EU commissioner’s women’s health vision skips over abortion issue

A new EU vision for the future of women’s rights skipped over the issue of abortion, which remains controversial across Europe despite being widely available.

Emma Pirnay, Euractiv
Mar 7, 2025

A new “roadmap” for the future of women's rights from the European Commission's equality commissioner, Hadja Lahbib, lays out her vision for women’s health. But a big question mark hangs over abortion.

Lahbib promised to improve equal access for medical care for women, including more diverse clinical trials, diagnostics and treatments during her Friday presentation of the European Commission's Roadmap for Women’s Rights.

Continued: https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/news/eu-commissioners-womens-health-vision-skips-over-abortion-issue/

07.03.2025

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EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

European Commission's Roadmap for Women’s Rights

sexual and reproductive rights

Lack of abortion care is a threat to women’s health in Latin America

Inequalities and restrictions to sexual and reproductive health and rights are endangering women, write Mercedes Colomar and Veronica Fiol

BMJ 2024; 387 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q2530
Published 18 November 2024

Mercedes Colomar, Veronica Fiol

In 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development established a groundbreaking framework recognising reproductive rights as human rights.1 This framework prioritised people and human rights in development—rather than population control. Thirty years on, stark inequalities in sexual and reproductive health and rights persist across national, regional, and global levels. Poor access and restrictions on abortion are contributing to maternal mortality in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In many contexts, women have limited autonomy and decision making power over their health, exacerbating poor health outcomes. Unsafe abortion is a serious public health problem and poses a particular risk to women’s health—especially in countries where abortion is clandestine and often dangerous. The impact of unsafe abortion is particularly severe in young, impoverished, and less educated women. Studies on clandestine abortions in places where abortion is highly restricted show that women with higher incomes have a greater chance of accessing safer abortion methods than those with lower incomes.2 Legislative restrictions, inadequate social support, limited family planning services, and under-resourced healthcare infrastructures contribute to this issue. Complications from these abortions further strain local health systems because of the need for emergency and long term care.

Continued: https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj.q2530

The ‘Dobbs’ Decision on Abortion Is Hurting People the World Over | Opinion

Aug 09, 2024
By Grace Meng, Barbara Lee, and Diana DeGette

Two years ago, the Supreme Court's devastating Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade and rolled back reproductive rights for millions of people across the United States. Anti-abortion rights activists in other countries were paying attention. The harmful impact of Dobbs isn't just national—it's global.

In Nigeria, Dobbs was used to argue against the Safe Termination of Pregnancy for Legal Indications Guidelines in Lagos State. In Kenya, activists cited the decision to undermine a law affirming abortion as a fundamental human right under the Kenyan constitution. In Uganda, a court cited the Dobbs decision in a ruling that upheld a law effectively criminalizing LGBTQ+ life.

Continued: https://www.newsweek.com/dobbs-decision-abortion-hurting-people-world-over-opinion-1937070

Between law and sexual rights in Nigeria

Is extant legal framework protecting the sexual and reproductive rights of the Nigerian woman? YEJIDE GBENGA-OGUNDARE in this piece explore factors that answer the concerns on the attainment of reproductive health rights, lack of specific legislation, and the seeming unwillingness to domesticate international protocols that Nigeria co-signed.

by Yejide Gbenga-Ogundare
January 31, 2024

The issue of reproductive and sexual health rights has not always been an open discussion in the African society, repressed mainly by cultural beliefs, including in Nigeria, despite the prevalence of maternal mortality and morbidity. According to statistics in the OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development, every day, Nigeria loses 145 women of childbearing age from complications of child birth leading to more focus on health issues and the right to health. But while the right to health has been recognised globally since reproductive health rights gained formal acceptance in 1993, the need for women to have access to quality reproductive health services such as medical care, planned family, safe pregnancy, delivery care and treatment and prevention of sexually-transmitted infections, while gaining recognition, cannot be said to have been given its due pride of place.

Continued: https://tribuneonlineng.com/between-law-and-s3xual-rights-in-nigeria/

Bangladesh – SRHR information still lacking in rural areas

A shortage of health workers to disseminate SRHR information is the root cause of the lack of awareness among adolescents

Nawaz Farhin Antara
September 26, 2022

Adolescents in rural areas of Bangladesh are still resorting to unsafe means to terminate unwanted pregnancies as they do not have sufficient access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) information, according to a recent report.

