Uganda – Unwanted pregnancy? Who is to blame?

September 18, 2020
Doreen N Kyampeire, RedPepper Editorial

Growing up in a typical African home, girls are usually told not to bring home a pre-marital pregnancy and boys not to impregnate someone’s daughter out of wedlock. This threat by parents and guardians poses a mystery to the African child of how exactly this said “evil” happens.

They are never given the full detail on how pregnancy actually happens. This points to a very large gap in sexuality education. The little information got is from the senior women and men teachers in schools which is usually not comprehensive.

Continued: http://redpepper.co.ug/2020/09/doreen-n-kyamp-oped/

18.09.2020

World Health Organization

List abortion as an essential service during Covid-19

This will reduce abortion-related mortality and morbidity.

by DANIEL OTIENO
01 September 2020

According to the World Health Organization, lack of access to safe abortion results in 45 per cent of all abortions globally being unsafe and 13 per cent of maternal mortality worldwide. In addition, WHO has listed reproductive health services, including care during pregnancy and childbirth, as essential services.

However, the challenge lies in ensuring safe abortion care as a component of reproductive health service. The emergence of Covid-19 has further worsened the sexual and reproductive health of women, who may be in danger of pregnancy complications and are therefore at risk of unsafe abortion.

Continued: https://www.the-star.co.ke/opinion/columnists/2020-09-01-list-abortion-as-an-essential-service-during-covid-19/

01.09.2020

abortion is essential healthcare

Covid-19 and abortion

Daniel Otieno

World Health Organization

Millions of women lose contraceptives, abortions in COVID-19

By ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL and CARA ANNA, Associated Press
19 August 2020

NEW DELHI -- Millions of women and girls globally have lost access to contraceptives and abortion services because of the coronavirus pandemic. Now the first widespread measure of the toll says India with its abrupt, months-long lockdown has been hit especially hard.

Several months into the pandemic, many women now have second-trimester pregnancies because they could not find care in time.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/baby-boom-ahead-covid-19-millions-women-care-72460772

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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abortion access during pandemic

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Covid-19 and abortion

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Global

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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

Latin America – Covid-19 hospital beds and abortion

There is hard evidence that the pandemic presents a heightened risk to reproductive health

DEBORA DINIZ and GISELLE CARINO
31 JUL 2020

“Abortion is a public health matter,” scientists say. This notion seems a bit abstract – how can a criminalized practice constitute a public health need? The Covid-19 pandemic is a teachable moment. But it is the teaching of horror: according to the World Health Organization, thousands of women visit health services every month to receive care for incomplete abortions. In Argentina, the figure was 3,330 women; in Chile, 1,522; in Colombia, 7,778; and in Mexico, 18,285, in different years. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 760,000 women in Latin America and the Caribbean are treated annually at healthcare services because of complications from unsafe abortions, averaging out to 63,000 beds a month. When a woman goes to a hospital for complications from an unsafe abortion, she might end up needing a bed twice: once, to treat the unsafe abortion and next, to be treated for the Covid-19 she contracted in the hospital.

Continued: https://english.elpais.com/opinion/2020-07-31/covid-19-hospital-beds-and-abortion.html

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

Kenya – My bill does not advocate for teen abortion; Senator Kihika

By Saada Hassan
July 21st 2020

“My bill does not recommend abortion as a solution to teen pregnancies. My bill recommends to at least help with the situation,” Nakuru Senator Susan Kihika has come out to defend the Reproductive Health care Bill 2019.

Speaking on Tuesday on Spice FM, the Senator argued that the bill would act as a stand-alone on matters reproductive healthcare since the constitution fails to explain more about it on grey matters.

Continued: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001379542/my-bill-does-not-advocate-for-teen-abortion-senator-kihika

White House Installs Anti-Abortion Loyalist at USAID

Across federal agencies, the Trump administration is seeding the government with ideologues meant to advance hard-line policies.

By Colum Lynch, Robbie Gramer
July 14, 2020

The Trump White House has added another political loyalist and anti-abortion advocate to its roster of political hires at America’s premier international development agency, expanding the role and influence of the religious right in shaping U.S. priorities on global health and development, U.S. officials told Foreign Policy.

Patrina Mosley, who has been named advisor to the director of the Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is an outspoken anti-abortion advocate who recently accused the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) of using the coronavirus pandemic to promote abortions—a claim the U.N. calls patently false.

Continued: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/14/trump-anti-abortion-foreign-aid-development-white-house-installs-loyalist-usaid/

India – ‘1.85m Women May Have Failed To Get An Abortion During Lockdown’

Sadhika Tiwari
July 5, 2020

New Delhi: In the first three months of the COVID-19 lockdown, March 25 to June 24, 2020, 47% of the estimated 3.9 million abortions that would have likely taken place in India in this span under normal circumstances were possibly compromised. This means that 1.85 million Indian women could not terminate an unwanted pregnancy, concluded a May 2020 modelling study conducted by the Ipas Development Foundation (IDF), India, a non-profit dedicated to preventing and managing unwanted pregnancies. Of these 1.85 million women, 80% or 1.5 million compromised abortions were due to the lack of availability of medical abortion drugs at pharmacy stores, the study found.

The estimation builds on data from telephone surveys of 509 public-sector facilities across eight states, 52 private-sector providers, expert opinion of members of the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI), sales data on medical abortion drugs, and trend estimation by pharmaceutical industry experts.

Continued: https://www.indiaspend.com/1-85m-women-may-have-failed-to-get-an-abortion-during-lockdown/