Women in Kenya Are Using Knitting Needles to End Their Pregnancies. Blame Donald Trump.

The president has given fringe anti-abortion groups unprecedented influence.

OCTOBER 8, 2020
By NEHA WADEKAR

On a rainy morning in May 2019, Dr. John Nyamu was attending to patients on the cluttered first floor of an office building in downtown Nairobi when he heard raucous shouts from down the street. A caravan of protesters was winding toward him, a few hundred people teeming in the streets, bellowing through loudspeakers, and stopping traffic.

As the crowd reached his building, Nyamu, a well-known gynecologist who performs abortions in a private clinic, peered through his window at the protesters below to make out what they were saying. It turns out they were targeting him. “Abortion is murder! Abortion must go! Nyamu must go!” Some held signs with photos of mutilated fetuses. Others clutched baby-size cardboard coffins with crosses on them.

Continued: https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2020/10/08/abortion-kenya-knitting-needles-donald-trump/

08.10.2020

anti-choice protesters

Austin Ruse

Bethany Kozma

C-Fam

Center for Family and Human Rights

CitizenGO

Dr John Nyamu

Esther Passaris

Family Health Options Kenya

Global Gag Rule

Human Life international

International Conference on Population and development

John Nyamu

Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops

Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board

Kisumu Medical and Education Trust

sexual and reproductive health

Sophie Hodder

Uhuru Kenyatta

UNFPA

United Nations Population Fund

US Agency for International Development

COVID-19 threatens women’s access to reproductive care

12-minute video
01.10.2020

The coronavirus is pushing more women to seek
illegal abortions, as lockdowns limit access to healthcare. In developing
countries, one in three terminations is carried out in dangerous conditions.
Women in Africa are at the highest risk of dying from an unsafe abortion.

Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/covid-19-threatens-womens-access-to-reproductive-care/av-55124691

01.10.2020

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Indonesia – Safe abortion crucial for women’s reproductive health

STEVIE EMILIA, THE JAKARTA POST
Jakarta / Tue, September 29, 2020

Abortion – safe or unsafe, legal or illegal – has existed throughout history. Yet, it continues to be the most sensitive and controversial issue in reproductive health.

The WHO has disclosed that an average of 73.3 million – safe and unsafe – abortions took place worldwide per year between 2015 and 2019, with the rate of abortions being higher in developing regions than in developed ones.

Continued: https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2020/09/29/safe-abortion-crucial-for-womens-reproductive-health.html

How India’s Healthcare System Treated Women During Pandemic

In one critical segment of healthcare—population services—India failed women almost completely.

Rashme Sehgal
21 Aug 2020

The fate of 30-year old Neelam, who died in the eight month of pregnancy because of lack of proper medical facilities sums up the fate of a large number of women during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite being in her final trimester and unwell, she failed to get admitted in even one of eight hospitals whose doors her family knocked at in NOIDA, Uttar Pradesh.

Her husband and brother took the unwell woman to eight hospitals in one day but were refused admission, allegedly on grounds that each of them was already overburdened with patients.

Continued: https://www.newsclick.in/How-India's-Healthcare-System-Treated-Women-During-Pandemic

Ghana – Wassa East District youth leaders receive training on reproductive health

By Ghana News Agency
Aug 14, 2020

The Western Regional Coordinating Council and National Youth Authority in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFP), have organised a day’s advocacy training for about forty-five youth leaders in the Wassa East District of the Western Region.

The programme, which forms part of the celebration of this year’s International Youth Day, was to among others sensitize the youth on their Sexual Reproductive Health Right (SRHR) and Sexual and Gender Base Violence (SGBV).

Continued: https://newsghana.com.gh/wassa-east-district-youth-leaders-receive-training-on-reproductive-health/

Putting young people first: Ensuring access to SRHR services

Stevie Emilia, The Jakarta Post
Jakarta / Tue, August 11, 2020

Calls for investments in young people have increased dramatically in recent years.

But the year 2020 is proving to be a difficult, life changing year as the pandemic has exposed deep inequalities in income, access to basic services and social protection for young people.

Continued: https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2020/08/11/putting-young-people-first-ensuring-access-to-srhr-services.html

There could be 7 million unplanned pregnancies because of COVID-19

Angela Betsaida B. Laguipo
Aug 2 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has rippled across the globe, infecting nearly 18 million individuals worldwide to date. Though the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) affects people from all walks of life, women and girls may experience devastating effects of the outbreak.

A new report published in the journal The Lancet reveals the adverse effects of the coronavirus disease, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and highlights the impacts of COVID-19 on women's health.

Continued: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200802/There-could-be-7-million-unplanned-pregnancies-because-of-COVID-19.aspx

02.08.2020

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COVID-19 has “devastating” effect on women and girls

Sophie Cousins, The Lancet
August 01, 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31679-2

Natalia Kanem, executive director of the UN Population Fund, is among experts warning about disrupted health services and a surge in gender-based violence. Sophie Cousins reports.

As the COVID-19 pandemic accelerates, fears are increasing about the effect of the pandemic on women's and girls' sexual and reproductive health and their access to care. In response to COVID-19, in March, WHO issued interim guidance for maintaining essential services during an outbreak, which included advice to prioritise services related to reproductive health and make efforts to avert maternal and child mortality and morbidity.

Continued: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31679-2/fulltext

Half of pregnancies during 2015-19 unintended, abortions highest in poor nations

Women in the poorest countries were nearly three times as likely to face unintended pregnancies as those in the wealthiest countries, revealing inequities in access to sexual and reproductive health care

23 Jul 2020
Neetu Chandra Sharma

NEW DELHI: Almost half of pregnancies between 2015 and 2019, worldwide, were unintended, according to a study published in the Lancet Global Health journal. Abortion rates were the highest in low-income countries with most legal restrictions to abortion care, the study pointed out.

The study was a collaboration of Guttmacher Institute and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UNICEF, World Health Organization (WHO) and World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction.

Continued: https://www.livemint.com/science/health/half-of-pregnancies-during-2015-19-unintended-abortions-highest-in-poor-nations-11595505322628.html

Countries called on to reaffirm commitment to ICPD agenda

Stevie Emilia and Rita Widiadana

The Jakarta Post, Tue, July 21, 2020

Just a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic began wreaking havoc, leaders from across the globe, including Indonesia, reaffirmed their commitment to advancing the sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of their people.

The commitments were made during the 25th anniversary of the landmark Program of Action of the International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD) in Nairobi in November 2019.

Continued: https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2020/07/21/countries-called-on-to-reaffirm-commitment-to-icpd-agenda.html