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

Bolivian teens seeking abortions meet misinformation online

Bolivian teens with unwanted pregnancies can be stymied by anti-abortion groups using online sites to spread misinformation.

Nathalie Iriarte
April 23, 2025

SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA, Bolivia - When Kasandra, a teenager in Bolivia, discovered she was pregnant at 15 as a result of rape, her already troubled life fell apart.

The unwanted pregnancy was a horrible milestone in the years of sexual abuse and beatings she had endured at the hands of her stepfather that began when she was 11.

"To have a child was the worst. My stepfather was going to kick me out of the house or kill me," Kasandra, who did not want her real name used, told Context.

Continued: https://www.context.news/big-tech/bolivian-teens-seeking-abortions-meet-misinformation-online

USA – How idea of charging women with murder infiltrated the anti-abortion movement

‘Abolitionists’ have migrated out of the fringes and moved toward the center of movement alongside Republicans’ penchant for punishment

Carter Sherman
Wed 23 Apr 2025

So far this year, lawmakers in at least 12 states have introduced legislation that would treat fetuses as people and leave women who have abortions vulnerable to being charged with homicide – a charge that, in several of these states, carries the death penalty.

Once seen as politically toxic, this kind of legislation has become more popular in the years since Roe v Wade fell, erasing the national right to abortion. This likely comes as no surprise to Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law and one of the foremost commentators on the US abortion wars. The anti-abortion movement, she writes in her new book Personhood: The New Civil War Over Reproduction, has really “always been a fetal-personhood movement” – one that is so emboldened, it is increasingly unconcerned with public opinion or even democratic norms.

Continued; https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/23/anti-abortion-fetal-personhood

‘Reclaiming our bodies,’ a revolution towards sexual reproductive justice for Women in Africa

Some Women make decisions with fear while others live with stigma because the laws have stippled them their sexual reproductive health rights.

By ROSEMARY ONCHARI
April 22, 2025

KISII, Kenya – For decades ,Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) narratives of African women are narrowly told in a dehumanizing lens, reducing them into numbers and problems which can be solved without giving these women a right over their bodies ,choices and their future.

In the 21st century, women in Africa have no freedom as many access health care with shame, some make decisions with fear while others live with stigma because the laws have stippled them their sexual reproductive health rights.

Continued: https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2025/04/reclaiming-our-bodies-a-revolution-towards-sexual-reproductive-justice-for-women-in-africa/

22.04.2025

sexual and reproductive health and rights

USA – Abortion Saved Her. Now It Could Cost Her Freedom.

As the Trump administration cuts funding for Planned Parenthood, one court offers Black Women in the South a legal lifeline.

by Angela Dennis
April 21, 2025

Kneeling on the cold bathroom floor of her apartment, Kisha clutched the pregnancy test she had just picked up from the Walgreens down the street. She waited for a single blue line to appear. Instead, there were two.

“When I looked down at that test, I didn’t believe it,” she said. “I told myself there was just no way. This can’t be happening to me.”

She was pregnant at 41 years old.

Continued: https://capitalbnews.org/planned-parenthood-cuts-trump-black-women-abortion-bans/

Georgia – Déa Kulumbegashvili on abortion drama April

Georgian filmmaker Déa Kulumbegashvili talks to us about the making of her abortion drama April and the role of cinema in the face of repressive systems

Feature by Stefania Sarrubba
21 Apr 2025

Like the home abortions carried out by its protagonist Nina, the making of April was shrouded in secrecy for writer-director Déa Kulumbegashvili. Flying under the radar isn’t easy when you’re “constantly followed by police”, she tells us ahead of her film’s UK release.

After her debut Beginning made waves during the pandemic, the Georgian filmmaker returned to her hometown, Lagodekhi, for her sophomore feature, which follows an obstetrician-gynecologist moonlighting as an abortionist. Terminating an unplanned pregnancy is legal in Georgia, but restrictions and stigma, particularly in more rural areas like Lagodekhi, hinder safe access to the procedure – hence the need for Kulumbegashvili's secrecy. “They knew I was making a film about a female doctor. But we could not say what it was really about,” she explains.

Continued: https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/interviews/dea-kulumbegashvili-on-abortion-drama-april

21.04.2025

Scottish ministers accused of failing women who cannot get later abortions

Campaigners say ‘extremely vulnerable women’ are having to travel hundreds of miles to visit English clinics

Libby Brooks, Scotland correspondent
Mon 21 Apr 2025

Campaigners have warned Scottish ministers that they are failing in their legal and moral duties as growing numbers of “extremely vulnerable women” have to travel hundreds of miles south because they cannot access later-term abortions in Scotland.

Not one of Scotland’s 14 regional health boards provide abortion care after 20 weeks except in the specific cases of foetal abnormality or threat to a woman’s life. This is despite the Scottish government promising to rectify this “explicit inequality” three years ago, and abortion being legal on broad grounds until 24 weeks across the UK.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/21/scottish-government-failing-women-who-cant-access-later-term-abortions-campaigners-say

Resist and Persist: How Ipas will meet the changing global health landscape

April 2025

For 52 years, Ipas has supported communities around the world to ensure access to abortion and contraception for all. We have a deep history and experience working on abortion in places in the world with very restrictive laws, and with health systems that face critical challenges. Ipas has survived extraordinary challenges in the past, and our mission, persistence, and expertise are more critical than ever in the current moment.

The United States’ drastic dismantling of its $79.5 billion foreign aid program has significantly impacted development and humanitarian sectors and created chaos around the globe. Health systems have been crippled, and countless lives and livelihoods have been disrupted. This is a moment of inflection in the global health and development community.

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/our-work/resist-and-persist-how-ipas-will-meet-the-changing-global-health-landscape/

Here’s what the late Pope Francis said about LGBTQ+ people, abortion and other key issues

The pontiff, who died Monday at 88, was beloved by many progressive Catholics.

April 21, 2025
The 19^th

Pope Francis, who as head of the Roman Catholic Church advocated for a greater acceptance of LGBTQ+ people and protection for migrants, died on Monday after a series of respiratory infections, which were particularly dangerous as he was already missing part of one lung due to a serious bout of pneumonia he experienced as a young man. He was 88.

The Vatican announced his death in a brief statement on the social media platform X.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2025/04/pope-francis-dead/

21.04.2025

Commentary

Catholic Church

Jorge Mario Bergoglio

Pope Benedict

Pope Francis

sexual abuse crisis

the Pope and abortion

‘A Love Letter To Malta’: Women Behind Abortion Play Open Up About Telling The Country What It Doesn’t Want To Hear

by Ana Tortell
April 20, 2025

Two Maltese women took to the stage to tell the untold stories of those living under one of the world’s harshest abortion bans.

Receiving rave reviews and international acclaim, Blanket Ban had two runs in the UK before creators and performers Marta Vella and Davinia Hamilton decided it was time to bring it to Malta.

Just after the show wrapped its local run, Lovin Malta sat down with the pair to learn more about the process and thought behind the powerful two-person play.

Continued: https://lovinmalta.com/theatre/a-love-letter-to-malta-women-behind-abortion-play-open-up-about-telling-the-country-what-it-doesnt-want-to-hear/

20.04.2025