Western ‘family values’ rhetoric undermines ubuntu and reproductive justice for all in Africa

After commemorating International Human Rights Day on 10 December, a look at how Western-influenced right-wing movements are gaining traction in Africa and are using so-called traditional family values to undermine sexual and reproductive health rights and LGBTQIA+ rights.

By Sesona Buyeye and Duduetsang Mmeti
16 Dec 2025

Across the world, right-wing movements – often cloaked in the language of “moral and religious preservation” and “anti-wokeness” – are pushing back against progressive human rights advancing reproductive freedoms for women, girls and queer people.

Alarmingly, these movements are also gaining traction across parts of Africa, where significant strides have been made in embracing democracy, advancing constitutionalism and advocating non-racialism and reproductive freedoms in the post-colonial era.

Continued: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-12-16-western-family-values-rhetoric-undermineines-ubuntu-and-reproductive-justice-for/

Why Can’t All Pregnancy Care Be Like Abortion Care?

To most of the medical system, we’re secondary to the fetuses we carry.

By Irin Carmon, a features writer at New York Magazine
Oct 23, 2025

Four days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, I arrived hot and resentful to a Manhattan hospital for a 32-week ultrasound accompanied by my husband. There was no particular reason for the scan, no diagnosed concern, just an impersonal risk calculation based on the fact that I was, at 38, of “advanced maternal age.”

This would be my second child, and admittedly some jadedness had set in. As a reporter, I’d also been more than a little distracted; I’d been covering the high court’s decision in Dobbs, which had almost instantly banned abortion in 13 states.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/article/make-pregnancy-care-like-abortion-care.html

Scotland – Paramedic jailed for secretly giving woman drug to abort their child

July 7, 2025
Catriona Renton, BBC Scotland News

A paramedic who secretly gave a pregnant woman an abortion drug, killing their unborn child, has been jailed for 10 years and six months. Stephen Doohan, who was a clinical team leader with the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS), administered the drug after he found out the woman was pregnant with his baby.

The woman, who did not know Doohan was married when they were in a relationship, suffered a miscarriage after the 33-year-old crushed pills into a syringe and injected her as she lay in bed at his Edinburgh home in 2023.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qxneddqn2o

07.07.2025

News

intimate partner violence

Judge Lord Colbeck

reproductive coercion

reproductive violence

Scott McKenzie 'Mark Stewart'Fiona Kirkby

Scottish Ambulance Service

Femicide and Reproductive Violence Harm African Women, Girls

Betty Kabari, Researcher, Women's Rights Division - Human Rights Watch
July 31, 2024

International African Women’s Day on July 31 recognizes the contribution of African women toward political, social, and economic freedom on the continent. But gender equality is still not a reality for most African women.

Many countries still have regressive laws, and even the more progressive laws in other countries are often poorly carried out. There is a lack of supportive frameworks to promote and safeguard women and girls’ equality, such as research into rights violations and public education on gender equality and women and girls’ rights.

Continued; https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/31/femicide-and-reproductive-violence-harm-african-women-girls

Mistreated pregnant women deserve more than your outrage

A meaningful response to obstetric violence requires political will from policy-makers and accountability for government failures.

Khatondi Soita Wepukhulu
16 October 2020

Global leaders must act urgently to ensure that safety and dignity in pregnancy and childbirth become automatic, integral parts of the maternal health care experience of all women.

On 18 September 2020, a harrowing video appeared on Twitter. It showed a woman, Jackline Faustina, giving birth on the road outside Nairobi’s Pumwani maternity hospital. The woman, it was said and later confirmed by city authorities, had been denied entry into the hospital. It was the second day of a ‘go-slow’ industrial action by hospital staff.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/mistreated-pregnant-women-deserve-more-your-outrage/

CROATIA – Movement to stop violence against women in hospitals

CROATIA – Movement to stop violence against women in hospitals

by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion
Nov 20, 2018

Ivana Nincevic Lesandric, member of Parliament from the centre-right MOST party shared a personal story in Parliament of having had an abortion after a miscarriage in a Croatian hospital, which revived a public debate on the state of women’s health care. She said doctors had tied her hands and legs before doing an extremely painful curettage to remove tissue from her uterus without anesthesia. She said the conditions were “from the 15th century” and the most painful 30 minutes of her life, and that many Croatian women have experienced this. In response, Minister of Health, Milan Kujundzic, said “it does not work like that in Croatian hospitals.” Little did he know.

Within three days, Parents in Action – RODA, a group that advocates for dignified pregnancy, parenthood and childhood, collected and sent the Minister 400 testimonies from women who had had similar experiences. The slogan of the movement to stop violence against women in hospitals is #BreakTheSilence / #PrekinimoŠutnju.

Continued: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/croatia-movement-to-stop-violence-against-women-in-hospitals/