Italy Is Blocking Access to Abortion Information

July 28, 2026
Women on Web

Several major Italian internet providers are blocking Women on Web and Women Help Women, two trusted websites offering abortion information and support.

A new joint study by OONI, the global internet censorship watchdog, and Women on Web exposes the blocks that began in February 2026, and the techniques behind them.: Italy Blocks Reproductive Rights Websites Women on Web (WoW) and Women Help Women (WHW).

The impact is real. In 2025 alone, Women on Web responded to over 1,500 messages from people in Italy and received over 700 requests for support. Women Help Women supported roughly 1,000 more.

Continued: https://www.womenonweb.org/en/news/italy-is-blocking-access-to-abortion-information/

28.07.2026

Commentary

Research

censorship of abortion information

Abortion Rates Continue to Climb as Telehealth Reshapes Post-Dobbs America

Abortion bans have not reduced demand for abortion, according to new #WeCount data, while telehealth has transformed how many patients obtain care.

6/17/2026
by Carrie N. Baker

Four years after the Supreme Court handed states the power to ban abortion, a striking paradox has emerged: Abortion rates are rising.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, the number of abortions in the U.S. has increased over 20 percent, according to the Society of Family Planning’s latest #WeCount report, released June 10.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2026/06/17/abortion-number-rates-increase-dobbs-pills-telehealth-mifepristone-misoprostol/

Republicans Are Trying to Kill the Abortion Pill. They Don’t Stand a Chance

They can bring all the lawsuits they want, but abortion providers have them beat.

By Christina Cauterucci
May 18, 2026

In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the right to legal abortion. Since then, one counterintuitive trend has emerged: Even as 19 states have enacted total or near-total abortion bans, the number of abortions provided in the U.S. each year has risen.

The reason is a confluence of advances in medical, logistical, and communication technology. During the first trimester, a pregnancy can be terminated with a series of pills. Those pills can be sent through the mail, and doctors can easily prescribe them on a video call, over the phone, or through digital forms. The expansion of telehealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic offered a way for clinicians to get abortion medication to patients in every state once Roe v. Wade fell, even in places that outlawed abortion.

Continued; https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/05/pill-supreme-court-republican-abortion-ruling-legal-mifepristone.html

USA – How to Get Abortion Pills, Regardless of What the Courts Say

Even as courts and politicians attempt to restrict abortion access, medication abortion remains widely available through international telehealth providers, community networks and vetted online sources.

May 11, 2026
by Carrie N. Baker, Ms. Magazine

As legal battles over abortion pills continue to play out in the courts, many people across the United States are asking the same urgent question: If the Supreme Court or lower courts restrict access to mifepristone by mail, how can American women still get abortion pills?

The short answer: There are still multiple ways to safely and affordably access abortion medication.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2026/05/11/how-to-get-abortion-pills/

Three abortion rights defenders share their stories of hope

Amnesty International
By Cécile Yougbare, SRHR activist with Médecins du Monde, Kinga Jelińska, activist from Poland and Erin Grant, Abortion Care Network Co-Executive Director 
10 March 2026

Across the world, governments and other actors are rolling back on decades of progress on gender equality, including access to abortion. But people are fighting back, determined to protect the rights so many have fought so hard to achieve.   

As the Commission on the Status of Women holds its 70th session, three courageous human rights defenders from Burkina Faso, Poland and the United States share their strategies to protect access to abortion, their hopes for the future and the reasons why they believe that, despite the many increasing challenges, humanity must always win.

Continued: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/03/three-abortion-rights-defenders-share-their-stories-of-hope

A Global Telehealth First: Women Help Women Begins Producing Abortion Pill Combipack

Dec 14, 2025
by Carrie N. Baker, Ms. Magazine

The feminist telehealth provider is cutting out pharmaceutical middlemen to make abortion safer, simpler and more accessible across borders.

Across much of the world, medical providers do not offer abortion because this care is criminalized, stigmatized or unfunded. As a result, an increasing number of women are accessing abortion pills outside of the formal medical system. At the center of this shift is Women Help Women, a global telehealth abortion service that supports self-managed abortion by providing abortion pills and information about how to use them, to women around the world, especially in places where abortion is restricted by law, stigma or lack of access.