A shortage of health workers to disseminate SRHR information is the root cause of the lack of awareness among adolescents. Adolescent boys are particularly unaware as they find it difficult to speak to SRHR workers, who are predominantly women, it added.

Continued: https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2022/09/26/report-srhr-information-still-lacking-in-rural-areas

Kenya: The new government’s chance to secure reproductive rights

BY STEPHANIE MUSHO
SEPTEMBER 7, 2022

For too long, sexual and reproductive rights in Kenya have operated in a vacuum. Despite the constitution providing for the “highest attainable standard” of reproductive health, legislators have failed to enact any legislation on the issue, shooting down a bill in 2014 and another in 2019. The outgoing administration of Uhuru Kenyatta has opposed the delivery of sex education and contraception to adolescent and failed to support teenage mothers.

This has contributed to several worrying statistics. Kenya has the world’s third highest teenage pregnancy rate. Nearly 100 girls in the country contract HIV each week. Over 2,600 women and girls die annually from complications arising from unsafe abortion.

Continued: https://africanarguments.org/2022/09/kenya-the-new-governments-chance-to-secure-reproductive-rights/

07.09.2022

sexual and reproductive rights

Kenya – the New Government’s Chance to Secure Reproductive Rights

7 SEPTEMBER 2022
By Stephanie Musho

Kenya's sexual health rights are beholden to US decisionmakers. New legislators must take back control.

For too long, sexual and reproductive rights in Kenya have operated in a vacuum. Despite the constitution providing for the "highest attainable standard" of reproductive health, legislators have failed to enact any legislation on the issue, shooting down a bill in 2014 and another in 2019. The outgoing administration of Uhuru Kenyatta has opposed the delivery of sex education and contraception to adolescent and failed to support teenage mothers.

Continued: https://allafrica.com/stories/202209080005.html

Abortion: The double torture of a girl in Bolivia

Abortion: The double torture of a girl in Bolivia

Written by George Holan
December 3, 2021

The ordeal of an 11-year-old girl who became pregnant after repeated rapes by a relative has given visibility, albeit fleetingly, to the enormous obstacles that stand in the way of access to legal abortion in Bolivia.

After weeks of disseminating the case in the local media and thanks to the intervention of the Ombudsman’s Office, the girl was finally able to terminate her pregnancy on November 6. Since then, the subject has disappeared from public discussion, as if it had been an exceptional case.

Continued: https://plainsmenpost.com/2021/12/03/abortion-the-double-torture-of-a-girl-in-bolivia-opinion/

End all legal barriers to abortion, say leading European politicians

Belgium’s prime minister among signatories to open letter backing global right to safe abortions and reopening of clinics closed in pandemic

Liz Ford
Wed 9 Jun 2021

Government ministers from five European countries, including Belgium’s prime minister, Alexander de Croo, are among 29 politicians, healthcare and women’s rights activists who have signed an open letter calling for the removal of all legal barriers to abortion.

The letter, signed by gender and equality ministers from France, Canada and Norway, and international development ministers from Sweden and the Netherlands, states that women’s right to safe, legal abortion is being eroded by misinformation and attacks on services. It calls for the reopening of abortion clinics closed during the pandemic.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/jun/09/end-all-legal-barriers-to-abortion-say-leading-european-politicians

Global Anti-Abortion Coalition Targets the Organization of American States

The conservative backlash against efforts to expand sexual and reproductive rights in the Americas threatens a dangerous regression in human rights.

Lynn M. Morgan
June 4, 2021

It has been a good year for Latin American sexual and reproductive rights movements. Costa Rica became the first Central American country to legalize same-sex marriage in May 2020, and Argentina legalized abortion in December 2020. The Biden-Harris administration moved quickly in 2021 to rescind former President Trump’s Mexico City policy, also known as the global gag rule; disband former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Commission on Unalienable Rights; and renounce the Geneva Consensus Declaration, which included the assertion that there is “no international right to abortion.” Optimists note a wave of support for sexual and reproductive rights in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and elsewhere in the hemisphere.

Continued: https://nacla.org/news/2021/06/04/global-anti-abortion-coalition-targets-organization-american-states