Mexico’s help to American women who need abortions should inspire Canada

March 23, 2023
Christabelle Sethna, Lori A. Brown

When a draft of an upcoming United States Supreme Court decision curtailing legal abortion access in the U.S. leaked in May 2022, Karina Gould, Canada’s minister of families, children and social development, declared that Americans seeking abortions would be welcomed north of the border.

A month later the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that provided constitutional protection for legal abortion in the U.S. via its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling giving state legislatures the power to regulate the procedure.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/mexicos-help-to-american-women-who-need-abortions-should-inspire-canada-202117

El Salvador – Inter-American court hears first abortion rights case

23 MAR 2023

SAN JOSé - Women gathered outside the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) in Costa Rica Wednesday, calling for "justice" as lawyers presented the tribunal's first-ever abortion rights case.

A woman identified only as "Beatriz" is symbolically squaring off against the Central American country of El Salvador which enforces an absolute ban on the procedure.

Continued: https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/2533981/inter-american-court-hears-first-abortion-rights-case

23.03.2023

News

Beatriz

Center for Justice and International Law

Gisela de Leon

Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Ipas

Maria Antonieta Alcalde

El Salvador: Court Hears Case on Total Abortion Ban

Inter-American Court Ruling Could Set Precedent in Latin America and the Caribbean

March 23, 2023

(Washington, DC) – An Inter-American Court of Human Rights hearing on the case of Beatriz, who was denied an abortion by El Salvador despite her high-risk pregnancy, will highlight the dire consequences of a law that completely bans abortion and is an opportunity for a step forward in the protection of reproductive rights in the region, Human Rights Watch said today.

“This is the first time the Inter-American Court will discuss the consequences of the total criminalization of abortion,” said Cristina Quijano Carrasco, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Its ruling on El Salvador, which has some of the world’s strictest anti-abortion laws, would set a precedent in Latin America and the Caribbean when it comes to abortion if a women’s life is in danger or if a fetus cannot survive outside the womb.”

Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/23/el-salvador-court-hears-case-total-abortion-ban

‘Dobbs did not break us’: How West Virginia’s Katie Quiñonez plans to keep helping women

Lindsay Schnell, USA TODAY
Mar 19, 2023

Katie Quiñonez is one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year, a recognition of women who have made a significant impact in their communities and across the country. The program launched in 2022 as a continuation of Women of the Century, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Meet this year’s honorees at womenoftheyear.usatoday.com.

When the U.S. Supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade, the case guaranteeing women a constitutional right to abortion access, last summer, Katie Quiñonez felt utter devastation.

But heartbreak wasn’t the only emotion coursing through the executive director of the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia – she felt determination, too.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/life/2023/03/19/katie-quinonez-west-virginia-usa-today-women-year/11248803002/

19.03.2023

USA Today Women of the Year

Women's Health Center of West Virginia

Nepal – Decrminalise abortion: Rights activists

By Ram Kumar Kamat
Mar 18, 2023

Kathmandu – Article 38(2) of the constitution ensures the right of every woman to safe motherhood and reproductive health thereby acknowledging the right to safe abortion as part of reproductive health right, but in practice, women have not been able to enjoy this right, due to criminalisation of abortion and a number of restrictive measures.

Executive Director of Forum for Women, Law and Development Sabin Shrestha said Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act, which was brought to enable women to enjoy their reproductive health rights, conversely prohibited abortion after 28 weeks of pregnancy.

Continued: https://thehimalayantimes.com/sports/decrminalise-abortion-rights-activists

18.03.2023

News

Centre for Reproductive Rights

decriminalisation of abortion

Prabhakar Shrestha

Sabin Shrestha

Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act

Professional Herbalists Explain Why Social Media Isn’t the Place to Discuss Herbal Abortions

Sam Manzella
March 18, 2023

When Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that safeguarded abortion access in the United States for nearly 50 years, was overturned last June, herbalist Sarah Corbett of Rowan + Sage wasn’t surprised. “The writing was on the wall for years, if not decades,” she says, citing Black and indigenous activists and healers who sounded alarms while Roe was still the law of the land.

