Kenya – Women staring at death over poor post-abortion care

Thursday, May 15, 2025
By Angela Oketch

Only two out of every 10 primary-level health facilities in Kenya are equipped to provide basic post-abortion care (PAC) to women, a new study has revealed.

The study conducted by the Ministry of Health, the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), and the Guttmacher Institute found that just 18.3 per cent of facilities met the minimum criteria for delivering basic PAC services.

Continued: https://nation.africa/kenya/health/women-staring-at-death-over-poor-post-abortion-care-5042470

15.05.2025

News

African Population and Health Research Center

Annet Nerima

Kenya Human Rights Commission

USA – What Would It Mean to Defend All Abortions?

Democrats love to avoid it, and Republicans love to lie about it. But later-abortion care has never been more important.

Amy Littlefield
May 13, 2025

Ayana, 28 years old and 28 weeks pregnant, eases herself onto the procedure table at Partners in Abortion Care in College Park, Maryland. She is a Black woman with the tiny bearing and erect posture of a bird. Above her head, a flock of pink and blue butterflies decorates the ceiling. In a few minutes, a doctor will perform an injection to the fetal heart to end her pregnancy.

Ayana had spent months in turmoil over this abortion. As she chased after her two older kids while lugging her 1-year-old on family outings to the arcade and the movies, she tried to imagine hauling two car seats instead of one. While she changed her baby’s diapers, she thought about what a newborn would subtract from him. The family was already stretched thin.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/defending-all-abortions/

Late abortions are rare. The US just lost a clinic that offered the procedure for over 50 years

By KIMBERLEE KRUESI
May 11, 2025

To fellow travelers, Hannah Brehm likely looked like she was taking a belated babymoon well into her third trimester.

But she and her husband had received a crushing diagnosis: Their baby’s brain was not developing properly, upending their wanted pregnancy. Medical experts warned moving forward would likely mean her son would know only pain and suffering. The Minnesota couple wasn’t going to take that chance.

Instead, they went to Colorado, where for decades the Boulder Abortion Clinic served as a resource for women who looked to terminate their pregnancies in the second or third trimester because of medical reasons, like Brehm, or other circumstances.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-late-trimester-boulder-clinic-dobbs-56ff9a6998465e4f99b12a80e60b675c

Nigeria – Gynaecologist lists circumstances, conditions under which abortion is permitted

Sade Oguntola
May 8, 2025

Comprehensive abortion care, which includes safe abortion care and post-abortive care, is an essential part of s3xual and reproductive health and a human right, but services should be offered within the ambience of the law.

Dr Adekunle Obilade, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Adeoyo Maternity Teaching Hospital, made this assertion in the April Continuing Medical Education series of the Nigerian Medical Association, Oyo State Branch entitled “The Health Sector, Laws, Guidelines and Policies Relating to Safe Abortion Care in Oyo State.

Continued: https://tribuneonlineng.com/gynaecologist-lists-circumstances-conditions-under-which-abortion-is-permitted/

08.05.2025

News

Adeoyo Maternity Teaching Hospita

Dr Adekunle Obilade

Nigerian Medical Association

Virtual Abortion Care Is a Lifeline, Not a Safety Net

by Amy Hagstrom Miller
May 1, 2025

New data from the Guttmacher Institute shows that more people are turning to virtual abortion care—and while that tidbit might sound like a silver lining in our post-Roe world, it can be dangerously misleading if we’re not careful.

Telehealth is, without a doubt, an essential tool. My organization was one of the first abortion providers in the country to offer telemedicine back in 2009. And since the FDA allowed abortion pills to be delivered by mail in 2021, we have worked tirelessly to expand our virtual abortion care into 10 states to reach as many patients as possible. But let’s be clear: virtual care alone isn’t a silver bullet. And it’s not a stand-in for truly accessible care.

Continued: https://time.com/7281013/abortion-telemedicine-virtual-access

Boulder clinic that offered abortions in later pregnancy closes after decades of targeted threats

Dr. Warren Hern, who opened Colorado’s first private, nonprofit abortion clinic in the 1970s, is retiring

Jennifer Brown
Apr 23, 2025

A 50-year-old Boulder abortion clinic that was criticized and threatened with violence over the decades for performing abortions in later pregnancy has closed.

