UK – Women seeking abortions after using ‘natural’ contraception

Jan 13, 2025
Michelle Roberts, Digital health editor, BBC News

There has been a rise in the proportion of women seeking abortions despite using "natural" methods to prevent pregnancy, like fertility tracking apps, a study in England and Wales suggests.

The data, published in BMJ Sexual and Reproductive Health, shows a "shift" in contraception use in the last five years, from "more reliable" hormonal contraceptives such as the pill, to "fertility awareness-based methods", say researchers.

Hormonal methods, including the mini pill, fell from 19% in 2018 to 11% in 2023 among tens of thousands of women.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c391nlxrv4vo

13.01.2025

News

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Dr Rosie McNee

fertility tracking apps

Lisa Hallgarten

MSI Reproductive Choices UK

natural contraception

More Iranian women forced into illegal abortions

Hundreds of thousands of women seek illegal abortions every year in Iran, defying strict family planning laws enforced by the Islamist regime.

Elina Farhadi
Jan 6, 2025

Although Iranian authorities have widely restricted access to abortion in an attempt to reverse demographic decline, more women are going outside the law to end unwanted pregnancies.

According to figures from the Iranian Ministry of Health reported by the Khabaronline news website in June 2024, over 600,000 illegal abortions are performed annually in Iran.

Experts say poverty, joblessness, and lack of social security are contributing factors forcing women to undergo an abortion despite serious risks.

Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/more-iranian-women-forced-into-illegal-abortions/a-71229081

Permanent contraception surged after Roe v Wade overturned, study finds

Young adults living in states likely to ban abortion obtained tubal sterilizations and vasectomies in months after ruling

Carter Sherman
Mon 6 Jan 2025

In the months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, permanent contraception in the form of tubal sterilizations and vasectomies surged among young adults living in states likely to ban abortion, new research released on Monday found.

Compared to May 2022, when the opinion overturning Roe leaked, August 2022 saw 95% more vasectomies and 70% more tubal sterilizations performed on people between the ages of 19 and 26, according to the study, which was conducted by researchers at the George Washington University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Michigan.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/06/permanent-contraception-abortion-roe-v-wade

06.01.2025

News

IQVIA

Julia Strasser

permanent contraception

Ghana – Silent empowerment: Rural-urban women take control of family planning behind closed doors

Mona Lisa Frimpong
6 January 2025

On a May morning in 2024, Stella (not her real name) rushed to the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) clinic at Suame, her heart pounding.

It has been her routine for some time now. The weight of her fears pushed her faster as she weaved through the busy streets. Each step felt heavier, but the clinic was her only hope.

With a glance over her shoulder, she received her monthly birth control shot.

Continued: https://www.myjoyonline.com/silent-empowerment-rural-urban-women-take-control-of-family-planning-behind-closed-doors/

NHS contraceptive pills funding Orban ‘propaganda’ as Hungary restricts abortion

Profits from contraceptive pills used by the NHS are funding an organisation with close ties to Hungary’s hard right government which has restricted access to abortion.

Paul Dobson
January 5, 2025

Gedeon Richter – a pharmaceutical firm based in Budapest – sells hundreds of millions of pounds worth of contraceptive pills globally each year and has rights to provide some commonly prescribed types of the pill to the NHS.

Analysis of financial documents shows that a ten per cent stake in Gedeon Richter is owned by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) – which has been described as the “pet university” and “propaganda institution” of Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

Continued; https://theferret.scot/nhs-pills-orban-propaganda-hungary-abortion/

05.01.2025

News

Gedeon Richter

Mathias Corvinus Collegium

Nigeria – We’re losing our daughters – Akwa Ibom communities lament inadequate FP commodities

December 20, 2024
By Lovina Anthony

The shortfall in the availability of Family Planning commodities and consumables across the primary health facilities in Akwa Ibom State, especially those at the rural communities, has heightened the health risks of women and girls at reproductive age.

A visit by our correspondent to some local government areas in the state revealed an increase in maternal mortality rate, teenage unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortion with the attendant poverty rate in those communities.

Continued: https://dailypost.ng/2024/12/20/were-losing-our-daughters-akwa-ibom-communities-lament-inadequate-fp-commodities/

Netherlands – Many women in abortion care did not use contraceptives; Better information needed

Dec 3, 2024

Many women who got an abortion did not use contraceptives to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, Rutgers found in new research. The expertise center for sexuality is concerned about a lack of knowledge and misinformation about fertility, contraceptives, and the chance of getting pregnant.

Rutgers surveyed women aged 16 and older who had requested an abortion. 41 percent had not used contraception. “It is striking that this group is so large,” Rutgers researcher Renee Finkenflügel told NOS. “We know for sure that the women who participated in the study became pregnant unintentionally. There seems to be a lack of information and knowledge about the means to prevent this.”

Continued: https://nltimes.nl/2024/12/03/many-women-abortion-care-use-contraceptives-better-information-needed

03.12.2024

New Zealand – Remembering the lives lost to illegal abortion in NZ

Nov 29, 2024

Before abortion was decriminalised in the late 1970s, generations of New Zealand women had to risk their own lives to terminate a pregnancy.

Some took pills and potions from back-street chemists, others threw themselves down staircases, took rugged horse rides, drank gin in the bath and inserted coat hangers into their vaginas.

Until the 1970s, about 20 women a year died as a result of abortions gone wrong, historian Jock Phillips tells RNZ's Nine to Noon, and this difficult aspect of Aotearoa's history deserves to be better understood.

Continued: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/535258/remembering-the-lives-lost-to-illegal-abortion-in-nz

Kenya Allows Safe Abortion. So Why Are Women Dying?

Wealth inequalities and a growing conservative backlash are combining to put lives at risk.

Jacqueline Kubania in Kenya
Thursday, 21 November, 2024

When Beryl Mueni first sought an abortion, the supposed doctor she visited gave her two pills for which she paid Kes 500 (3.75 US dollars). It was only after she got home and checked the leaflet that she realised she’d been conned. The pills were Clomid, which ironically is used to stimulate ovulation so women can conceive more easily.

Mueni, only 17 years old at the time, was determined to terminate the five-month pregnancy so she could continue her education. “I went back to him and demanded proper abortion medication,” she recalled. “It was then that he gave me a single dose of misoprostol to place under my tongue. A few hours later, I felt my stomach begin to cramp but that was it. Nothing came out. I resigned myself to my failed abortion and made peace with the fact that I would become a mother.”

Continued: https://iwpr.net/global-voices/kenya-allows-safe-abortion-so-why-are-women-dying

Health advocates in Africa worry Trump will reimpose abortion ‘gag rule’ governing US aid

Women's health advocates in Africa are worried that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will again invoke the so-called global gag rule, a policy that cuts off U.S. government funding for groups that offer abortion-related services

By FARAI MUTSAKA Associated Press
November 19, 2024

EPWORTH, Zimbabwe -- Carrying her infant daughter, 19-year-old Sithulisiwe Moyo waited two hours to get birth-control pills from a tent pitched in a poor settlement on the outskirts of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

The outreach clinic in Epworth provides Moyo with her best shot at achieving her dream of returning to school. “I am too young to be a baby-making machine," she said. "At least this clinic helps me avoid another pregnancy.”

But the free service funded by the U.S. government, the world’s largest health donor, might soon be unavailable.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/health-advocates-africa-worry-trump-reimpose-abortion-gag-116036473