When It Comes To Abortion Rights, Canada Can’t Save You

As long as Americans are fighting, again, for their right to choose, they should fight for better than what we have in Canada. Trust me.

by CARLA CICCONE
Oct. 27, 2022

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested that Americans are welcome to use the Canadian health care system, and the abortions it provides, I scoffed.

Offering the Canadian health care system to American abortion seekers is a nice sentiment from someone whose country decriminalized abortion in 1988, but the reality is that much of Canadian health care is currently in shambles. As a Canadian woman who has covered the issue, and experienced it personally, I know that abortion care in this country is uneven at best.

Continued: https://www.romper.com/life/midwives-abortion-roe-canada-america

The activists championing DIY abortions for a post-Roe v Wade world

Forget back alleys and coat hangers. Self-managed abortions can be ‘safer than aspirin’, research says

by Poppy Noor
Sat 7 May 2022

Maggie Mayhem knows when she decided to
become a reproductive rights activist. At around 13 she discovered two conditions
in her southern California Catholic girls school’s manual:

If a student was found to have had an abortion, they would be expelled, because
abortion was against the teaching of the Catholic church. At the same time, the
school would not accommodate a student who became pregnant.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/07/abortion-pill-at-home-activists-future-roe-v-wade

Rwanda – Supreme Court hears case on safe abortion

By Nasra Bishumba
Published : October 19, 2021

The Supreme Court on Monday, October 18 heard a case in which a local non-governmental organisation, Great Lakes Initiative for Human Rights and Development (GLIHD), sought to challenge two articles within the Penal Code regarding safe abortion.

Article 72 of the law determining the jurisdiction of courts stipulates that any person, company or association with legal personality can petition the Supreme Court to declare a law unconstitutional if they have any interest.

Continued: https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/supreme-court-hears-case-safe-abortion

Côte d’Ivoire – Midwives: A Critical Key to Ensuring Women and Girls’ Health Globally

5 July 2021
FIGO Advocating for Safe Abortion Project|

OBGYNs and midwives are part of an essential ecosystem of health workers that provide crucial health care in delivering women and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) globally. In lower-middle-income countries where health care facilities outside of capitals can be few and dispersed, midwives in particular are counted on to ensure that women, girls, and newborns receive appropriate care, support and counselling. Professor Boni Serge, President of the Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of Côte d’Ivoire (SOGOCI), shared with us the important leadership role midwives have in Côte d’Ivoire.

Midwives are critical in the fight to reduce preventable maternal deaths and disability
Data from 2016 showed that, with a population of over 20 million, there are not enough health care workers in this coastal West African country (WHO, 2016). More recent data show that while there are more than 6,000 midwives spread across the Ivorian territory, there are only just over 440 OBGYNs. In addition, there is an unequal geographical distribution of these OBGYNs, with the majority of them located in the Ivorian economic capital of Abidjan.

Continued: https://www.figo.org/news/midwives-critical-key-ensuring-women-and-girls-health-globally

Indigenous women explain what’s at stake in Argentina’s abortion debate

A bill to legalise abortion is now at the senate. These Indigenous women explain what the debates mean for lives on the ground. #12DaysofResistance

Luciana Mignoli
26 December 2020

“Talking about abortion is a huge challenge,” says Bashe Nuhem. She’s a feminist activist, radio presenter and video producer, and a member of the Qom indigenous community in Castelli, an area in north-east Argentina known as “the doorway to the Impenetrable”, an extensive and once dense forest.

“I work in an indigenous radio station and, with my colleagues, weave words together. We challenge men who don't want us to talk [about abortion]. It remains a taboo,” Nuhem explains. We spoke as the lower chamber debated a new bill to legalise the “voluntary interruption of pregnancy” up to the 14th week in Argentina. Having passed the lower body of parliament in early December, the bill is now before the senate.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/indigenous-women-explain-whats-at-stake-in-argentinas-abortion-debate/

This is the future of abortion in a post-Roe America

The fall of Roe v. Wade won’t end abortion. Here’s what it will do.

By Anna North
Oct 12, 2020

If Roe v. Wade falls, what happens to abortion in America?

That’s the question on a lot of Americans’ minds after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with the Supreme Court on the brink of a 6-3 conservative majority. If the Senate confirms President Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, the Court will likely have the votes to overturn the landmark 1973 decision that established Americans’ right to terminate a pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/21504883/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-barrett

Ghana – Reducing Unsafe Abortions, The Need For A More Comprehensive Services And Care For Women

By Afedzi Abdullah
09/09/2020

Despite Ghana having relatively liberal laws on abortion, the procedure continues to be highly stigmatised, and as a result, many abortions are done illegally.

Consequently, the country is lacking accurate data on abortion incidence and unintended pregnancies which are very essential to planning reproductive health services.

Continued: https://www.modernghana.com/news/1028434/reducing-unsafe-abortions-the-need-for-a-more.html

Sweden abortion: Nurses fail in European court case

Sweden abortion: Nurses fail in European court case

13 March 2020

Two nurses denied jobs as midwives in Sweden because of their refusal to perform abortions have lost their legal action against Sweden at the European Court of Human Rights.

Swedish-born Ellinor Grimmark and Linda Steen from Norway object to abortion because of their Christian faith.

Swedish law requires midwives to carry out abortions - and several Swedish courts ruled against the two women.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51874119

USA – Not Your Grandmother’s Illegal Abortion

Not Your Grandmother’s Illegal Abortion

By Jennifer Block
Book excerpt
July 1, 2019

The sola variety of papaya resembles a pregnant uterus, so much so that around the world, humans use the fruit to learn one method of modern reproductive health care: manual vacuum aspiration, or MVA, a low-risk, low-tech method of first-trimester abortion that requires little or no anesthesia. As one doctor remarked at a conference in 1973, where the technology was introduced to physicians from around the world, “it’s something we will be able to bring practically into the rice paddy.”

This, too, is the fruit I have been given to practice on. I’ve placed it on a table across from me, and I’m focused on the neck, where its stem grew, which evokes the cervical os. The tool I’m using is a large plastic syringe with a bendable plastic strawlike thing, called a cannula, where the needle would be. At the top of the syringe is a bivalve to create one-way suction.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2019/07/excerpt-from-everything-below-the-waist.html

USA – “Whatever’s your darkest question, you can ask me.”

“Whatever’s your darkest question, you can ask me.”
A secret network of women is working outside the law and the medical establishment to provide safe, cheap home abortions.

March 28, 2018
By Lizzie Presser

On a winter morning, Anna* walked the aisles of an herbal-medicine store, picked up a bottle each of blue cohosh and black cohosh, along with a plastic bag of pennyroyal tea, and drove to the topless bar on the edge of town where she worked. There, she met Jules, another dancer. They performed on a small stage with crystal curtains, the green light of an ATM flashing on their left, until 9 p.m. The women, both in their 20s, then drove to the Motel 6 where Jules lived and entered her dim room on the second floor, which smelled of grape cigars. Anna pulled out the tinctures and tea and explained the plan. She was going to help Jules try to have an abortion.

Continued: https://story.californiasunday.com/abortion-providers