Protests in Malta as parliament debates abortion amendment

Reuters
Dec 4, 2022

VALLETTA - A large picture of an unborn baby was placed outside the office of Malta's prime minister on Sunday as demonstrators called on the government to halt plans to amend the country's strict anti-abortion laws.

The protest, the biggest in years, attracted several thousand people including Malta's top Catholic bishop and the leader of the conservative opposition, but was led by a former centre-left president, Marie Louise Coleiro Preca.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/large-demos-malta-parliament-debates-abortion-law-2022-12-04/

04.12.2022

Marie Louise Coleiro Preca

Bishops in Malta warn politicians not to ease Europe’s strictest abortion laws

By Euronews, Reuters
Dec 2, 2022

On Friday, Malta's bishops warned parliamentarians not to back a bill aimed at easing the country's abortion laws, the strictest in the European Union.

In an open letter, Archbishop Charles Scicluna and bishops Joseph Galea Curmi and Anton Teuma wrote that the bill removing the risk of criminal action against doctors who perform an abortion to save a patient's life would allow people to terminate their pregnancies not only when their life is in danger, but also for any health issue.

Continued: https://www.euronews.com/2022/12/02/bishops-in-malta-warn-politicians-not-to-ease-europes-strictest-abortion-laws

02.12.2022

Philippines – Govt rejects UN proposal to allow divorce, abortion

by Franco Jose C. Baroña
November 22, 2022

THE Philippines has rejected outright the recommendation of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to legalize same-sex marriage, as well as to allow abortion and divorce.

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said such recommendations of other UN member-states during last week's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva are "not acceptable."

Continued: https://www.manilatimes.net/2022/11/22/news/govt-rejects-un-proposal-to-allow-divorce-abortion/1867196

22.11.2022

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Jesus Crispin Remulla

United Nations Human Rights Council

Universal Periodic Review

Abortion access and funding have always been a struggle in U.S. territories

Access to abortion in U.S. territories post-Dobbs is just as difficult as before, and those concerns aren’t even a discussion within the mainstream reproductive rights movement

by Cecille Joan Avila
November 7th, 2022

In June, the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade, effectively eliminating the federal right to abortion, but in Guam, it’s been four years since the last surgical abortion provider retired, leaving the small island territory without anyone who can perform the procedure. Pregnant people seeking an abortion can either receive abortifacients by mail, or, if they are beyond the timeframe where it’s possible to have a medication abortion, they have to travel to Hawai‘i. That is only feasible if they have the means to—and many do not.

For many in U.S. territories, getting an abortion hasn’t just depended on the procedure being legal. People have had to rely on community networks and whatever resources were available to get or pay for an abortion. The common factor is that in U.S. territories, they need to know the right people to ask for assistance, information, and resources, which is ultimately an unsustainable way to access a key component of reproductive health.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2022/11/07/abortion-access-us-territories-struggle/

Before Roe, Faith Leaders Helped Texans Get Illegal Abortions. What Will They Do Now?

Progressive religious leaders are mulling their options to help women who seek abortions—and some are willing to risk lawsuits and jail time.

By Ana Marie Cox
October 24, 2022

Most political observers know Texas as a key battleground for conservative Christian victories in banning abortion. But progressive people of faith in the state have a long history of fostering resistance to the assault on abortion access. Texas was a major hub in the Clergy Consultation Service, cofounded in New York City by Dallas native Howard Moody in 1967 to help women find competent and compassionate doctors willing to perform abortions. In 1970, Texas attorneys Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee started the road to their Supreme Court triumph in the Roe v. Wade abortion-rights case by garnering support from the Women’s Alliance at First Unitarian Church of Dallas. Today, liberal faith leaders across the state—some of whom began transporting pregnant Texans to New Mexico clinics after the Legislature passed a six-week ban on abortion last year—are assessing the still-hazy legal limits for helping women in a post-Dobbs world.

Continued: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/faith-leaders-helping-texans-get-abortions/

Spread of Catholic hospitals limits reproductive care across the U.S.

