Proposal follows outrage after pregnant US tourist was denied abortion despite partial miscarriage and threat to her health
Malta’s government has published a draft law that would ease the country’s strict abortion laws by allowing the termination of pregnancies if the mother’s life or health are at serious risk.
The proposed change in the law follows an outcry over the treatment of a pregnant American tourist in June, a case that sparked headlines worldwide.
Continue reading...Anti-abortion activist said supreme court justice revealed the landmark ruling on contraception and religious rights weeks earlier
A civil rights group issued a call Saturday for US supreme court justice Samuel Alito to be investigated over allegations that the judge leaked a 2014 landmark ruling involving contraception and religious rights at a private dinner with wealthy political donors.
The claim was contained in a New York Times article in which minister Rob Schenck, an anti-abortion activist, said he was told of the decision weeks before it was announced and had used the information to prepare a public relations push.
Continue reading...As abortion rights are rolled back, more citizens seeking access to reproductive healthcare may face similar treatment
Three women who peacefully protested against restrictions on abortion rights in the US supreme court were mistreated and detained in “inhumane” conditions after their arrest, they say.
Their experience shows unsettling treatment in a landscape where pregnant people, medical providers and others increasingly face criminalization after the Dobbs decision on reproductive care.
Continue reading...The midterms include key elections to the state’s highest court as the judicial system becomes increasingly politicized
In Ohio, a highly partisan fight over three state supreme court seats could determine the political direction of the court on a slew of important issues – particularly abortion.
With the US supreme court increasingly handing issues such as voting rights, abortion, gun rights and gerrymandering back to the states, state supreme court races are becoming more important than ever.
Continue reading...Pregnant woman’s request will be sufficient to obtain procedure without need for further reasons
Lawmakers in Finland have approved a legislative reform that will ease the process of getting an abortion in the country, which currently has the Nordic region’s strictest abortion law.
Finland’s 200-seat Eduskunta legislature on Wednesday voted by a wide margin 125-41 in favour of a law reform that will, among other things, abolish the need for approval from two doctors to terminate a pregnancy.
Continue reading...Charlie Crist, former Republican who switched parties, puts governor on defensive during Florida’s sole gubernatorial debate
In the sole debate of the Florida governor’s race, the Republican incumbent, Ron DeSantis, was put on the defensive by his Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, on subjects including abortion and DeSantis’s presidential ambitions.
Crist called Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, which does not include exceptions for rape or incest, “callous and barbaric”.
Continue reading...Reproductive rights and parenting become hot topics in state election as parties on the left court women and young families
Kissing babies may be an election campaign trail cliche but for the Victorian Greens, it might also be sign their party – just like their supporter base – has grown up.
Announcing a plan for five days of reproductive leave for public sector workers this week, leader Samantha Ratnam, deputy Ellen Sandell and their candidate for the seat of Richmond, Gabrielle de Vietri, were joined by their children under two.
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Continue reading...Further proposals to be put before lower house next month after first attempt rejected in senate
The French government has said it supports making the country the first in the world to enshrine abortion as a constitutional right, after the right-dominated senate voted down the left’s first attempt at a proposal.
Several political parties in France, from the left to the centrist lawmakers of Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, began pushing for abortion rights to be written into the constitution after the US supreme court’s decision in June to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade ruling, which recognised a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion and legalised it nationwide.
Continue reading...Maurizio Gasparri has higher chance of success this time after rightwing coalition’s election victory
An Italian senator has submitted a proposal for an amendment to Italy’s civil code that would recognise a foetus as a human being, which if passed into law could enable pregnancy terminations to be classified as murder.
Maurizio Gasparri, a politician with Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, which is part of the government led by Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy – a party with neofascist origins – expected to be sworn in next week, unleashed a barrage of criticism from members of the opposition when he presented his “rights of the unborn child” proposal to the senate.
Continue reading...More than half claim they are more motivated to vote than in previous elections, with 50% of those people citing abortion
More than half of Democratic-leaning voters say abortion has become a crucial motivation for them to vote in next month’s US midterm elections, according to a recent poll.
A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) conducted in September reveals that June’s supreme court decision to overturn Roe v Wade has put a fire under Democratic voters, with more than half claiming they are more motivated to vote than in previous elections, and 50% of those citing as their prime reason the ruling on abortion.
Continue reading...The longest-tenured US senator joins a growing chorus of conservative lawmakers opposed to such a restriction
The longest-tenured Republican in the US Senate has pledged to vote against a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy which a prominent fellow party member and chamber colleague proposed last month, joining a growing chorus of conservative lawmakers opposed to that idea.
