Monday, February 02, 2026
By Linet Owoko
Kenya risks losing decades of progress in maternal and child health due to the expanded Global Gag Rule, a US policy that restricts organisations receiving American funding from providing, referring for, or advocating for abortion services.
The Global Gag Rule, also known as the Mexico City Policy, threatens to dismantle the comprehensive reproductive health system that has driven significant improvements in maternal outcomes across the country.
Ultra-conservative Christian organisations look to reshape global health landscape as new aid agreements open door to demands restricting family planning services
Isabel Choat
Wed 17 Dec 2025
The sudden stop work order on USAID in January 2025 sent shock waves around the world. Many health clinics were immediately shut down, leaving millions without access to vital medicines and facilities, with potentially deadly consequences, especially for HIV patients, children, and women and adolescent girls.
To many, the subsequent axing of 83% of USAID programmes seemed like pure nihilism, engineered by ideologues who wanted to kill off the agency. But there was a long-term vision behind the destruction. The gutting of USAID has cleared a path for the next phase of a plan to reshape the global health landscape, say reproductive justice campaigners.
By Shobha Shukla
Sep 12, 2025
“Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights” is the theme of 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Would it unite world leaders to stop anti-rights and anti-gender pushbacks and deliver on the promises of gender equality and human right to health – where no one is left behind – is yet to be seen.
“Safe abortion right are part of sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice – and not separate. That is why in 1990, we first observed Safe Abortion Day on 28th September (Campana 28 Septiembre) in Argentina and other places in Latin America, to advocate for decriminalising abortion and access to safe abortion services.
Continued: https://www.modernghana.com/news/1431797/will-80th-unga-theme-of-better-together-unite.html
Ultra-conservative campaigners fly in for ‘family values’ conferences to share tactics with African allies who oppose abortion and LGBTQ+ rights
Jessie Williams
Fri 9 May 2025
Advocates for sexual, reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights in Africa are bracing themselves for an influx of some of the most powerful, ultra-conservative campaigners from the US, Poland, Switzerland and the Netherlands over the coming months.
The prominent campaigners, who all oppose abortion, transgender and LGBTQ+ rights, and are against sexuality education, are due to speak at a series of conferences focused on African “family values” and “national sovereignty”.
Last week, anti-choice campaigners emboldened by current US politics met in New York at the same time as UN delegates gathered to address the widespread inequalities women face. The battle to protect rights has never felt more urgent
Isabel Choat in New York, The Guardian
Sat 22 Mar 2025
In a meeting room on the 27th floor of a swish Manhattan hotel, Denise Mountenay is telling the audience that the right to abortion is “Nazi thinking.” Mountenay regrets her own abortions, and says she has been called by God to spread the word that she and other women “were lied to, deceived, pressured into making the most horrible choice: to choose death instead of life”.
She goes on to list reasons why abortion is “not a safe procedure. [That’s what] they want woman to think – that is a lie.” Many of her claims, including that abortion leads to breast cancer, have been thoroughly disproved by scientific studies.
Nita Bhalla
Jan 27, 2025
NAIROBI - African health activists fear a new crackdown on abortion across Africa after President Donald Trump reinstated an anti-abortion pact that cuts off U.S. funds to foreign charities that provide or promote abortions.
When Trump signed the Mexico City Policy, or "global gag rule", during his first term some African charities were forced to close, denying women safe abortions. It also emboldened local opposition to women's reproductive choice.
U.S. politics harm women by tying health workers' hands, even in countries where abortion care is legal.
November 14, 2024
By Christine Mungai, Harvard Public Health
In Nairobi, Kenya, Cate Nyambura is awaiting the outcome of the U.S. presidential election as if it could change her life—which it might. Nyambura is the director of programs at ATHENA Network, a global feminist collective that works primarily on reproductive health and rights, HIV/AIDS, and gender-based violence. “We hold our breath when the U.S. is having elections,” Nyambura says.
Tuesday’s vote will have an enormous effect on how—and whether—Nyambura and countless other health workers and reproductive rights activists around the world can do their jobs. Thanks to a longstanding rule about abortion that shifts each time the White House changes political parties, every U.S. presidential election pits the American mood against other countries’ sovereignty—and the health of their women and girls.
Thousands of women are dying every year in Kenya due to botched backstreet abortions.
Monday, September 30, 2024
By Hellen Shikanda
As we drive along the backstreets of Kibra slums in Nairobi, there are shoes dangling on power lines every few metres. Everyone has their theory as to what that signifies; one of those being that the shoes are mementos for people who died along those streets. The further we drive, the more we encounter them.
While the crammed houses and uninviting narrow alleys between them exude gloomy conditions, there is a visible sense of vibrancy in the people when they are outside.
Continued: https://nation.africa/kenya/health/haunted-by-abortion-failed-by-policymakers-4777778
Conservatives have not limited their attack on reproductive rights to the United States. They’ve been busy imposing their will on other countries, too—with disastrous consequences for millions of poor women.
Jodi Enda
March 18, 2024
Because Editar Ochieng knew the three young men, she didn’t think twice when they beckoned her into a house in an isolated area near the Nairobi River. One was like a brother; the other two were her neighbors in the sprawling Kenyan slum of Kibera.
Ochieng did not know the woman who performed her abortion. She and a friend scoured Nairobi until they found her, an untrained practitioner who worked in the secrecy of her home and charged a fraction of what a medical professional would. Mostly, what Ochieng remembers is the agony when this stranger inserted something into her vagina and “pierced” her womb. “It was really very painful. Really, really, really painful,” she told me. Afterward, Ochieng said, she cut up her mattress to use in place of sanitary pads, which she could not afford. She was 16 years old.
Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/179485/american-anti-abortion-movement-terrifying-global-reach
11/29/2022
by MICHELLE ONELLO
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which ruled that there is no U.S. constitutional right to abortion, will have ripple effects around the world, according to the International Center for Research on Women’s (ICRW) policy brief, “U.S. Foreign Policy Implications of Overturning Roe v. Wade.” While Dobbs did not change existing U.S. foreign policy regarding abortion, the brief argues that it will embolden anti-abortion movements abroad, contribute to global stigmatization of abortion, cause confusion for policy implementation and open the door for new restrictions—all of which will negatively impact the health, economic resources and well-being of women throughout the world.
Dobbs is a reminder that current U.S. foreign aid restrictions “are not aligned with best health care practices nor consistent with human rights and bodily autonomy principles.”
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