Religious doctrine restricts access to abortion and birth control and limits treatment options for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies

By Frances Stead Sellers and Meena Venkataramanan
October 10, 2022

The Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion is revealing the growing influence of Catholic health systems and their restrictions on reproductive services including birth control and abortion — even in the diminishing number of states where the procedure remains legal.

Catholic systems now control about 1 in 7 U.S. hospital beds, requiring religious doctrine to guide treatment, often to the surprise of patients. Their ascendancy has broad implications for the evolving national battle over reproductive rights beyond abortion, as bans against it take hold in more than a dozen Republican-led states.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/10/abortion-catholic-hospitals-birth-control/

USA – The Long Campaign to Turn Birth Control Into the New Abortion

Now that the fall of Roe v. Wade has ended the constitutional right to abortion, many in the religious right have a new goal: undermining trust in, and limiting access to, hormonal contraception – including the pill.

October 8, 2022

When the Supreme Court’s decision undoing Roe v. Wade came down in June, anti-abortion groups were jubilant – but far from satisfied. Many in the movement have a new target: hormonal birth control. It seems contradictory; doesn’t preventing unwanted pregnancies also prevent abortions? But anti-abortion groups don’t see it that way. They claim that hormonal contraceptives like IUDs and the pill can actually cause abortions.

One prominent group making this claim is Students for Life of America, whose president has said she wants contraceptives like IUDs and birth control pills to be illegal. The fast-growing group has built a social media campaign spreading the false idea that hormonal birth control is an abortifacient. Reveal’s Amy Mostafa teams up with UC Berkeley journalism and law students to dig into the world of young anti-abortion influencers and how medical misinformation gains traction on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, with far-reaching consequences.

Continued: https://revealnews.org/podcast/the-long-campaign-to-turn-birth-control-into-the-new-abortion/

For Churches, Abortion Politics Is a Double-Edged Sword

Ireland and Poland went in entirely opposite directions on abortion. Why?

By Amanda Taub
Sept. 21, 2022

For the past several years, as I have struggled to put the escalating tumult of global abortion politics into some sort of order inside my own mind, I have returned over and over to two events.

They happened in different countries, in different years. They produced opposite outcomes. And yet I could not shake the feeling that looking at them together might help me understand something important about the way the world works.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/21/world/europe/abortion-ireland-poland.html

USA – The Catholic Church Is Bankrolling a Nationwide Assault on Women’s Rights

A majority of Catholics support a woman's right to choose, but dioceses are funding campaigns for state-level abortion bans across the country

BY TESSA STUART
SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

THERE WAS NO winner in last month’s vote on abortion rights in Kansas. Technically, nothing changed after voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure intended to strip abortion protections out of the state’s constitution. When the race was called on the evening of August 2, every Kansan retained the same set of rights they’d woken up with that morning. But there was a loser: the ballot initiative’s largest financial backer by a long shot, the Catholic Church, whose dioceses squandered millions of dollars on the failed effort.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City contributed $3.18 million, the Catholic Diocese of Wichita, $652,355; $175,000 came from the Diocese of Salina; tens of thousands more from smaller churches scattered around the state. The Kansas Catholic Conference threw in $275,000. Together, the donations amounted to well over half of the Value Them Both Association’s total haul — an “absolutely stunning” amount of money, says Jamie Manson, the president of the advocacy group Catholics for Choice.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/catholic-church-roe-wade-abortion-kansas-michigan-1234589927/

12.09.2022

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Jewish congregations mount legal challenges to state abortion bans

BY: ARIANA FIGUEROA
AUGUST 26, 2022

Thousands of years of Jewish scripture make it clear that access to abortion care is a requirement of Jewish law and practice, according to Rabbi Karen Bogard.

“We preserve life at all costs,” she said in an interview with States Newsroom. “But there is a difference between that which is living, and that which is not yet living.”

Continued: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2022/08/26/jewish-congregations-mount-legal-challenges-to-state-abortion-bans/