Scotland – “A threat to women”: fears raised as anti-abortion MSP claims key Holyrood role

She compared abortion to spaying feral cats

15 June 2026
by Rab Armour

Equality activists are alarmed after a Reform MSP with "extreme" anti-abortion views became chair of the Health Committee at the Scottish Parliament.

Helen McDade MSP will steer consultations and hearings on highly sensitive legislation during the current parliamentary term, including a potential bill to enact the recommendations of the abortion law reform expert group.

Continued: https://tfn.scot/news/fears-anti-abortion-msp-will-skew-agenda

15.06.2026

News

anti-choice extremism

anti-choice misogyny

British Pregnancy Advisory Serviceu

Helen McDade

Humanist Society Scotland

One Nation’s anti‑abortion turn shows MAGA’s creeping power in Australia

June 14, 2026
Prudence Flowers

Earlier this month, One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce addressed a rally on the steps of New South Wales parliament. In emotive terms, he praised an anti-abortion bill about sex-selective abortion, legislation opposed by health experts.

Joyce’s speech is notable as a cut and paste of US culture war strategies, and for what it reveals about One Nation’s evolving, populist far-right agenda.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/one-nations-anti-abortion-turn-shows-magas-creeping-power-in-australia-284545

14.06.2026

sex-selection abortion

Australia

Activism

Anti-choice

Innovative Action Draws Attention to Malta Abortion Ban

June 12, 2026
Mira Michels

In March 2026, Women on Waves, a reproductive health nonprofit, placed 15 lockboxes — what we called abortion key safes — at carefully selected sites across Malta and its sister island Gozo. Each contained mifepristone and misoprostol, the medications the World Health Organization endorses as safe and effective for abortion care. The pills were prescribed by a licensed physician. They were provided for free. Women less than nine weeks pregnant could reach out to us to receive a location and access code. I was the person on the other end of each of those calls and emails.

Malta, a Mediterranean archipelago home to just over half a million people, is the only country in the European Union with a near-total ban on abortion. Poland, which has received far more international attention for its restrictions, allows abortion in cases of rape, incest, and severe fetal abnormality. Malta does not.

Continued: https://womensmediacenter.com/news-features/innovative-action-draws-attention-to-malta-abortion-ban

In South Africa, Ipas builds broad commitment to tackle child marriage, teen pregnancy and school dropout

June 12, 2026
Ipas

Child marriage, teen pregnancy and school dropout remain persistent challenges in South Africa, with girls and young women disproportionately affected. UNICEF estimates that about 250,000 learners drop out of school each year. The Department of Social Development in the country links many of these dropouts to child marriage and teen pregnancy, reporting that 4% of girls are married before age 18.

Against this backdrop, we’ve been building momentum, leadership and partnerships to address the impacts of child marriage, teen pregnancy and school dropout in the country. In May 2025, we held a high level gathering in South Africa, bringing together nearly 40 members of parliament from G20 countries and Eastern and Southern Africa to discuss the economic benefits of investing in women’s health. The gathering was part of Ipas’s longer-term strategy to build legislative support for sexual and reproductive health and rights, following the 2024 launch of the Eastern and Southern Africa Parliamentary Caucus.

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/south-africa-child-marriage-teen-pregnancy-school-dropout/

Lagos Pregnancy Care Policy Suspension Increases Unsafe Abortions – Experts Warn

June 3, 2026
GLADYS OMAMOGHO

Health experts and reproductive rights advocates have raised concerns over the continued suspension of Lagos State Safe Termination of Pregnancy (STOP) Guidelines, saying the decision is putting women’s lives at risk and contributing to unsafe abortions.

Speaking at a two-day training for members of the Network of Reproductive Health Journalists of Nigeria (NRHJN) in Gbagada, Lagos, stakeholders said the suspension of the guidelines has made it harder for doctors to provide lifesaving care to women facing serious pregnancy-related health challenges.

