victims of sexual violence by Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

Under current restrictive abortion laws, it is uncertain whether women who become pregnant through rape and seek refuge in Poland can still have legal and safe abortions there, De Standaard reported.

Continued: https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/218090/ukrainian-refugees-ignite-abortion-debate-in-poland

Histories That Both Diverge and Converge: Birth Control in India and Canada

The sexual health markets emerged in response to the demand for birth control, however, they did not deliver in terms of quality or efficacy of product, even less so, towards women’s wellbeing.

Urvi Desai
April 1, 2022

On a sticky February afternoon in 1936,
Margaret Sanger, an American birth control advocate, attended the first
All-India Population Conference held at the famous Cowasjee Jehangir Hall in
Bombay (present-day Mumbai). The conference was attended by the wealthy of
Bombay society, the who’s who in the field, as well as doctors, advocates,
government officials, and more. At around the same time, family planning
societies began to emerge in India. These societies promoted birth control and
advised women who visited their centres about possible birth control
techniques. Varied as the organisations were, they shared the common goal of
insisting that poor women use birth control products to control reproduction.

Continued: https://thewire.in/history/histories-that-both-diverge-and-converge-birth-control-in-india-and-canada

Kenya – Provide unrestricted reproductive healthcare including safe, legal abortion

BY ALVIN MWANGI
March 21, 2022

Women’s
access to reproductive health has been restricted by laws, cultural and religious
beliefs, communal stigma, and victimization that limits women’s enjoyment of
their reproductive healthcare including human rights.

Adolescent girls and young women have been subjects to a number of social and
health issues that do affect their lives and unfortunately disrupt their social
well-being and interaction.

Continued: https://www.kbc.co.ke/provide-unrestricted-reproductive-healthcare-including-safe-legal-abortion/

21.03.2022

Featured

Opinion

Alvin Mwangi

Centre for Reproductive Rights

‘I Paid The Price With My Womb’: Tales Of Unsafe Abortions in India
Developing countries’ contribution is 97% of all unsafe abortions. More than half of them occur in Asia.

ISHITA DAS
Published: 21 Mar 2022

Rajlaxmi* (name changed) was sitting on the pavement of her rented shanty in Neharpar, Faridabad. She looked different from the last time I saw her.

Something was amiss.

Her eyes were hollow, her pearly white smile
seemed to have fallen into an abyss, her child-like persona absent.

Continued: https://www.thequint.com/fit/unsafe-abortion-most-common-cause-of-maternal-deaths-in-india

Poland: “Not One More”. One year after the illegitimate abortion ban

Feb 9, 2022

NOT ONE MORE
One year after the illegitimate ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal
Federa will not leave any woman alone

One year has passed since the most brutal attack on women’s rights in modern Polish history. A year of pain, terror, and suffering for thousands of women.

From the very announcement of the ruling of the flawed Constitutional Tribunal the Federation for Women and Family Planning has warned that the ban on abortion would result in the deaths of patients and, unfortunately, our predictions came true.

Continued: https://en.federa.org.pl/anniversary-of-the-ct-abortion-ban/

Abortion as a Human Right: The Fight for Reproductive Rights in Argentina and Poland

07.FEB.2022
Jaya Nayar

On September 22, 2021, a 30-year-old Polish woman named Izabela died of septic shock at the hospital after her unborn baby’s heart stopped beating. Her death initiated waves of protests across Poland and was seen as the direct consequence of a near total ban on abortion passed in 2020, which outlawed the termination of pregnancies even in the case of fetal defects. Under this new law, unlawful abortion could lead to up to eight years in prison. Terrified of the law and of its potential consequences, Izabela’s doctors waited too long to terminate the pregnancy despite knowing the potential risks for the mother—resulting in her death.

The case of Poland sheds light on a puzzling contemporary phenomenon. The right to abortion has recently been under attack in several countries where it was previously legalized in the late 20th century. In September 2021, the US Supreme Court refused to block legislation in Texas that would ban terminations of pregnancy after six weeks, which is after many women are even aware that they are pregnant. In Turkey, where abortion has been legal since 1983, President Erdogan’s conservative position on abortion is making it increasingly difficult for women to access abortions in public hospitals.

Continued: https://hir.harvard.edu/abortion-as-a-human-right-the-fight-for-reproductive-rights-in-argentina-and-poland/

Family blames pregnant woman’s death on Poland’s anti-abortion law

The Associated Press
Monday, January 31, 2022

WARSAW, POLAND -- Prosecutors in southern Poland are probing the death of a 37-year-old woman in a hospital who had been pregnant with twins, a situation in which her family and women's rights groups blame Poland's strict anti-abortion law, alleging it fatally delayed doctors' decision to terminate the pregnancy.

Prosecutors in Katowice said Monday they were awaiting the results of three autopsies to determine the cause of the Jan. 25 death of the woman, identified only as Agnieszka T., and the late December deaths of her two fetuses, after which the pregnancy was terminated.

Continued: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/family-blames-pregnant-woman-s-death-on-poland-s-anti-abortion-law-1.5761561

31.01.2022

Featured

News

Agnieszka T

All-Poland Women's Strike

Protests flare across Poland after death of young mother denied an abortion

Family of Agnieszka T say they want to ‘save other women in Poland from a similar fate’, as case met with anger over restrictive termination laws

Weronika Strzyżyńska
Fri 28 Jan 2022

Protests are under way across Poland after the death of a 37-year-old woman this week who was refused an abortion, a year since the country introduced one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.

On the streets of Warsaw on Tuesday night, protesters laid wreaths and lanterns in memory of Agnieszka T, who died earlier that day. She was pregnant with twins when one of the foetus’ heartbeat stopped and doctors refused to carry out an abortion. In a statement, her family accused the government of having “blood on its hands”. Further protests are planned in Częstochowa, the city in southern Poland where the mother-of-three was from.

Continued : https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/27/protests-flare-across-poland-after-death-of-young-mother-denied-an-abortion

Polish state has ‘blood on its hands’ after death of woman refused an abortion

Family says young mother’s health deteriorated rapidly after the twins she was carrying died a week apart in the womb

Weronika Strzyżyńska
Wed 26 Jan 2022

The family of a Polish woman who died on Tuesday after doctors refused to perform an abortion when the foetus’s heart stopped beating have accused the government of having “blood on their hands”.

The woman, identified only as Agnieszka T, was said to have been in the first trimester of a twin pregnancy when she was admitted to the Blessed Virgin Mary hospital in Częstochowa on 21 December. Her death comes a year after Poland introduced one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/26/poland-death-of-woman-refused-abortion