Chuck Grassley, who’s been one of Iowa’s senators since 1980 and is seeking an eighth term in his seat during November’s midterms, expressed his opposition to such a ban during a televised debate Thursday night with his Democratic challenger Mike Franken.
Continue reading...As litigation continues, abortions up to 22 weeks of pregnancy remain legal in state
The American Civil Liberties Union and other abortion rights groups have won a ruling from a lower court in Ohio that has indefinitely blocked the state’s ban on terminating pregnancies after six weeks.
In a statement released on Friday, the ACLU announced that Judge Christian Jenkins of the Hamilton county court of common pleas said that it would grant abortion providers’ and advocates’ request for a preliminary injunction against Ohio’s senate bill 23 (SB 23), a law that prohibits abortions starting at roughly a month and a half of pregnancy.
Continue reading...Unnamed woman conceived another child with Republican Senate candidate years after the abortion, according to Daily Beast
A woman who said Herschel Walker paid for her abortion in 2009 is the mother of one of his children, according to a new report, undercutting the Georgia Republican Senate candidate’s claim to not know who she was.
The Daily Beast, which first reported the abortion, said it had agreed not to reveal details of the woman’s identity.
Continue reading...Essendon says City on a Hill’s values are in ‘direct contradiction’ with its own, as Daniel Andrews labels its views on homosexuality and abortion ‘appalling’
Andrew Thorburn has resigned as Essendon chief executive 24 hours after being appointed because his links to a church condemning homosexuality and abortion were in “direct contradiction” to the values of the AFL club.
The Bombers announced on Tuesday afternoon that Thorburn, despite not holding the same personal views as the City on the Hill movement for which he is chairman, felt he could not serve in both roles and had offered his resignation.
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Continue reading...Republican candidate for US Senate in Georgia who has vehemently opposed abortion rights denies a media report he paid for an abortion for an anonymous former girlfriend in 2009, describing it as ‘a flat out lie’
A Republican nominee for the US Senate, who strongly opposes abortion rights, has denied a Daily Beast report that he paid for an abortion for a former girlfriend in 2009. Herschel Walker, a former American football player who is running for the US Senate in Georgia, called the accusation a “flat-out lie” and says he will sue the news outlet for defamation.
The Daily Beast published claims from a woman who says Walker paid for her abortion when they were dating. The woman, who was not named, claimed the allegation was supported by a receipt showing a $575 payment for the procedure, along with a get-well card, purportedly from Walker.
Continue reading...The solution by Camelback Family Planning ensures patients can access pills and treatment without breaking the law
A Phoenix abortion clinic has come up with a way for patients who can end their pregnancy using a pill to get the medication quickly without running afoul of a resurrected Arizona law that bans most abortions.
Under the arrangement that began on Monday, patients will have an ultrasound in Arizona, get a prescription through a tele-health appointment with a California doctor and then have it mailed to a post office in a California border town for pickup, all for free.
Continue reading...Madolline Gourley says a special agent in the office of professional responsibility told her the questions she was asked were in line with Customs and Border Protection procedures
An Australian woman says the US border agency told her that asking travellers about terminating a pregnancy is in line with their policies after she was detained at an airport and then deported.
Madolline Gourley says she was asked whether she’d had an abortion while detained at Los Angeles airport in June. It came days after Roe v Wade – the landmark court case that legalised abortion – was overturned in the United States.
Continue reading...Pennsylvania governor hopeful Doug Mastriano made comments in 2019 while discussing abortion bill he proposed as state senator
Asked in 2019 if he was saying women should be charged with murder for violating an abortion ban he proposed, Doug Mastriano, now the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, said: “Yes, I am.”
Mastriano was talking to WITF, a radio station, about a bill he sponsored as a state senator.
Continue reading...Several clinics halt procedure as dual measures, including 19th-century ban with no exception for rape or incest, take effect
Almost all abortions became illegal in Arizona on Saturday, after a new law banning abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy took effect and a judge lifted an almost 50-year-old injunction that blocked a near-total ban on abortions from being enforced in the state.
Judge Kellie Johnson of Pima county’s superior court released a ruling on Friday that allowed the enforcement of the decades-old ban, a day before a new law that would ban most procedures after 15 weeks was scheduled to take effect, reported the Washington Post.
Continue reading...Ruling brings back law blocked for nearly 50 years, and means clinics offering the procedure would face criminal charges
Arizona can enforce a near-total ban on abortions that has been blocked for nearly 50 years, a judge ruled Friday, meaning that clinics statewide will have to stop providing the procedures to avoid criminal charges against doctors and other medical workers.
The judge lifted a decades-old injunction that blocked enforcement of the law on the books since before Arizona became a state. The only exemption to the ban is if the woman’s life is in jeopardy.
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