Continued: https://radionigerialagos.gov.ng/lagos-pregnancy-care-policy-suspension-increases-unsafe-abortions-experts-warn/

NEPAL – Need for full decriminalisation of abortion stressed

Tue, 2 June 2026
TRN Online

Rights activists and lawmakers have stressed the need for the full decriminalisation of abortion, arguing that women and girls across the country continue to suffer due to legal restrictions and gaps in implementation.

Speaking at an interaction programme jointly organised by the Family Welfare Division, Ipas, and the Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD), participants highlighted the challenges faced by women seeking abortion services beyond the legally permitted gestational limit.

Currently, women and girls can seek abortion services only up to 28 weeks of pregnancy under specific conditions and with the consent required by law. However, activists said many rape survivors and girls facing difficult circumstances are unable to access abortion services within the stipulated timeframe.

Continued: https://risingnepaldaily.com/news/81306

02.06.2026

Commentary

Family Welfare Division

Forum for Women Law and Development

Ipas

Nabin Kumar Shrestha

Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act

Too many global funders are overlooking women in Latin America

Alyse Lopez-Salm and Daniela Perdomo

1 June 2026

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is one of the most dangerous regions in the world to be a woman—yet it remains one of the most underfunded.

Despite systemic denial of reproductive rights, high levels of gender-based violence, accelerating climate risk, and worsening restrictions on civil society’s freedoms of association, assembly, and expression, global investments in women in LAC fall short—with drastic consequences in a region rife with extreme inequality.

Continued: https://www.alliancemagazine.org/blog/too-many-global-funders-are-overlooking-women-in-latin-america/

01.06.2026

gender-based violence

global funders of abortion

MALTA: ‘Young people see the value in protecting women’s health over enforcing religious doctrine’

Natalie Psaila Stabile | MALTA
29.May.2026

CIVICUS discusses the Women on Waves campaign to expand access to abortion with Dr Natalie Psaila Stabile, a reproductive rights advocate and member of Doctors for Choice Malta, an organisation that campaigns for the decriminalisation of abortion and access to reproductive healthcare.

In April 2026, the international reproductive rights organisation Women on Waves placed safes containing abortion pills at undisclosed locations across Malta, prompting calls from civil society groups opposed to abortion for the authorities to investigate. The intervention coincided with a broader European debate over cross-border access to reproductive healthcare, intensifying scrutiny of Malta’s restrictive legal framework.

Continued: https://lens.civicus.org/interview/malta-young-people-see-the-value-in-protecting-womens-health-over-enforcing-religious-doctrine/

29.05.2026

Interviews/Podcasts

Doctors For Choice Malta

Dr Natalie Psaila

Natalie Psaila Stabile

The fight for abortion rights in Australia is far from over

by Dr Amanda Cohn
May 25, 2026

Abortion is legal in every Australian state and territory, after decades of campaigning. But it wasn’t long ago that I was a doctor living in Albury NSW (where abortion was still in the Crimes Act), and therefore worked across the river in Wodonga Victoria to provide abortion that was both legal and government-funded.

In 2019, abortion was finally, finally decriminalised in NSW.

Many of us who campaigned for that legalisation might have felt like we’d achieved our goal– that the work was done. But Trump’s US is showing us how quickly those hard-fought rights can be lost, and the threat is closer to home than you might think.

Continued: https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/the-fight-for-abortion-rights-in-australia-is-far-from-over/

25.05.2026

sex selection abortion

Ireland – My grandmother fought for reproductive rights over 50 years ago — why are we still fighting?

The three-day wait for an abortion in Ireland is medically unnecessary, patronising, and unjustified, writes Aisling McGee

Sun, 24 May, 2026
Aisling McGee

In my first week at university, I wrote that “laws are in a constant state of motion”. At the time, I believed Ireland was a utopian society; that our laws and legislation evolved alongside the people they governed.

Perhaps it was naivety, or even just hopeful optimism. After all, I grew up listening to stories about my grandmother May McGee and the battle she had to fight for her own autonomy.

Six years after I wrote those words, I no longer believe them.

Continued: https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-41849346.html