Kenya – Women staring at death over poor post-abortion care

Thursday, May 15, 2025
By Angela Oketch

Only two out of every 10 primary-level health facilities in Kenya are equipped to provide basic post-abortion care (PAC) to women, a new study has revealed.

The study conducted by the Ministry of Health, the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), and the Guttmacher Institute found that just 18.3 per cent of facilities met the minimum criteria for delivering basic PAC services.

Continued: https://nation.africa/kenya/health/women-staring-at-death-over-poor-post-abortion-care-5042470

15.05.2025

News

African Population and Health Research Center

Annet Nerima

Kenya Human Rights Commission

Polish election: Tusk party urged to show it is not ‘deceiving women’ on abortion

Five years after near-total ban on abortion, campaigners say Sunday’s elections will be critical to see if promised change happens

Ashifa Kassam, European community affairs correspondent
Thu 15 May 2025

Poland’s presidential elections are a “historic, groundbreaking” chance for Donald Tusk’s centrist party to show it was not trying to “deceive women” when it promised to change some of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws, campaigners have said.

Voters across Poland will head to the polls on Sunday in the first round of the elections to replace Andrzej Duda, the current president who is aligned with the former rightwing government and has veto power over legislation.

Polls have suggested the frontrunner is Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, whose centrist Civic Coalition led by the prime minister, Donald Tusk, has promised to relax abortion laws. But in recent weeks his lead has narrowed and support has climbed for Karol Nawrocki of the populist, anti-abortion Law and Justice (PiS) party, suggesting the two could be pitted against each other in a runoff vote on 1 June.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/15/poland-elections-tusk-centrists-abortion-laws-campaign-europe

Kenya – Rights groups demand more funds to curb abortion deaths

By Mercy Kahenda
May 12, 2025

Human rights defenders have petitioned Parliament to allocate more funds for maternal and reproductive health services in a bid to curb unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and related deaths.

Their call follows findings from a recent study indicating that at least 972,694 induced abortions were reported in 2023.

Additionally, the report shows that 355 women die annually for every 10,000 live births due to pregnancy-related complications, many of which are linked to unintended pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/health/health-science/article/2001518789/rights-groups-demand-more-funds-to-curb-abortion-deaths#google_vignette

USA – The Data We Don’t Collect Is Killing Women

Without a national system to track the consequences of abortion bans, preventable deaths are disappearing into the void—by design.

4/24/2025
by Sydney Saubestre

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, at least 10 women have died as a direct result of their inability to access healthcare. But this number is only a guess, because there’s no single place that records and tracks these tragedies. And that’s not just an oversight—it’s a choice.

As a data expert who used to work with survivors of sexual violence, I have seen how failures to measure a problem make it easier for those in power to keep harming people without accountability. Data is power, and the legislators—mostly men—driving these decisions don’t want us to see the true impact. We owe it to the women and others affected to make that impact visible.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/04/24/data-abortion-ban-death-women-maternal-mortality-morbidity/

Nigeria – Women and the unmet need for healthcare

Ota Akhigbe
April 8, 2025

For so many women and girls across Nigeria, just trying to get the healthcare they need feels like playing a terrifying game of chance. You never know if you’ll find help that’s there when you need it and works the way it should, and it ends up taking a toll on their health and what they can hope for in life.

“Additionally, societal norms within a patriarchal structure can sometimes limit a woman’s ability to independently make timely decisions about her health and finances.”

Continued: https://businessday.ng/opinion/article/women-and-the-unmet-need-for-healthcare/

08.04.2025

USA – Abortion Bans Upended Their Lives—Now They’re Fighting Back, One Story at a Time

Across the country, abortion storytellers are putting the struggle for reproductive freedom into powerful new words.

Regina Mahone, The Nation
April 7, 2025

Shanette Williams sat patiently on the stage of an auditorium in Austin, Texas, staring at the photograph of her daughter Amber that was resting in her lap. The photo appeared on the front of a rose-dappled pamphlet, below the words “Celebration of Life” and “September 16, 1993–August 19, 2022.”
Occasionally, Williams looked up, out past the audience of 200 or in the direction of the other women who shared the stage with her, each recounting the horrors they had experienced under new, extreme abortion bans. Then it was Williams’s turn to speak.

“Good morning, everyone,” she said. “My name is Shanette.”

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/abortion-in-america-storytelling/

How will Canada lead on sexual and reproductive health and rights in the era of Trump?

Barely two months into his Presidency, Donald Trump has devastated global sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).

by Jacqueline Potvin
March 21, 2025

On January 24, Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy (the “global gag rule,”) which restricts US global health funding from going to any non-government organization that provides abortion services, advocacy, or information.

This reinstatement will harm women and people who can become pregnant, limiting their access to important healthcare information and services. Its effects will be exacerbated by wide-sweeping cuts to US Agency for International Development (USAID) funding and staff. These moves come at a time when Canada’s own commitments to global sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), which have recently been strong, may be at risk.

Continued: https://rabble.ca/human-rights/how-will-canada-lead-on-sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-rights-in-the-era-of-trump/

Above and Beyond Restoring Roe

Abortion rights aren’t enough. The best reproductive care outcomes result from meeting basic needs.

By Jade Prévost-Manuel
Mar 5, 2025

Taylor Young has never wanted to be a mom. From the time the now 27-year-old began dating, she experienced persistent anxiety around the thought of getting pregnant in Ohio, a Republican-controlled state where Young felt her right to abortion was tenuous.

In 2018, she discovered the childfree subreddit, an online forum on Reddit for people who do not have children and do not want them. In that forum, she learned about bilateral salpingectomy, a procedure that removes both fallopian tubes and permanently prevents pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.yesmagazine.org/body-politics/2025/03/05/progress-2025-beyond-roe

Amid Aid Cuts, a Renewed U.S. Policy Increases Health Risks for Women and Girls in Conflict Areas

While the Trump administration is gutting U.S. foreign aid across the board, programs aimed at women and girls’ sexual and reproductive health will be among those hardest hit. Crisis Group expert Cristal Downing describes why those living in conflict settings could pay the heaviest price.

Cristal Downing, Project Director, Gender and Conflict
March 3, 2025

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has implemented an unprecedented cutoff of U.S. foreign aid. On 20 January 2025, he froze international assistance for 90 days, claiming that this was so the federal government could review and ascertain whether U.S.-supported programs reflect U.S. interests and values. On 24 January, the State Department issued a “stop work” order, pausing all existing and new foreign aid. Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially provided for some exceptions to that order, including food assistance and military support for Egypt and Israel. On 29 January, he issued an additional waiver so that “life-saving humanitarian assistance” including medicine and other supplies would continue to flow, although it is unclear whether this has happened in practice. In early February, in an alleged effort to reduce federal spending, the administration subsumed the U.S. Agency for International Development into the State Department. Toward the end of the month, a flurry of contract cancellations and litigation added further to enormous global uncertainty about the future of U.S. foreign assistance – and led to disruptions in services ranging from famine relief to HIV treatment.

Continued: https://www.crisisgroup.org/global-united-states/amid-aid-cuts-renewed-us-policy-increases-health-risks-women-and-girls

Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared.

ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.

by Lizzie Presser, Andrea Suozzo, Sophie Chou and Kavitha Surana
Feb. 20, 2025

Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion in 2021, ProPublica found in a first-of-its-kind data analysis.

The rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester, ProPublica found.

The surge in this life-threatening condition, caused by infection, was most pronounced for patients whose fetus may still have had a heartbeat when they arrived at the hospital.

https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-abortion-ban-sepsis-maternal-mortality-analysis