By Angelo Amante
July 13, 2025
CATANIA, Italy, July 14 (Reuters) - Monia, a Sicilian woman in her early forties, was overjoyed when she discovered in October 2022 she was expecting her first child. Her doctor, however, recommended a genetic test due to her age, and the result was one no parent wants to receive.
The foetus had a genetic syndrome. Monia, who declined to give her surname, asked her gynaecologist what she could do.
An impassioned debate involving abortion and a plagiarism allegation underscores the German coalition’s relative fragility.
July 11, 2025
By Nette Nöstlinger and Rasmus Buchsteiner
BERLIN — A highly emotional clash over the appointment of a judge to Germany's top court has exposed widening fissures inside conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz's young coalition government.
The spat, involving a questionable plagiarism allegation and a passionate debate on abortion, threatens to undermine Merz's centrist coalition just two months after the chancellor took office.
July 11, 2025
Rhonda Sonnenberg
About every other day in Alabama, a woman suspecting she is pregnant seeks abortion counseling at an Alabama clinic without knowing how far into the pregnancy she is. She may be a mother with three young children at home. She might be in an abusive relationship. Or perhaps she is a student who someday wants children — just not now.
Once a clinic nurse determines the approximate stage of the pregnancy, she will refer the patient to an out-of-state abortion facility where the procedure is still legal. Meanwhile, staff at the Birmingham-based Yellowhammer Fund would work to guarantee a financial contribution for her travel, hotel and child care costs, if necessary, and cobble together funding for the abortion care from additional funding sources. Yellowhammer’s work is a lifeline for pregnant people in Alabama, providing grassroots support and resources when they need it most.
Continued: https://www.splcenter.org/resources/stories/alabama-abortion-ban-assistance/
After a ProPublica and CBS News investigation revealed that Texas’ funding pipeline for anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers is riddled with waste, nonprofits in the program must now provide a detailed accounting of their expenses.
by Cassandra Jaramillo and Jeremy Kohler
July 10, 2025
Texas health officials are overhauling a program designed to steer people away from abortion following a ProPublica and CBS News investigation that found that the state had funneled tens of millions of taxpayer dollars into the effort while providing little oversight of the spending.
The money has been flowing to a network of nonprofit organizations that are part of Thriving Texas Families, a state program that supports parenting and adoption as alternatives to abortion and provides counseling, material assistance and other services. Most of the groups operate as crisis pregnancy centers, or pregnancy resource centers, which often resemble medical clinics but are frequently criticized for offering little or no actual health care and misleading women about their options.
Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-overhauls-anti-abortion-crisis-pregnancy-centers-funding
The U.S. must be held accountable on the world stage for its escalating attacks on reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy.
July 9, 2025
by Jaime M. Gher and Elise Keppler
The periodic U.N. review of the United States’ human rights record is coming up in November. With the Trump administration’s far-reaching, intensifying attacks, the timing could not be more opportune. Never have U.S. institutions, funding and initiatives that promote the rule of law, faced such an abject threat. This is a moment to shine a light on U.S. abuses on the global stage.
U.S. policymakers and the public rarely consider the experiences of U.S. residents through a human rights lens — but doing so is eye-opening. Abortion is a key case in point.
Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/09/united-nations-usa-abortion-human-rights-record-health-death/
7/7/2025
by Carrie N. Baker
For decades, clinicians relied on the gold standard of medication abortion care: a two-pill regimen. Mifepristone is taken first, followed by misoprostol 24 to 48 hours later. However, misoprostol can be used alone for abortion. Recent research on patients in the U.S. confirms that misoprostol-only abortion is not only safe and effective, but that patients respond positively to using it.
In light of the FDA’s recent decision to reopen its safety review of mifepristone—a move advocates warn may lead to new restrictions—abortion providers say they are ready to offer the misoprostol-only regimen to keep telehealth abortion available in all 50 states.
Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/07/trump-restricts-mifepristone-misoprostol-only-abortions/
The reproductive health giant has estimated that the defunding could force about 200 of their clinics to shutter
Carter Sherman and Reuters
Mon 7 Jul 2025
Planned Parenthood sued the Trump administration on Monday over a provision in Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill that would strip funding from health centers operated by the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider.
In a complaint filed in Boston federal court, Planned Parenthood said the provision was unconstitutional, and its clear purpose is to prevent its nearly 600 health centers from receiving Medicaid reimbursements.
Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/07/planned-parenthood-trump-lawsuit
Alexis McGill Johnson says nearly 200 health centers could close if US House passes sweeping tax-and-spending bill
Carter Sherman
Wed 2 Jul 2025
Planned Parenthood stands to lose roughly $700m in federal funding if the US House passes Republicans’ massive spending-and-tax bill, the organization’s CEO said on Wednesday, amounting to what abortion rights supporters and opponents alike have called a “backdoor abortion ban”.
“We are facing down the reality that nearly 200 health centers are at risk of closure. We’re facing a reality of the impact on shutting down almost half of abortion-providing health centers,” Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Federation of Americas’s CEO, said in an interview Wednesday morning. “It does feel existential. Not just for Planned Parenthood, but for communities that are relying on access to this care.”
Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/02/planned-parenthood-abortion-ban-trump-bill
Issue: 187
1st July 2025
Judy McVey
The global surge of attacks on abortion rights has been a wake-up call for pro-choice activists in Australia.1 In June 2022, thousands rallied in solidarity with women in the United States when Roe v Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court. Many media commentators argued that Australia was different from the US and abortion rights were safe here. After all, between 2002 and 2023, regional governments around the country removed abortion from criminal laws. Decriminalisation reflected community-wide popularity for legal abortion. Polls show that more than 80 percent of Australians believe “abortion should be legal and available in Australia in all circumstances”; anti-abortion sentiment is generally less than 10 percent.2
However, the bigots do not simply acknowledge defeat and disappear. Anti-abortionists inside and outside mainstream parties in Australia were emboldened by the rise of the far right and anti-abortion politics in the US and Europe.
Continued: https://isj.org.uk/abortion-wars-australia/
By Rachana Pradhan
June 30, 2025
For Brianna Henderson, birth control isn't just about preventing pregnancy. The Texas mother of two was diagnosed with a rare and potentially fatal heart condition after having her second child. In addition to avoiding another pregnancy that could be life-threatening, Henderson has to make sure the contraception she uses doesn't jeopardize her health.
For more than a decade, a small team of people at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worked to do just that, issuing national guidelines for clinicians on how to prescribe contraception safely for millions of women with underlying medical conditions — including heart disease, lupus, sickle cell disease, and obesity. But the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, fired those workers as part of the Trump administration's rapid downsizing of the federal workforce.
Continued; https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hhs-cdc-staff-birth-control-safety-women-at-risk/
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