Boulder Abortion Clinic is no longer scheduling patients at a time when Colorado is seeing an increase in abortions for people who travel from states where the procedure has been restricted. Dr. Warren Hern, who began providing abortions in Colorado more than 50 years ago, announced the closure in a post on the clinic’s website in which he thanked his staff for their courage.

Continued: https://coloradosun.com/2025/04/23/boulder-clinic-that-offered-abortions-in-later-pregnancy-closes-after-decades-of-targeted-threats/

23.04.2025

News

Boulder Abortion Clinic

Why Doctors Are Opting Out of Arkansas

The state’s abortion ban impedes recruitment and compounds physician workloads

By Caroline McCoy
April 18, 2025

Over ten days in February, Shannon Barringer, a certified genetic counselor practicing in Little Rock, referred three patients to medical facilities outside of Arkansas. Each woman had chosen to terminate a nonviable pregnancy, a medical procedure that would present far less risk than carrying the fetus but is no longer legal in Arkansas. Barringer had spent hours coordinating care for her patients elsewhere, ultimately sending two to Chicago and one to Boston. “I think part of me is running on automatic, trying to get these people where they need to be,” Barringer said. “But I also feel very emotionally worn out.”

Continued: https://oxfordamerican.org/oa-now/why-doctors-are-opting-out-of-arkansas

19.04.2025

Commentary

abortion training

Arkansas abortion ban

Far-right Polish MEP threatens doctor with ‘citizen’s arrest’ over late-term abortion

Grzegorz Braun’s actions have been condemned by both the Polish justice minister and the country’s equality minister.

April 18, 2025
By Claudia Chiappa

Far-right European Parliament lawmaker and long-shot Polish presidential candidate Grzegorz Braun is facing a potential investigation after he stormed a hospital on Wednesday and threatened a doctor with a citizen's arrest for performing a legal late-term abortion.

Gizela Jagielska said she was signing some administrative documents when a crowd of about 30 men, led by Braun, burst into the hospital around 11 a.m. She said the men surrounded her, stopped her from leaving and told her she should be arrested.

Continued : https://www.politico.eu/article/right-wing-poland-mep-grzegorz-braun-threaten-doctor-citizen-arrest-late-term-abortion-gizela-jagielska/

Under Idaho’s abortion ban, a family confronts life-or-death reality — and a crisis of faith

As judges weigh the limits of medical exceptions, Idaho’s abortion ban is being tested — in courts, hospitals and patients’ lives

By Kelsey Turner
Apr 18, 2025

Desi Ballis didn’t understand why her doctor needed her to go to Utah.

She lay on an exam table in Boise, her pregnant belly wet with ultrasound gel. At 38, she’d done various genetic tests that confirmed her baby was developing normally. Its small features looked perfect on the screen.

But her baby wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Her 20-week ultrasound in February 2024 showed findings of hydrops fetalis, an often lethal condition where fluid builds up in the fetus’ body, according to Desi’s medical records. Her baby would almost certainly die before delivery. If she remained pregnant, Desi risked dying, too.

Continued: https://www.investigatewest.org/investigatewest-reports/under-idahos-abortion-ban-a-family-confronts-life-or-death-reality-and-a-crisis-of-faith-17865090

Netherlands – Significant majority chooses to use contraception after conversation in abortion clinic

April 16, 2025
National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM)

For a period of one year, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport gave a number of abortion clinics extra time to have conversations about contraception, particularly with people in vulnerable situations. After these conversations, almost 70% opted to use contraception. Almost half opted for long-acting options such as an IUD, and almost one in five opted for a short-acting option such as the pill. These are the results of an evaluation by RIVM of measures to improve access to (free) contraceptives.

Continued: https://www.rivm.nl/en/news/significant-majority-chooses-to-use-contraception-after-conversation-in-abortion-clinic

16.04.2025