Malawi – Religious leaders express support for abortion bill

Sep 22, 2020
Malawi24 Reporter

Religious leaders under the Religious Network for Choice (RNC) in Malawi have expressed support for the Termination of Pregnancy Bill and have condemned assertions that those who support the bill are evil.

At a press conference in Blantyre today, the RNC members said individual faith leaders and religious mother bodies that are against the bill want to portray those that are supporting the bill as evil people who do not care about the unborn babies and their rights.

Continued: https://malawi24.com/2020/09/22/religious-leaders-support-abortion-bill/

That radical idea: a woman’s body belongs to her

Ground reality reveals deep rooted patriarchy that has taken hold of both formal state institutions and informal ones

Benazir Jatoi
September 11, 2020

One would think it is simple — one’s body
belongs to oneself. The reality is that a woman’s body does not belong entirely
to her. It belongs to the state, family, religious institutions and ideology.
Globally, controlling a woman’s body is one of the tools used to maintain the
deeply entrenched patriarchal status quo. For centuries, this is how it has
been regardless of the advancement societies make. That simple idea then that a
woman’s body belongs to her is in fact really, even in this day and age, a
radical one.

Continued: https://tribune.com.pk/story/2263585/that-radical-idea-a-womans-body-belongs-to-her

Australia – COVID-19 vaccine: Archbishop Anthony Fisher condemns Oxford vaccine

Australia’s most powerful Catholic Archbishop has penned a letter warning a COVID vaccine presents an “unacceptable ethical dilemma”.

Samantha Maiden
August 24, 2020

Australia’s most powerful Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher has sparked outrage after suggesting the COVID-19 vaccine could create an “ethical dilemma” for Catholics who may refuse to take it because it uses a cell line from an aborted foetus in the 1970s.

The Catholic leader has outlined his “disappointment” in correspondence with Prime Minister Scott Morrison that has sparked fears it could encourage Catholics to refuse to take the vaccine on religious grounds.

Continued: https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/australia/covid19-vaccine-archbishop-anthony-fisher-condemns-oxford-vaccine/news-story/7b94e83a5491b6a76964d9bddfcb495d

Australia – Religious leaders’ ethical concerns of vaccine misplaced, expert says

By Matt Bungard
August 24, 2020

Three of Australia's leading religious voices have written to the Prime Minister with their concerns that the COVID-19 vaccine will be "ethically tainted" by aborted fetal cells.

Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Glenn Davies and Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Australia Makarios Griniezakis raised concerns about the deal with AstraZeneca that would ensure Australians would be among the first in the world to receive the Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine if human trials are successful.

Continued: https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/religious-leaders-ethical-concerns-of-vaccine-misplaced-expert-says-20200824-p55otg.html

Ireland – ‘This institution for ‘unmarried mothers’ is not part of some distant past – it closed in 2006’

Writer Caelainn Hogan has accessed files that give an insight into life at a Donegal mother-and-baby home known as The Castle.

Aug 23, 2020
Caelainn Hogan

IN A SMALL town in Donegal close to the border with Derry there is an abandoned building that was once a mother-and-baby home called the Castle.

The boarded-up house is visible from the road, set back from high gates in an overgrown field.

This institution where ‘unmarried mothers’ were sent is not part of some distant past. It only closed in 2006.

Continued: https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/caelinn-hogan-the-castle-5178051-Aug2020/

Progressively Speaking: Abortion laws and police women’s bodies

Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild takes a controversial topical issue and looks at a Reform Jewish angle

By RABBI SYLVIA ROTHSCHILD
July 31, 2020

Kanye West recently launched a bid to become US president on an anti-abortion ticket and the issue has since been in the headlines.

Discussion about abortion is necessarily complex and frequently freighted with contextual perspectives. Yet an examination of Jewish sources reveals that certain matters are clear since Biblical times.

Continued: https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/progressively-speaking-abortion-laws-and-police-womens-bodies/

31.07.2020

Commentary

Featured

Biblical law and abortion

hRabbi Sylvia Rothschild

New Zealand – National MPs, pro-life groups, say abortion law too ill-defined

29 July 2020
Eleisha Foon

Pro-life groups and some National MPs believe the new abortion law is so ill-defined it allows women to end pregnancies right up to birth.

The emotive subject is back in the spotlight after National MP Harete Hipango published a Facebook post accusing the prime minister of supporting abortion up to full-term.

Continued: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/422239/national-mps-pro-life-groups-say-abortion-law-too-ill-defined

29.07.2020

anti-choice misinformation

UK – Abortion rule changes ‘have serious consequences for women’, appeal case told

A faith group is pursuing legal action against the Department for Health and Social Care.

UK News

Published:
Jul 29, 2020

Changes to abortion rules have “serious and life-changing consequences” for
women, the Court of Appeal has heard.

The Government’s decision to alter policy is “one of the most significant
amendments” in the last five decades of abortion law, according to lawyers for
Christian Concern.

Continued: https://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2020/07/29/abortion-rule-changes-have-serious-consequences-for-women-appeal-case-told/

29.07.2020

Department for Health and Social Care

Mexico’s activists brace for landmark supreme court abortion ruling

The ruling could set a precedent; in states that have restrictive regulations, injunctions could be granted to allow the procedure

David Agren in Mexico City
Published on Wed 29 Jul 2020

Activists on both sides of Mexico’s abortion debate are bracing for a potentially historic supreme court hearing on Wednesday, which could lead to decriminalisation across the country.

The case before the five judges of the high court’s first bench involves an injunction granted in the eastern state of Veracruz, which ordered the local legislature to remove articles from its criminal code pertaining to abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/29/mexico-abortion-activists-supreme-court

29.07.2020

Featured

News

abortion law reform

Andrés Manuel López Obrador

Catholic Church

decriminalisation of abortion

Stuart Kyle Duncan: the Trump-appointed judge working to ban Louisiana abortions

Stuart Kyle Duncan: the Trump-appointed judge working to ban Louisiana abortions
The ultra-conservative fifth circuit court judge repeatedly upheld the ban in Texas and could result in clinic closures across Louisiana

Rosemary Westwood in New Orleans
Sun 14 Jun 2020

A landmark US Supreme Court ruling expected before the end of June could shutter most of Louisiana’s abortion clinics and precipitate clinic closures in more than a dozen other states.

The case, June Medical Services v Russo, is one of the most high-profile supreme court cases of the year, after Donald Trump appointed two justices who tipped the balance of the court to a conservative majority. And it might never have reached the supreme court without the aid of another Trump-appointed judge, Stuart Kyle Duncan.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/jun/14/stuart-kyle-duncan-the-trump-appointed-judge-working-to-ban-louisiana-abortions