What did shock Corbett was that, in the wake of Roe’s reversal, she and virtually every herbalist she knows received a deluge of direct messages asking them to share information about herbal abortions on social media. It’s a “big ethical battleground” in the herbalism community, she explains. “I can't speak for everyone, but most herbalists hold an ideal of trying not to harm people. And [talking about herbal abortion online] could legitimately cause harm.”

Continued: https://www.wellandgood.com/herbal-abortion/

18.03.2023

Commentary

Cedar Hill Homestead

herbal abortion

herbalists and abortion

A woman convicted in Poland for aiding abortion says she did what was right

NPR | By Ari Shapiro, Matt Ozug, Karen Zamora
Published March 17, 2023
Podcast interview - 5:25 mins

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Poland's abortion laws are some of the most restrictive in Europe. Abortion is almost entirely illegal. Helping someone end a pregnancy can lead to jail time. One year ago, we first heard from an activist in Poland - the first woman to face criminal charges under Polish abortion law for helping a woman in an abusive relationship obtain abortion pills.

JUSTYNA WYDRZYNSKA: She was begging us, please help me somehow.

SHAPIRO: Well, this week, Justyna Wydrzynska received her sentence. A judge in Warsaw gave her eight months of community service. And she joins us now. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

WYDRZYNSKA: Thank you. Thank you for invitation.

Continued: https://www.vpm.org/npr-news/npr-news/2023-03-17/a-woman-convicted-in-poland-for-aiding-abortion-says-she-did-what-was-right

17.03.2023

Interviews/Podcasts

Abortion Dream Team

Abortion Without Borders

Chile’s abortion rights movement faces uphill battle

Advocates say fight continues despite rejection of new constitution last year that would have enshrined reproductive rights.

By Charis McGowan
10 Mar 2023

Santiago, Chile – Siomara Molina stands on the steps of the Chilean National Library on a busy street in the heart of Chile’s capital.

Waving fists in the air and wearing green scarves, symbolic of the Latin American movement for abortion rights, Molina and the dozens of women around her chant: “Abortion yes, abortion no, that’s my decision”.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/10/chiles-abortion-rights-movement-faces-uphill-battle

How a pastor is trying to revive a 150-year-old US law to ban abortion

Mark Lee Dickson is trying to get the federal anti-obscenity law at the heart of ordinances enforced across the US

Cecilia Nowell
Thu 9 Mar 2023

When Amy Hagstrom Miller closed her Texas abortion clinic after Roe v Wade fell, the founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health wanted to reopen just across the border in New Mexico, to make care as accessible as possible to Texans who could no longer access it in their state. But anti-abortion advocates had other plans.

Hagstrom Miller was considering purchasing a building in the border town of Hobbs when, last November, the city passed an ordinance banning abortion and declaring itself “a sanctuary city for the unborn”. Earlier this year, the towns of Clovis and Eunice followed suit, as did the counties of Roosevelt and Lea. Hagstrom Miller and her team decided instead to open their new clinic in Albuquerque, a more progressive city about 200 miles from the Texas border, where they hope providers and patients will feel more welcomed. The clinic is currently awaiting approval of its licensing paperwork before officially opening.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/09/pastor-push-national-abortion-ban-sanctuary-cities-for-the-unborn

PAHO and partners launch campaign to reduce maternal mortality in Latin America and the Caribbean

Every hour, a woman loses her life in the region due to complications in pregnancy, childbirth or postpartum, the vast majority of which are preventable.

PAHO / WHO
8 Mar 2023

Washington DC - The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) together with other United Nations agencies and partners, today launched a campaign to encourage countries in Latin American and the Caribbean to reduce maternal mortality, which increased by 15% between 2016 and 2020.

Around 8,400 women die each year in the region from complications in pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum. High blood pressure, severe bleeding, and complications from unsafe abortion are the most common causes. However, nine out of ten of these deaths are preventable through quality care, access to contraception and by reducing inequities in access to care.

Continued: https://reliefweb.int/report/world/paho-and-partners-launch-campaign-reduce-maternal-mortality-latin-america-and-caribbean