Continued; https://msmagazine.com/2025/12/14/global-telehealth-women-help-women-mifepristone-misprostol-abortion-pills-combo-pack/

Meta shuts down global accounts linked to abortion advice and queer content

More than 50 organisations report sites being restricted or removed, with abortion hotlines blocked and posts showing non-explicit nudity triggering warnings

Aisha Down
Thu 11 Dec 2025

Meta has removed or restricted dozens of accounts belonging to abortion access providers, queer groups and reproductive health organisations in the past weeks in what campaigners call one of the “biggest waves of censorship” on its platforms in years.

The takedowns and restrictions began in October and targeted the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp accounts of more than 50 organisations worldwide, some serving tens of thousands of people – in what appears to be a growing push by Meta to limit reproductive health and queer content across its platforms. Many of these were from Europe and the UK, however the bans also affected groups serving women in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/11/meta-shuts-down-global-accounts-linked-to-abortion-advice-and-queer-content

King’s research reveals how COVID-19 deepened barriers to abortion care in Poland

Research shows that COVID-19 measures and legal restrictions in Poland compounded barriers to abortion access, revealing how health emergencies intersect with structural inequalities and gendered vulnerabilities.

27 November 2025

A new study led by King’s has uncovered how the COVID-19 pandemic amplified barriers to abortion access in Poland, exposing the intersection of health emergencies with structural inequalities.

The research analysed 8,577 online consultations with Women Help Women, a feminist telehealth provider, between April and December 2020. The findings show that pandemic measures - such as lockdowns and mobility restrictions - combined with financial insecurity and legal restrictions to create unprecedented challenges for those seeking abortion care.

Continued: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/kings-research-reveals-how-covid-19-deepened-barriers-to-abortion-care-in-poland

27.11.2025

Research

Covid-19 and abortion

Dr Rishita Nandagiri

King’s College London

London School of Economics

Meta is Removing Abortion Advocates’ Accounts Without Warning

BY LISA FEMIA
September 24, 2025

When the team at Women Help Women signed into Instagram last winter, they were met with a distressing surprise: without warning, Meta had disabled their account. The abortion advocacy non-profit organization found itself suddenly cut off from its tens of thousands of followers and with limited recourse. Meta claimed Women Help Women had violated its Community Standards on “guns, drugs, and other restricted goods,” but the organization told EFF it uses Instagram only to communicate about safe abortion practices, including sharing educational content and messages aimed at reducing stigma. Eventually, Women Help Women was able to restore its account—but only after launching a public campaign and receiving national news coverage.

Continued: https://www.eff.org/pages/meta-removing-abortion-advocates-accounts-without-warning

24.09.2025

Commentary

digital censorship

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Meta and abortion

Meta censorship

Meta’s Transparency Center

RISE Center for Reproductive Health Research

Stop Censoring Abortion campaign

How a $5 Pack of Abortion Pills in Ethiopia Sparked a Movement to ‘Demedicalize’ Access in the U.S.

In her new book, Access, Rebecca Grant chronicles activists' decades-long fight to defy abortion restrictions—including the origin story of Plan C.

By Rebecca Grant
June 24, 2025

This is an excerpt from Access: Inside the Abortion Underground and the Sixty-Year Battle for Reproductive Freedom, by Rebecca Grant. The book chronicles activists’ decades-long mission to defy abortion restrictions and fight for reproductive freedom, from the U.S. to France, Mexico, the Netherlands, and more.

In 2014, Elisa Wells and Francine Coeytaux were positioned outside a pharmacy in Ethiopia waiting for a colleague to come out. The pharmacy was sandwiched between two stores with green signs that read “Fujifilm Digital Print Shop” and set back from the bustling red-and-yellow sidewalk. A few moments later, their companion, a woman, emerged holding a box. White and light brown with a yellow rose and branded as a “Safe-T” kit, its label read: “This pack contains treatment for early medical abortion.”

Continued: https://www.jezebel.com/how-a-5-pack-of-abortion-pills-in-ethiopia-sparked-a-movement-to-demedicalize-access-in-the-u-s